THE CLINICAL THINKING OF ANDRE GREEN

Abstract

Abstract. In this paper, the author invites readers to follow the theoretical research of the French psychoanalyst Andre Green. He created an original clinical model that allows understanding the mental functioning of non-neurotic analysands. The search for new forms of clinical psychoanalytic thinking is the key motive of A. Green’s theoretical developments. Green’s formulations are based on Freud’s metapsychology, but they confidently push our psychoanalytic thinking towards the theory of representations, processes of symbolization and the unrepresented in the human psyche. Therefore, the well-known conceptual ideas of A. Green are only a part of his general interest and theoretical psychoanalytic structure. The modern subject of psychoanalysis differs from the Freudian subject of psychoanalysis. A. Green in his reflections on the modern clinical field, draws attention to the change of cultural eras, to what kind of social thought shapes relations between people in the modern world, relations with one’s own body, and in general, with pleasure. He emphasizes the negativist reactions of the modern subject, which are generated by the social order in which he exists, now we are faced with the delegitimization of the concept of power, the atomization of social ties and nihilism. Green’s revision of the clinical field places the work of negativity at the center of modern psychoanalytic practice. A. Green’s key contributions to the psychoanalytic understanding of the mental functioning of non-neurotic are the well-known concepts: dual narcissism, dead mother, the work of negative, death drive, affects, and objectilisation-disobjectilision. The author emphasizes that Andre Green’s clinical thinking is a process that maintains the dynamic unity of psychoanalytic models that describe work with neurotic – the dream model and non-neurotic analysands – the action model. Green postulates the existence of tertiary processes, which are the basis of symbolization.