Conference
Institute of Classical Psychoanalysis
The Metapsychological Handling of “Emptiness” and “Negative”:
Psychoanalytic Examples
Introduction
Despite the individual, numerous, and scatteredtheoretical positions of psychoanalysis—Kleinian, Freudian, Winnicottian, Lacanian, Bionian, etc.—nearly 150 years after the pioneer Sigmund Freud, we still lack a comprehensive grasp of knowledge regarding its mechanism of action. This constitutes a major problem, primarily of clinical interest. It is not only strange, but it deeply concerns psychoanalysts and major psychoanalytic institutes around the world over time, which are silently in search of a common Metapsychology of Psychoanalysis—that is, its theoretical foundation.
For decades, the Institute of Classical Psychoanalysis has contributed numerous publications to this subject and has paved the way for theoretical and clinical approaches to mental illness. For example, the contemporary psychoanalytic concepts of the “Void” and the “Negative” are of immense theoretical importance. When properly interpreted, they demonstrate their deep unconscious origin and their therapeutic utility.
During the conference, alongside the clinical examples that will be presented, contemporary metapsychological developments will be discussed, highlighting their complementary position against the core concepts that were incompletely described in 1915 and have since remained largely unelaborated.
The conference is relevant to every clinical psychoanalyst and psychotherapist, as well as anyone interested in the unique way the psychic apparatus seems to operate.
Vassilis Maoutsos
Scientific Director