Aesthetic Conflict and its Clinical Relevance

Donald Meltzer coined the term 'aesthetic conflict' to describe the emotional complexities of the 'apprehension of beauty'. It had its roots in art, literature, infant observation, and above all, in clinical experience. This concept affirmed and illustrated Bion's formula of L, H, K (Love, Hate, and Knowledge), together with its negative (minus L, H, K) as a revision of Klein's fundamental emotional dynamics of Envy and Gratitude. As such, any emotional situation may be read in terms of either struggling with or retreating from the aesthetic conflict that occurs naturally at all key points of psychic development. Meltzer could be said to have encapsulated the essence of Bion's post-Kleinian trajectory when he wrote that 'If we follow Bion's thought closely, we see that the new idea presents itself as an emotional experience of the beauty of the world and its wondrous organisation.' The contributions in this book are by analysts and therapists from a wide variety of countries working with both children and adults. They have all, in individual ways, found 'aesthetic conflict' a useful frame of reference in terms of illuminating the significance of clinical observation, understanding countertransference responses, or practising the psychoanalytic method itself.

Donald Meltzer coined the term 'aesthetic conflict' to describe the emotional complexities of the 'apprehension of beauty'. It had its roots in art, literature, infant observation, and above all, in clinical experience. This concept affirmed and illustrated Bion's formula of L, H, K (Love, Hate, and Knowledge), together with its negative (minus L, H, K) as a revision of Klein's fundamental emotional dynamics of Envy and Gratitude. As such, any emotional situation may be read in terms of either struggling with or retreating from the aesthetic conflict that occurs naturally at all key points of psychic development. Meltzer could be said to have encapsulated the essence of Bion's post-Kleinian trajectory when he wrote that 'If we follow Bion's thought closely, we see that the new idea presents itself as an emotional experience of the beauty of the world and its wondrous organisation.' The contributions in this book are by analysts and therapists from a wide variety of countries working with both children and adults. They have all, in individual ways, found 'aesthetic conflict' a useful frame of reference in terms of illuminating the significance of clinical observation, understanding countertransference responses, or practising the psychoanalytic method itself.

Introduction Meg Harris Williams1. Seduction and aesthetic conflict Didier Houzel2. Love in the countertransference Mariza Leite da Costa3. On aesthetic transference Izelinda Garcia de Barros4. A fox in a castle of words Marina Vanali5. Rekindling the spirit of growth: an aesthetic encounter Ellie Roberts6. Aesthetic conflict and infant observation Deborah Morley7. The aesthetic conflict in everyday life Jennifer Kunst8. A child's vicissitudes over the aesthetic conflict Marisa Pelella Melega9. The role of the paternal function in the aesthetic experience Gianna Polacco Williams10. The beauty of development and the ugliness of stagnation Irene Freeden11. 'I see not feel, how beautiful they are' Dorothy Hamilton12. Narcissus rejects: the surrender to beauty Neil Maizels13. How the aesthetic conflict comes to life Lennart Ramberg14. Nobody's boy: beauty as an element in psychic recovery Dawn Farber15. Transference-love and its vicissitudes Avner Bergstein16. The barbed-wire hole of despair: retreat from aesthetic conflict David Brooks17. Passion and anti-passion in the Bion-Meltzer ethical-aesthetic model Renato Trachtenberg18. Concerning aesthetic reciprocity Maria Haydee Castellaro de Pozzi19. Aesthetic conflict in couple therapy Barbara Bianchini20. The aesthetic impact of transference spaces Lucia Rey de Castro21. The Lamb and the Tyger: aesthetic experience and the K-link David Mayers References Name index Subject index