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This paper examines the concept of fictional character from a psychoanalytic point of view, including its synthesis and the role of reader response. A second section takes up the role of fiction in the development of character.
Falling carries the meaning of loss of the mother for three patients studied psychoanalytically. Falling carries the same implication in various tropes, myths and biblical imagery. This convergence of evidence supports the thesis that falling is a symbol of maternal loss.
After some reflections upon the phenomenon of falling/jumping, the fall from a height and its meaning in fairy tales, in literature and in history is discussed. Eight casuistics with fatal and non-fatal issue serve to shed light on the psychodynamics which precipitate such acts. Referring to world-famous buildings such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the fact is stressed that many suicidal persons are attracted by these constructions and choose the place for their suicidal act accordingly. The possibilities of suicide prevention and the treatment of patients who have survived their attempt are presented.
It is suggested that Ubertragung, when translated into simple English as "carrying or bearing something from one place to another," can include not only the technical, important concept embodied in the Latinate word transference but also the broader concept embodied in the Greek term metaphor. Also reviewed are the psychological strengths of metaphor, such as its capacity for ambiguity, as an intermediate area of experience, as well as its structure, consisting of signified, signifier, and the work involved to create signifiers. Third, other words of voyage related to Ubertragung are discussed. Finally, disturbances of metaphor in the patient and distortions of metaphor by the therapist are examined.
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One can imagine the history of psychoanalytic literary criticism (like psychoanalysis itself) as three phases, each enlarging and including the previous one: a classical phase that studied the oedipal conflicts of literary figures; an ego psychology that addressed literary structures; now, a psychology of the self that uses associations to unfold and deepen one's relations to literature. Psychoanalytic criticism used to be disdained in literary circles, but has become highly fashionable, for today other kinds of criticism also use associations. They do not acknowledge the critic's self or countertransference, however, and their psychoanalysis is not the clinician's.
Evidence of the analyst's inner processing and self-analysis is built into his choice and use of words. The dyadic context in which he speaks and the internal formation of his words are examined and considered for their implications for the analytic process.
I have sought to illustrate how distractions are in certain cases employed to mask a radical withdrawal from symbolically organized forms of self experience and communication. This dissociative use of distractions, by means of which regressive shifts in mental state are disguised, should be distinguished from the more conventional resistance function of acting in the therapeutic setting. Furthermore, consistent deployment of decoys and distractions for the purposes of dissociation may have the effect of producing in the patient a 'twilight' mental state, a defensive middle-ground of pseudo-integration (manifested in dissociative activities and in attenuated and impoverished forms of sleep, dreaming, metaphorical thought and repression). By recognizing the ways in which this pseudo-integrated mental state is maintained, and how it provides a stable sanctuary, the therapist may be alerted to the abiding fear in these patients of more fully integrated modes of experience.
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