From creation of bonds to the bonds of creation

metaphor as a tool

Abstract

The paper was presented in a free session at the 8th Symposium of the Brazilian Society of Psychoanalysis of Porto Alegre, whose central theme revolved around “The Person of Analyst”. The authors posit that bonding takes for granted the presence of another mind to help construct an individual’s new mind-space. Through the analytic bond, a large affective availability, tact and creativity are demanded from the psychoanalyst as basic working “tools” and as essential techniques to be used in clinical practice. As a consequence of this analytic pair’s work, the metaphor would be a precious linguistic tool we can use to strengthen the capacity for empathy and bonding and to broaden the patient’s psychic states. This paper also highlights metaphor differences in patients with more progressive attitudes, for whom the metaphor would be a product of the creation of the psychoanalytic work, and metaphor differences in more regressive patients, for whom it would be an initial “bridge” of contacts and possibilities in psychoanalytical treatment. Winnicott, Ferenczi, Bonaminio, Ekstein and Ogden were some of the authors used as reference in this study.