Temporality and the Torments of Time

Free Associations: Psychoanalysis and Culture, Media, Groups, Politics, 2020

Freud’s works are cumulative of notions about the concept of temporality but he never did systematic research on this subject. However, Freud dealt less with a fact which he later confessed to, the discontinuous perception of the functioning of the system perceptual– connections (Pcpt-Cs): its connection and relation to the formation of the concept of time within the subject. In this paper, I’m trying to take a look at the notion of time from an object relation perspective. I, on the basis of Winnicott’s concept of transitional objects and phenomena, have postulated two new concepts of transitional time objects and phenomena. I have suggested a new conceptual framework for understanding some complicated analytic issues such as transference and counter-transference, splitting, and some technical subjects as such silence in the analysis room. For this, I have brought some clinical vignettes in which one can find how the transitional time objects or phenomena work for both patient and analyst.

The article gives an account of various disturbed experiences of time from a phenomenological perspective. The author distinguishes three levels for addressing variations of temporal experience—the temporal structure of consciousness itself, the actual experience of time, and the sociopolitical temporality. He excludes the psychological type of argument, exemplified by Philip Zimbardo’s Time Perspective Inventory and concentrates on disorders in which the temporal structure of consciousness is itself altered. The clinical examples of disturbed temporalities being investigated come from studies of two influential, 20th-century German phenomenological psychiatrists: Ludwig Binswanger (1881–1966) and Viktor Emil von Gebsattel (1883–1974) and include mania, phobia, schizophrenia, depression, and addiction. Philosophical examples come from Hannah Arendt’s “The Life of the Mind.” It is argued that not all disturbed experiences of time related to mental disorders are pathological, but that we can distinguish such experiences from their less severe varieties by appealing to the value-free norm of primordial temporality. A psychotic experience of internal time of the self coming to a standstill exemplifies such a pathological situation, in which temporal experience is not only altered, but ruined.

This is the Time, This is the Record of the Time., 2016

This paper examines the way the subject and time sometimes fall out of alignment with each other. First, it looks at the question from a psychoanalytic perspective, drawing on both Freud and Lacan. Then, it considers two works of art, one in sound and one in visual art, that also deal with the topic. The first is a work by Laurie Anderson, “From the Air,” from the album Big Science (Warner Bros. 1982), from which the lines “This is the Time. This is the Record of the Time” are drawn. The second is a work by Walid Sadek, What Job’s Wife Said (2014).

Psychoanalysis and History, 2001

At the turn of the nineteenth century, when the Freudian paradigm took its first steps towards becoming a modern amalgam of science and hermeneutics, history was considered the most established and instrumental discipline in man's quest to endow his thinking and action with meaning. The kinship between the disciplines, which could be traced back to the persona of Freud, took many shapes in the course of the twentieth century. Examined in perspective one could maintain that modern historiography and psychoanalysis have travelled the same distance in moving away from philosophical idealism, have shared some of the illusions of militant positivism and are accustomed to evoke the same criticism due to their claim to half-scientific, half-artistic epistemology. We start by considering the intellectual legacies and theoretical foundations that shaped the two disciplines' perspective of each other. We then proceed to juxtapose several historical moments in the evolution of psychoan...

With a psychoanalytic session as a starting point, we discuss psychoanalysis’ temporal dimension, the analysis of a dream and the associative work of analyst and patient. We also discuss the importance of this temporal dimension for the co-constructed experience of the analytic third.

The article covers Erwin W. Straus’ (1891–1975) views on the problem of time and temporal experience in the context of psychopathology. Beside Straus’ published scholarship, including his papers dealing exclusively with the subject of time, the sources utilized in this essay comprise several of Straus’ unpublished manuscripts on temporality (all from the Erwin. W. Straus Archive, Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center, Duquesne University, USA), with the primary focus on the1952 manuscript Temporal Horizons, which is discussed in greater detail and subsequently published for the first time in this journal. In the first part of the article, the author introduces what he considers to be the central tension of the whole of Straus’ work on the issue of time, namely, the tension stemming from a dualistic account of time with its personal (experienced) and impersonal (clock time) dimensions. Interpretative developments of this tension are followed covering Straus’ early German works and his late American scholarship. The author presents Straus’ way of overcoming the dualistic account of time and his arguments in favour of what is termed here the unified view of time. Of critical importance for the unified view is Straus’ concept of today, which is extensively commented upon. In the second part of the article, the author focuses on the psychopathological consequences of the unified view as seen by Straus. A clear-cut boundary between a normal and a psychotic experience of time is supposed to lie in breaking the bond between the personal and the impersonal orders of time, leading to a fundamental estrangement. This view, it is claimed, is already present in a nutshell in Straus’ earliest work, and is elaborated upon later. In conclusion, both the merits and the weaknesses of Straus’ account of temporality are presented. A major advantage is that Straus abstains from a dualistic conception of time and reappraises the often-devalued clock time. A fundamental drawback is that Straus does not venture to explore the pathological varieties of temporal experience and fails to specify the acknowledged differences between, on the one hand, psychotic elements in depressive disorders, and, on the other hand, such elements in schizophrenic disturbances.

Time exists in us, and our self exists in time. Our self is affected and shaped by time to the point that a better understanding of the former can aid the understanding of the latter. Psychoanalysis works through self and time, where the self is composed of the biopsychosocial history (the past) of the individual and able to map a trajectory for the future. The psychoanalytic relationship starts from a "measurement": an active process able to alter the system being measured-the self-continuously built over time. This manuscript, starts from the philosophical and scientific tradition of a proximity between time and self, suggesting a neural overlapping at the Default Network. A historical and scientific background will be introduced, proposing a multidisciplinary dimension that has characterized the birth of psychoanalysis (its past), influencing its present and future in the dialogue with physics and neuroscience. After a historical scientific introduction, a neural entanglement between past and future at the Default Network level will be proposed, tracing a link with the self at the level of this network. This hypothesis will be supported by studies in cognitive neurosciences and functional neuroimaging which have used the resting state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. The ontogenetic development of time perception will be discussed, consistent with self-development and the Default Network's function. The most common form of dementia, the Alzheimer's Disease, in which the perception of time is brutally impaired together with a loss of the self's functions will be proposed to support this idea. Finally, the potential theoretical and clinical significance for psychoanalysis and psychodynamic neurosciences, will be discussed.

Clinical Research in Psychology

he theoretical aspects of temporality in the eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) are not generally explored by scholars, although the psychological treatment is a process, a sequence of chronological phases (history and treatment planning; preparation; assessment; reprocessing; desensitization; installation; body scan; closure; and reevaluation) that moves from trauma memories of the past to the present time to treat discomfort. [1] The therapeutic potential of EMDR is always related to the possibility of bringing the past into the actual time, giving a new breath to event that has already occurred. A trauma that happened at that time still performs its effects at this moment. It is properly the continuity of the temporal experience the key that allows the patient to solve the maladaptive condition, turning the discomfort into an adaptive circumstance. [2] Although very roughly sketched, this process brings to light the main question: How does this peculiar temporality work in therapy? This investigation is aimed at exploring EMDR therapy in the light of Husserl's phenomenology of internal time consciousness. In the first part of the paper, after having briefly explored the temporality of memory, the authors will consider Husserl's theory of intentionality, which grounds any discourse about consciousness and the role of attention, the act with which one can experiment the inner (experience of) time. As a first step, it is important to compare Husserl's thought [3] about time and consciousness with the a-temporality of Freud's unconscious. The fundamental divide depends on the two ideas of consciousness that lie beneath the theoretical domains of phenomenology and psychoanalysis. [4] The goal of this investigation is to foster broader conversations about philosophy and psychology on the topic of temporality, [5] in particular, to break down artificial boundaries [6] between the two domains. Precisely, the aim is primarily to put the method and its results in a more complex anthropological framework to have a better