Revista Brasileira de Psicanálise
Print version ISSN 0486-641X
Abstract
FIGUEIREDO, Luís Claudio. The Ferenczian matrix of psychic illness and its echoes: Balint and Winnicott. Rev. bras. psicanál [online]. 2017, vol.51, n.2, pp.153-165. ISSN 0486-641X.
The author starts from Robert Hinshelwood's comparison between some of Bion's and Winnicott's similar concepts. The author suggests that the differences the English analyst has pointed out are regarding two different matrices of psychic illness, which are respectively found in Bion's and Winnicott's thinking. While the Freudian-Kleinian matrix has dominated Bion's thinking, this matrix, even being also present, has been neither exclusive nor dominant in Winnicott's and Balint's thinking. In these authors' work, the Ferenczian matrix has been widely used for understanding processes of illness. This paper, by following André Green's suggestion, attempts to characterize the two already mentioned matrices as well as to demonstrate that the Ferenczian matrix has created a clinical legacy. This legacy underlies Balint's and Winnicott's thinking. Despite supplementing the Freudian- -Kleinian matrix without replacing it, the Ferenczian matrix opens a new horizon to think about psychoanalytic psychopathology.
Keywords : Winnicott; Balint; Ferenczi; Freudian-Kleinian and Ferenczian matrices of psychic illness.