Publications

Bion and Primitive Mental States: Trauma and the Symbiotic Link

Discount Code: FLR40 from Routledge.

This clinically focused book explores W. R. Bion’s thinking on primitive and unrepresented mental states and shows how therapists can work effectively with traumatized patients who are difficult to reach.



The author illuminates how trauma survivors suffer from direct access to primal undifferentiated positions of the psyche that lie outside the symbolic order of the mind and are resistant to treatment. This access, unmediated by symbolic representation but represented in the body, disrupts the normal trajectory of development and of relationship. Integrating theory and clinical application, the book addresses processes of symbolization, somatic receptivity, and the use of countertransference when working therapeutically with undeveloped areas of the mind. It also demonstrates how primitive body relations and object relations include the body of the analyst as part of the analytic frame and are essential in establishing a therapeutic alliance.

Illustrated with detailed clinical vignettes, Bion and Primitive Mental States is important reading for psychoanalysts, psychologists, social workers, and educators who wish to understand primitive states of mind and body in patients who have previously been considered untreatable

INDEX

  1. Trauma and primal states of mind
  2. No words to say it
  3. The black hole: alarm signal of catastrophe
  4. Primitive identification and confusional mental states
  5. Terrified by suffering, tormented by pain
  6. Introjective identification: the analytic work of evocation
  7. Breaking up, breaking down, breaking through
  8. The spark of life
  9. Intuition and transformation in O

Trauma and Primitive Mental States: An Object Relations Perspective

Discount Code: BSE19 from Routledge.

Trauma according to Freud (1920) is defined by the failure of the internal contact barrier to protect the psyche from bombardment. Feeling bombarded is an internal response to either an internal or an external event arising when our necessary defensive organizations fail us. The internal response, one of overwhelm, shuts down the capacity to think, leaving an unmentalized state that is present but not memorable. Whereas we all have unmentalized states, trauma impacts one’s ability to process and make meaning out of experience.


This book reviews the processes of mentalization as they serve to bind anxiety and unconscious conflict. Symbolization and the ability to verbalize intense emotional experiences serves to contain and limit overwhelm. The study group will examine the impact that early psychological trauma has on the development of a contact barrier and an apparatus for thinking.


INDEX

  1. Between body and mind: transforming physical experience into psychic development in the clinical situation 
  2. Affective bridges between body and mind
  3. The silent transference: clinical reflections on Ferenczi, Klein, and Bion 
  4. Somatic counter-transference
  5. Finding a center of gravity via proximity to the analyst
  6. Infantile trauma, therapeutic impasse, and recovery
  7. Finding the impulse: healing from infantile trauma
  8. The body as a mode of representation

Book Chapters


  • Eekhoff, J.K. (in press) ‘Truth and Lies: The Perversion of Truth and the Disruption of Passion”, inTruth and Lies in Psychoanalysis, Editor,T Fortuna, Phoenix Publishing House. 
  • Eekhoff, J.K, (in press) “Receptivity and unrepresented states.” InThe Somato-Psychic Realm: Analytic Receptivity and Resonance, Editors: D Power and D Power. Routledge. 
  • Eekhoff, J.K. (2022), “Psychic Equivalency as an Aspect of Symbiosis”, inPsychoanalysis of the psychoanalytic frame Revisited” A New Look at Bleger’s Classical Work. Editors: Levine, H. and Moguillansky, C. Routledge/IPA.
  • Eekhoff, J.K. (2021), “Body as Dream Space” inBody as Psychoanalytic Object: Clinical Applications from Winnicott, Bion and Beyond. Editors: Harrang, C., Tillotson, D. and Winters, N. Routledge. 
  • Eekhoff, J.K. (2019) "Finding the Impulse: Healing from Infantile Trauma," inTrauma, Destruction and Transformative Potential: Clinical Perspectives,Editors:T McBride and M Murphy, Routledge.
  • Eekhoff, J.K. (2018) Dolor psiquico y cambio catastrofico inEl seminario de Wilfred Bion en Paris Julio de 1978,Editors:Rafael Lopez-Corvo y Lucia Morabito. Biebel, Argentina 
  • Eekhoff, J.K. (2017) “Finding a Center of Gravity via Proximity to the Analyst” inEngaging Primitive Anxieties of the Emerging Self; The Legacy of Francis Tustin. Editors: Howard Levine and David Powers.  Karnac. 
  • Eekhoff, J.K. (2016) Come On, Hold a Baby’s Hand” with Margaret Bergman Ness, Kerry Regain, Barbara Sewell and Carolyn Steinberg inFrom Reverie to Interpretation: Transforming Thought into the Action of Psychoanalysis, Editors: Blue, D. & Harrang, C. Karnac

Journal Articles

  • Eekhoff, J.K. (Forthcoming in Jahrbuch) "Die Vorahnung Hoffnung und Grauen in der analytischen Stunde" ( Premonition: Hope and Dread in the Analytic Hour)(
  • Eekhoff, J.K  (Forthcoming in the American Journal of Psychoanalysis) “Between the Real and the Imaginary: Truth and Lies in the Psychoanalytic Encounter"
  • Eekhoff, J.K. (February, 2022) “Tenderness and Passion bring Hope: A Review of F. Borgogno’s One Life Heals Another”  in Psychoanalysis, Self, and Context 
  • Eekhoff, J.K. (2022) “The Unwelcome Child and the Acceptance of New Ideas" in American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 82 (4), 256-267.
  • Eekhoff, J.K. (2021) “No Words to Say It: Trauma and Its Aftermath” in American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 81(2),186-206.
  • Eekhoff, J. K (2021) “Body Relations and the black hole” in International Forum of Psychoanalysis, Vol 30,2021, 3.
  • Eekhoff, J.K. (2018) “Terrified by Suffering, Tormented by Pain” in American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 78 (4): 350-369.
  • Eekhoff, J.K. (2018) “Somatic Counter-transference as Evidence of Adhesive Identification in a Severely Traumatized Woman” in American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 78 (1): 63-73.
  • Eekhoff, J.K. (2016) “Introjective Identification: The Analytic Work of Evocation” in American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 76: 354- 361.
  • Eekhoff, J.K. (2015) “The Silent Transference: Clinical Reflections on Ferenczi, Klein, and Bion,” Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 23, No 1, Spring, 2015
  • Eekhoff, J.K. (2014) “Infantile Trauma, Therapeutic Impasses, and Recovery” in The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, Vol 73, 4. Pp 353 - 369
  • “Primitive Anxieties that Interfere with Attachment” (2004), Pamela Sorenson with J. K. Eekhoff, in Infant Observation Journal, Vol. 7, #1,
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