PubMed · 7149971
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R J Stoller. 1982. Erotic vomiting.. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01541597
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The author begins by discussing the recent development of deterministic chaos theory to account for physical phenomena of seeming disorder formerly regarded as random, especially in the field of complex, dynamical systems. With reference to both the scientific and the psychoanalytic literature, he seeks in this paper to draw parallels between this new information and certain aspects of psychic functioning as observed in psychoanalysis. Expanding previous authors' analogies and presenting some original ones of his own, he bases his argument on the role of strange attractors in the 'chaotic' functioning of complex systems and on the concepts of state-to-state transitions, the tuning variable and period-doubling cascades. Unconscious fantasies are shown to be a form of strange attractor and to be fractal in nature, as illustrated by a clinical example. The author goes on to examine the transitions of psychic structures between states and discusses how the transference/countertransference relationship and the early infantile relationship may be compared to a tuning variable in determining such transitions. In terms of methodology, he uses the concepts of the analogy-based model and of analysis in a widened sense to forge links between the physicomathematical field of deterministic chaos theory and the psychic field proper to psychoanalysis.
Freud identified 'primal phantasies' (life in the womb, 'primal scene', seduction, castration). It is argued that 'The Engineer's Thumb', a short story from 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes', draws its uncanniness from the fact that it is underpinned by all the primal phantasies described by Freud. 'The Engineer's Thumb' therefore illustrates what analytical interpretation can contribute to the understanding of certain literary works. 'The Engineer's Thumb' may also serve as an introduction to a broader study of the Freudian concept of 'the uncanny'. This study seems to confirm what Freud said when he pointed out that 'an uncanny experience occurs either when infantile complexes which have been repressed are once more revived by some impression, or when primitive beliefs which have been surmounted seem once more to be confirmed' (1919, p. 249). 'The Engineer's Thumb' has another interesting feature: in this short story. Conan Doyle, by setting up a 'talking cure', anticipates the creation of psychoanalysis and highlights in a striking way certain aspects of what was to become psychoanalytical treatment.