by Huguette Raes | Vol 18 (2) 2000
Psychosomatic phenomena can certainly be considered as equivalent to the “passage à l’acte” in the real of the body of the Other. On the basis of a case-study, the relationship is questionned between the death-wishes of the mother concerning the subject, and his incapacity for symbolising and articulating his anxiety and suffering. Subjects, who do not manage to subjectify their unbearable truth, often “opt for” the “passages à l’acte” and/or psychosomatic phenomena.
Download full text
by Huguette Raes | Vol 18 (1) 2000
In his discussion of Möbius’ book Die Migräne, Freud cautions against the view of migraine as a vasomotoric illness. He speaks enthusiastically about Möbius’ detailed treatment of the unresolved issue of causality and the subjective factors of this illness, of individual differences in symptomatology level and of the differential diagnosis of migraine and other braindisorders. Freud advances two major theses about migraine: that migraine like conditions of the stomach, back and heart exist and the possibility of a nasal etiology. Migraine is still largely unexplained. From the analytic point of view migraine can be seen as a conversion symptom, and even as a psychosomatic phenomenon.
by Huguette Raes | Vol 19 (1/2) 2001
Based on clinical experience, this article examines some manifestations of the death-drive in relation to Lacan’s hypothesis that unwanted children are often prone to commit suicide. When the subject’s demand for love is repeatedly met with a negative response, the result is often a breaking-up of the death-drive. Different manifestations of the death-drive can be a response to the old death-wishes of the mother.
by Huguette Raes | Vol 23 (2) 2005
Starting from a number of remarks and hypotheses of authors such as Georg Groddeck, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Jean Guir and Colette Soler about the entanglement of psyche and body, which, amongst other things, manifests itself in the activation of latent genes under the influence of specific signifiers, the author explores the influence of the signifier on the development of the shape of the body. Her analytical practice led her to hypothesize that some aspects of the body – mainly those that carry an erotic meaning – are marked by the signifier in the development of their shape, according to an analogous structural dynamic such as those that occur in psychosomatic phenomena. This hypothesis about the “morphogenesis” of the body is illustrated using a number of brief clinical fragments. One particular case highlights how a woman, in order to satisfy the desire of her mother for a son, unconsciously tries to become a man via a body dysmorphia, which manifests itself in the real of the body via deregulation, increased height, and acromegalia, which results in the body taking on a male shape.
by Huguette Raes | Vol 29 (1/2) 2011
The author witnesses dream analysis in her clinical work as the via regia to the unconscious, i.e., to that unknown Other within ourselves that makes us do what we consciously do not wish to do. Fragments of dream analysis illustrate the following aspects: the transference dream marking the transition between preliminary sessions and analysis; the dream as neurosis in a nutshell; the popping up of the Other in the dream; the working through of a taboo and the subsequent subjective change; the working through of death wishes; the question of the dream as foretelling the future; the end of the analytic cure; the timelessness of the unconscious.
