GRAPHIC INTERPRETATION AS AN INSTRUMENT OF THERAPEUTIC MEDIATION OF SUBJECTIVE TIME ORDERING. IN THE EXAMPLE OF A CLINICAL CASE WITH A PSYCHOTIC PATIENT

Abstract

In the article the author discloses ethical basics of work with psychoses, which are the basis of clinical work. Author relies on modern post-Lacanian psychoanalysts. The author emphasizes that similar to Lacan’s time, modern psychoanalysts working with psychotic subjects must take the place of a secretary. This is not the place of an uninitiative consultant, but the one that allows some activity in the form of various specifications and clarifications. Within this approach author provides an illustration from clinical practice and offers the use of a modified graphic interpretation for analytic procedures with some psychotic subjects originally developed by Juan-David Nasio to work with analysands suffering from neurotic depression. According to the author, graphic interpretation can be an instrument which allows, by taking strictly non-expert position, to return a sense of time, agency and hope to some patients. This tool of therapeutic mediation consists of drawing a line with life events marked on it during the session, gradually enriching the line with new events, as well as their emotional content; the analysand has the opportunity to continue work with graphic interpretation at home. This tool allows to establish connection with the specialist, reinvest own life and feel like the subject and not an object of own biography. The modification of the graphic interpretation tool for work with the subject of psychotic structure consists in less activity during enriching of the drawing with senses, but an active position in the dialogue with the analysand. For work with a psychotic subject it is not as important to search for repetitions, but simple formation of a narrative about himself and his life. Another author’s modification, which can be applied for more than work with just psychotic subjects, lies in suggestion to continue the line into the future, which, according to the author, can stimulate formation of hope and serve as an additional tool for a sense of agency. This feeling is connected with the structuring of time, the shielding of something that cannot be symbolized – a register of real time, with the help of imaginary time in the form of division for stages and events constituting own self; and symbolic time – in the form of time perception itself and its division into past, present and future. A side effect of this is what Green called subjectification, which is acceptance of own history, construction of own biography, and acceptance of own feelings.