Presentation time:
75 min
Discussion time:
15 min
Lead author:
Angelica Löwe (DGAP)
Judith Noske (ÖGAP)
Our presentation connects experiences of the non-understandable with the phenomenon of placelessness, a phenomenon that we often see in analytical work when there is no secure whence and where. The despair arising from inner placelessness seems to focus on an invisible place that houses Nothing, which seems to represent an experience of time in which a not-yet directly borders on a not-any-more, an experience that leaves no space in which a self might survive. How can we think about the possibilities of creating an inner home while we are conscious of its negation? Using a late poem by Ingeborg Bachmann (“Bohemia Lies by the Sea” ) and the obituary of a young patient, we will reflect on the opening of an inner space in the analyst from which the patient’s cry of despair is answered in the form of a containment of this placelessness that corresponds to Nothing. “Bohemia Lies by the Sea” traverses an endless space between extinction and giving form. Here we are looking for resonances from a variety of positions. In the imagery of the poem, Angelica Löwe finds that despair and security can coexist. This becomes possible by the transposition of existential forlornness into a linguistic space in which the self in question is able to be a “wandering minstrel”, everywhere and nowhere. This is the space of Mercurius duplex, who leaves everything in abeyance and pervades all space. But what if Mercurius were not allowed to play his tricks and to roam about and therefore nothing new could come about? Judith Noske reflects on the therapeutic support of a suicidal patient in a process of retrospect and memory. Between longing for life and its disappointment, the fear of and the desire for death, this young woman was looking for a counterpart who would “bear” her. What happens to us when the linguistic space is reduced to such an extent that no symbolization can emerge from it? In spite of the deepest longings, the testimony of futility is among the paradoxes that come with our work with suicidal individuals with early traumata. To think and to allow for being and non-being, in the other and in ourselves, becomes a challenge. The exchange of inner images the patient had left the team with allowed a work of mourning for all those involved in which, besides futility, a connection became tangible that allowed her life to be appreciated beyond her death.