The International Journal of Psychoanalysis

ISSN: 0020-7578 (Print) 1745-8315 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ripa20

The ‘body–container’: A new perspective on the

‘body–ego’

Tamar Pollak

To cite this article: Tamar Pollak (2009) The ‘body–container’: A new perspective on the
‘body–ego’, The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 90:3, 487-506, DOI: 10.1111/
j.1745-8315.2009.00129.x

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-8315.2009.00129.x

Published online: 31 Dec 2017.

Submit your article to this journal

View related articles

Citing articles: 6 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ripa20
Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90:487–506 doi: 10.1111/j.1745-8315.2009.00129.x

The ‘body–container’: A new perspective on the

‘body–ego’

Tamar Pollak
10 Elazar Street, Tel-Aviv, 65157, Israel – pollakp@post.tau.ac.il

(Final version accepted 4 November 2008)

Psychoanalytic theory and practice tend to focus on metaphorical and symbolic

mental representations in a way that often pushes aside the importance of a bodily
‘presence’ possessing qualities that can not and should not be subordinated to the
representational structure. By introducing the ‘body–container’ model, this paper
reintroduces the concrete physical body into the psychoanalytic discourse in a
more direct way. This clinical–theoretical model links the ‘body-ego’ (Freud,
1923) to the container idea (Bion, 1962) aiming to creates a new integrative psy-
che-soma scheme. The ‘body–container’ experience is available as a subjective
realization through a priori psycho-physical forms structured as an envelope and a
central vertical axis. These forms are the outcome of our given bodily structure
experienced under the ‘magnetic’ force of object relation. The mental envelope is
already discussed in psychoanalytic theory (Anzieu, 1989, 1990; Bick, 1968) and
I wish to introduce the characteristics of the vertical axis which I call ‘the frontal
spine’, emphasizing its constitutional reciprocity with the skin envelope. The pro-
posed model offers new insights into the psycho-physical organization in primitive
mental states and may contribute to the understanding of the complementary
structural relation between embodied and represented in human experience. Two
clinical examples illustrate the therapeutic work relevant to disturbances in the pri-
mal psycho-physical space organization at different developmental levels.

Keywords: body–container, body–ego, container, ‘frontal spine’, primal space

Introduction
The present paper is a continuation of recent attempts to ‘think body’ (Fer-
rari, 2004; Gaddini, 1978; Haag, 1991, 2000; McDougall, 1989; Stern,
1985). It proposes the ‘body–container’ as a clinical–theoretical concept that
links the ‘body–ego’ (Freud, 1923) to the container idea (Bion, 1962), creat-
ing an integrative psyche-soma model. Freud’s notion of the ‘body–ego’ rep-
resents his efforts to conceptualize a psychoanalytical outlook that would
free itself from the Cartesian mind–body dichotomy in favour of under-
standing human experience as a psycho-physical functional continuum.
Freud’s basic assumption that the ego is first and foremost a ‘body–ego’
remained widely accepted among the following generations of psychoana-
lytic thought. However, it was usually reductively interpreted, relating to the
body mainly as the matrix of mental representations. According to this
interpretation, the psyche emerges from the body in a developmental process
and retreats to it when the psychical apparatus fails. McDougall (1989), for
example, suggests that we tend to somatize in moments when our inner and

ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis

Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA on behalf of the Institute of Psychoanalysis
488 T. Pollak

outer circumstances defeat our accepted ways of coping. In this interpreta-

tion psychoanalytic theory and practice escape dichotomy but obey the hier-
archy that elevates the mental and lowers the physical. The importance of a
bodily ‘presence’, possessing qualities that cannot and should not be subor-
dinated to the representational structure, has been pushed aside in favour of
emphasizing mental processes which concentrate on transformations to pic-
torial and symbolic representations.
My clinical experience, especially with primitive mental states, introduced
me to a phenomenon that I believe could not be described or understood
under the domain of a representational model. This experience encouraged
me to describe and conceptualize the Body–Container model as the struc-
ture of the primal psycho-physical space – a layer of experience where body
and mind appear to be two manifestations sharing the same scheme.

The body–container
My starting point is the broad consensus in psychoanalytic meta-psychology
on the strong connection between bodily and mental functions (Bion, 1962;
Freud, 1923; Gaddini, 1987; Spitz, 1955; Stern, 1985). Bion raised the term
‘container’ to the status of a central meta-psychological abstraction of the
mental space, and conceptualized the ‘container–contained’ relation as an
innate constitutional preconception in object relations, realized through the
operation of alpha-function. In this model, body sensations conceptualize as
beta elements, are not available for memory and thinking processes unless
transformed to alpha elements, potentially to be combined into dream
thoughts. I do not challenge this representational model, but rather wish to
augment it by an additional element needed to describe the qualities of the
primal psycho-physical space, a special layer of experience where bodily and
mental functions manifest a priori formal organization without the one
being subordinated to the other, and without the second being a representa-
tion of the first.
Bearing in mind Bion’s abstract conceptualization of the containers meta-
phor, I wish to unveil for a moment the picturesque simplicity of a concrete
container which is nothing more than a three-dimensional object with clear
boundaries and an opening. Bion’s container metaphor, far from being sim-
ple or mechanistic, is still based on several assumptions concerning mental
space, all using body-structure as their original model: (1) mental space is
intuitively felt as three-dimensional; (2) it has boundaries that distinguish
interior from exterior; (3) the bodily orifices are the container openings; (4)
the psycho-physical space has innate potential for insertion, extraction and
holding in. In primitive mental states these characteristics are available to us
as the texture of experience through psycho-physical pre-container forms.
Normally, the process of familiarization with the subjective experience of
the ‘body–container’ is spontaneously and unconsciously achieved, struc-
tured as an envelope and a vertical axis due to our given bodily structure
experienced under the ‘magnetic’ force of object relation. I will soon intro-
duce the specific characteristics of this vertical axis I refer to as the ‘frontal
spine’.

Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90 ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis

 The ‘body–container’: A new perspective on the ‘body–ego’ 489

Following Freud’s understanding of the ego as first and foremost a

‘body–ego’, we can conceptualize the ‘container’ as being first and foremost
a ‘body–container’ since our body is the first location for realizing all the
container’s characteristics. The dominance of object-relation theory has cre-
ated a conceptual shift from the Freudian autonomous ego towards the
mother–child dyad as the matrix of experience. Whereas in Freudian theory
a powerful presence of innate separate bodily structure is a basic assump-
tion, object-relations theory views it as a developmental achievement, a by-
product of psychological separation. The ‘body–container’ model sets these
two perspectives in balance and allows mutual fertilization between them.
The ‘body–container’ is a transcendental preconception that permanently
exists within the tense duality of oneness and two-ness, between being an
ever-present formal separate actuality, and an endless self-creating reality
within the context of object-relations. By restricting excessive omnipotent
unconscious object-related phantasies the given bodily structure permits
object-relations to be realized.
Before elaborating the ‘frontal spine’, I wish to add the needed clinical fla-
vour to the abstract conceptualization by sharing a brief therapeutic interac-
tion. The material is taken from my supervision of Ms Ruth Bodor’s
treatment of Ada, a 3 year-old autistic girl (more details about Ada and her
therapy follow shortly).

Ada
Ada walked into the clinic, hurried to the doll’s house, climbed onto its roof
and stood there facing the window, with Ruth watching her from behind.
On the doll’s house roof, Ada busied herself with endlessly opening and
closing the window. At one point she was opening and closing her mouth
and eyes and the room’s window in a synchronized manner. Suddenly, she
started ‘walking’ into the air like a cartoon figure, thereby obviously falling.
Ruth instinctively grabbed her in the air. Once on the ground, Ada climbed
to the doll’s house roof again to do the same as before, over and over again,
with Ruth in position, already well aware of her role. After a while, Ada left
the window in favour of closing and opening the sink’s plug-hole at the
same time as she contracted the muscles of her lower orifice. She also fre-
quently explored blemishes in the consulting room’s walls. Sadly and typi-
cally, there was nothing intimate about Ada’s activity and at the beginning
it was felt by Ruth as mechanical and meaningless.
The body–container model helped us empathically understand this
detached and autistic interaction. Far from being meaningless, viewed
through the body–container prism, Ada’s behaviour becomes very signifi-
cant, containing elements essential for further development – Ada’s inten-
tional investigation of the primal organization of her psycho-physical space.
I believe Ada adhesively and mechanically identified the window as her
upper orifices and the sink’s plug-hole as her lower orifice, with the walls
experienced as an envelope, echoing her skin experience. The vertical axis
was realized by letting gravity pull her down while deliberately falling
from the doll’s-house roof. I hope one can feel Ada’s active involvement in

ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90

490 T. Pollak

investigating, in a most primitive and unintegrated way, her crude, prelimin-

ary and hazy intuitions about her body–container’s fragmented elements.
I came to view Ruth’s awareness of the potential meaning in Ada’s concrete
behaviour and of her significant role in Ada’s activity (although she was
first ‘forced’ by Ada to hold her) as creating an integrated holding, a guid-
ing beacon in Ada’s disoriented psycho-physical space. After introducing the
‘frontal-spine’ I will share with you Ada’s huge achievements in further
structuring her body–container’s elements, allowing a subjective unified
experience to emerge.
In general, I notice a close relation, sometimes a direct analogy, between
the formal way all children get acquainted with their inner body space
through their orifices and the way they investigate the spatial aspects of the
consulting room and its openings. Additionally, object-relations are a refer-
ence point in mental space, parallel to gravitation in physical space. This tri-
ple analogy (body, physical space, object-relation) characterizes, in the
broadest sense, the way children usually become acquainted with the formal
aspects of the container, which in normal development can never be sepa-
rated from the intimacy of object-relations.
The therapist’s awareness of the body–container model potentially locates,
organizes and integrates the proto-mental functions. This awareness can
contribute on three levels: (a) in the absorption of raw materials that are so
indefinite and ‘meaningless’ as to not even register in the therapist’s mind,
(b) by altering the therapist’s physical presence so that it becomes a medium
of communication to the patient, and (c) by modifying the therapist’s orien-
tation which in turn affects the unconscious use the patient makes of the
therapist’s counter-transference. Milner (1969) even went as far as to suggest
that the emergence of some of the patient’s most primitive levels of psychic
and body–ego experiences may depend, due to his hypersensitivity to the
therapist’s, on the analyst’s body–ego perceptions.
Anzieu (1990) suggested that the container should be broken down into
pre-container elements he called ‘formal signifiers’, emphasizing that such a
conceptualization would move analytical thinking significantly forward. An-
zieu offered the pre-container formal signifier of the ‘skin-ego’ as a basis for
experiencing the psychic envelope. I wish to propose an additional image, of
a ‘frontal spine’, that I believe is needed to bring the body–container’s con-
ceptualization to a closure.

The ‘frontal spine’

Alvarez (1992) described an essential change in her patient Robbie’s mental
organization, as well as in their dialogue, and interpreted it as arising from
a new transference ⁄ countertransference constellation. She articulated this
special experience as ‘‘becoming vertebrate’’ (p. 42) and used the image of a
‘‘mental spine’’ to represent one outcome of this specific constellation. Fol-
lowing Alvarez’s poetic intuition as well as my own experience, I wish to
take this line of thought a step further by conceptualizing the ‘frontal spine’
as a constitutional formal-signifier that precedes the more developed con-
stellation of a ‘mental spine’.

Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90 ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis

 The ‘body–container’: A new perspective on the ‘body–ego’ 491

‘Frontal spine’ is an odd word-pair that spontaneously occurred to me as

a pictorial countertransference image during a therapy session with an autis-
tic child. It is my hope that the very unease it generates due to the logical,
linguistic and physical incompatibility of its two components will trigger
readers’ imagination, that paradoxical domain where each finds his or her
own way to create that which perhaps exists but is not overt. I will explain
this imaginative image by setting out its three essential qualities.

(a) A combined heterogeneous structure

The ‘frontal spine’ is an associative linkage between proto-mental functions,
which creates a flexible frontal axis. This associative linkage is based on the
given physical connection between the ring muscle systems of the upper ori-
fices (eyes and mouth), of the respiratory and digestive systems, and of the
lower orifices (urethra and anus). By way of innate cross-modal correspon-
dences it also involves the systems of smell and hearing.
Ring muscles typically move in two ways: effort–contraction–closing and
relaxing–expanding–opening. These are ‘small’ movements which can poten-
tially evolve into psycho-physical realizations that are finally expressed by
‘big’ movements of the entire body. It is a potentiality that will eventually
facilitate regulated realizations of linkage, separation and reciprocity
between the frontal spine’s proto-functions. The frontal spine links up the
processing and organizing of sensory perceptions (the head); the stabilizing
rhythmic continuity of sucking, breathing and uttering (the chest); filling,
emptying, digesting, internalizing, projecting and transforming (the stom-
ach); and controlling and organizing purposeful movement between inside
and outside (the lower orifices). It can be fully realized only in the context
of object relations.

(b) Frontal
The physiological spine is situated in our back, while the imaginary ‘frontal
spine’ is in the front, echoing the fact that the sequence of development is
to face forward before we acquire the ability to look around or perform
spinal rotation. Etymologically, in Latin, ‘object’ means ‘that in front’.
A body divided into right and left faces us with two symmetrical halves.
Lateral division into a front and rear faÅade gives us two totally different
images. The rear faÅade is sealed and bony, while the front faÅade is soft
and full of ‘windows’ – eyes, nose, mouth, nipples, navel and urethra. Even
the ears, located on the sides of the skull, have a closed rear faÅade. Fur-
thermore, a baby requires a different way of being held for each faÅade: the
rear faÅade requires concrete physical support of the head, back and pelvis,
making possible organizational reference to gravity. The front faÅade
requires emotional and communicational support, making possible organiza-
tion in terms of object relations. This complementary relation is clearly
embodied in the suckling situation, when the baby is physically supported
from the back to permit a mouth–nipple connection, followed by eye-con-
tact. There is created in this manner a balance between the passive back and
the active front (mouth–eye–hand). Passivity and activity are not qualities

ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90

492 T. Pollak

of the organs themselves, but a description of the way they function as

proto-mental elements in the psycho-physical organization. On turning your
back on someone, the motivation is ‘frontal’ – protecting bodily soft parts,
avoiding eye-contact or communicating withdrawal from object-relatedness.
When this rear passivity is not integrated with the frontal object-related
activity, it may be experienced in a paranoid fashion. When balanced, the
backbone and ‘frontal spine’ can be integrated into a central axis we can
intuitively call the ‘mental spine’.

(c) Solid
Recalling Alvarez’s image of ‘becoming vertebrate’, I would like to empha-
size the importance of making the effort, and it can sometimes require long
and painful labour to apprehend elements of experience as ‘solid’ enough to
be differentiated. Primal acquaintance with the psycho-physical experiences
which constitute the ‘frontal spine’ is ‘liquid-like’, even ‘gassy’. The first
objective is to free the ‘body–container’ from being experienced only as a
liquid sensory excitation (Pollak, 2003) and to make its vertebrae ‘solid’ in
the transference ⁄ countertransference relationship. The solid ‘vertebrae’ are
linked as ‘experience-beads’ which facilitate ‘mental erection’. Each vertebra
is a ‘content container’, potentially providing symbol formation, leading
from the physical to the mental, from the concrete to the abstract (Segal,
1957). Connecting the vertebrae perhaps reflects the semiotic aspect of the
mind, which predates and transcends language (Kristeva, 1982, 1984).
Such an approach draws the focus on to two main types of difficulties: with
the metaphorical ‘vertebrae’ and with the ‘spinal cord’. Difficulty in ‘becom-
ing vertebrate’ can arise from a weakness in integrative psycho-physical link-
ages, which, like loose molecular connections, do not allow long-term
existence in a solid state. Psycho-physical experience is then in danger of evap-
orating, leaking away or freezing. Difficulty in ‘cord’ formation may arise
from problems in the developmental functions of experiencing and compre-
hending continuity, rooted in what Winnicott (1953) calls the ‘going on being’.
Ada’s pathological psycho-physical organization can be viewed as an
encounter between her innate distorted ‘body–container’ preconception and
her maternal environment. As a baby, Ada spent many months lying pas-
sively and silently on her back with no drive to express any need. She devel-
oped a ‘lazy habit’ of being passively supported on her back by an
inanimate object, instead of developing a passion for being held by an inte-
grating human object. Unable to grasp the ‘frontal’ potential of being
open to the object, she identified herself with her back, so that her primal
psycho-physical space developed in a distorted and diffuse manner.

Complementary organizing-images
I believe that the ‘frontal spine’ complements two structural images already
established as theoretical concepts in analytical thinking: the ‘container–
contained’, as a central organizer of mental-space, and the ‘skin–ego’, as a
pre-container element partly deriving from the ‘container–contained’ con-

Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90 ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis

 The ‘body–container’: A new perspective on the ‘body–ego’ 493

stellation. The reciprocal relationship between the ‘frontal spine’ and the
‘skin–ego’ is essential, as two formal signifiers are needed to realize the con-
tainer–contained relation.
Bick (1968) assumes that ‘‘in its most primitive form the parts of the per-
sonality are felt to have no binding force amongst themselves and must
therefore be held together in a way that is experienced by them passively, by
the skin functioning as a boundary’’ (p. 484). This given boundary allows
phantasies about an inner and outer space to develop. It is not surprising,
therefore, that in this model the source of structural links is completely con-
ditioned by an external element – the maternal mental function. Bick’s
assumption regarding primal passivity is not universally accepted these days
(Alvarez, 2006). Missing from this model is the baby’s innate active involve-
ment in striving for survival realized through object relations. On the other
hand is Anzieu’s ‘skin–ego’ model. In his model, the skin is as dominant as
a prototype for a very substantial part of mental functioning. The body–
container model offers a structural and functional integration where the
baby’s separate body already contains heterogeneous and differentiated, yet
associated elements organized as pre-container forms. These pre-container
forms serve as ‘hooks’, which object relations will potentially hold onto. The
physiological skin is in itself a homogeneous organ whose shape is dictated
by additional organs. I believe that the skin’s three-dimensional enveloping
quality can be fully realized only when the primal psycho-physical proto-
types of the ‘frontal spine’ function actively and reciprocally.
My clinical experience convinces me that, for both frontal spine and skin–
ego, the disorders are similar: Tustin (1981, 1986) describes the pathological
margins of the ‘skin–envelope’ as a leaking strainer or as a hard shell-type
shield. The frontal spine, in its non-adjusting transformations, can function
in an adhesive and stiff mode, preventing mental movements (autistic states),
or in disintegrated and confused movements (psychotic states). In both these
cases intersubjective experience may register as suffocating and dangerous,
as collapsing inwards or as dispersing outwards.
The formation of a body scheme supported solely by tactile sensations,
without complementary gravity-based data coming from inside the body via
the proprioceptive and kinaesthetic systems (these provide information
about the position of body organs in relation to each other and about the
transition from one position to the other), is impossible. Thus the emergence
of the mental structure of the self, based on being held, is impossible with-
out the spontaneous and unconscious completing and supporting experience
of the ‘frontal spine’, which is metaphorically analogous to the propriocep-
tive and kinaesthetic systems. We may say that object-relations are the orga-
nizing context on the mental level, corresponding to the physiological
function of gravity. In primitive mental states, and in psychosis, the proto-
mental functions of the body–container are confused. In autism, an
adhesion of the mental and physical can be observed, due to concrete, asym-
bolical thought patterns. Moreover, we see mental contents physically
located in a way that is different in principle from the psychosomatic expres-
sions related to the fantasy structure. In any developmental phase we may
encounter enclaves both of too rapid motion and of totally frozen motion

ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90

494 T. Pollak

between the proto-mental functions of the body–container. Fast and confus-

ing movement can be driven by two contradictory forces: disassembling
forces, which resist a clear scheme, and binding forces, making a sort of
effort to bridge between objects which are not represented and internalized
but are ‘guided’ with sensory association to different parts of the psycho-
physical memory. There is thus a mental oscillation between object relations
and physiological autonomy in the primal space, where gravity, both con-
crete and metaphorical, plays a crucial role.

Clinical illustrations
The clinical material illustrates the huge effort made by two deeply distinc-
tive patients to bring their distorted primal psycho-physical space to the
therapeutic relationship where the emergence of the body–container’s unify-
ing experience became possible.

Ada
Ada is a lively and lovable girl. She was almost 3 years old when therapy
began in a psychiatric day-care for children with autism where she was treated
three times a week for three years. At the age of 3 Ada still did not demon-
strate differentiated object relations, could not communicate verbally, was
unweaned and needed help in every functional task. She suffered from exces-
sive flexibility in her joints, from hyposensitivity in her mouth and from weak
muscle tone. All those facts made it hard for her to get acquainted with the
‘hard’ aspects of experience and to differentiate and integrate between the
hard and the soft (Tustin, 1981). She managed not to ‘pour away’ on to
the floor and stay sitting up only when supported on both sides. She suffered
catastrophic anxiety at the imminent possibility of psycho-physical collapse.
She had two pathological defences – loud burping sounds perpetually evok-
ing proprioceptive sensations to re-establish the unrepresented experience of
the central axis, and endless echolalia as a substitute for the skin envelope
(Tustin, 1987). In Ada’s case, as so often happens in autism, constitutional
difficulties reveal themselves in maladaptive bodily integrations as well as in
object relations; the double-face of the body–container’s scheme. The realiza-
tion of the ‘body–container’ experience was beyond spontaneous reach.
I shall not give Ada’s history or recount her entire complex and affecting
therapy since the clinical material focuses on clinically illustrating the body–
container model only. The clinical material is fragmented since fragmenta-
tion is the very nature, and a common manifestation, of the body–container
experience in cases of distorted primal psycho-physical space.
In the first two years of therapy, she was in constant movement as this
was the only way available to her at the time to obtain important informa-
tion about her body–container organization. The therapeutic interaction
I have already shared with you is a good example of this period.
Five of Ada’s drawings, all from her third year of therapy at the age of 5,
will help us follow the emergence of the ‘body–container’ formation through
her psychotherapy (see Figure 1).

Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90 ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis

 The ‘body–container’: A new perspective on the ‘body–ego’ 495

Fig. 1. Ada’s drawings

First drawing. Vertical and horizontal axes cross at the centre of the page.
The importance of the centre is emphasized by heavy repetition around the
crossing point. Above and below, towards the margins of the paper, there
are circles on each side of the central vertical axis, creating a symmetry
between right and left, upper and lower, each half mirroring the other.
During this phase, Ada was busy filling with water cupboards she had
taken from the doll’s house, and keeping the water in. We can assume that,
as a result of the therapeutic process, her flowing and shapeless feelings had
begun to take shape as a ‘being within’ experience – a ‘container–contained’
constellation, inevitably connected to the experience of ‘two’. Ada was espe-
cially interested in a cupboard with two identical doors and Ruth said:
‘‘Two of the same kind’’. This exploration of the doors allowed Ada to
study ‘two’ simultaneously as two subjects as well as the two symmetrical
sides of a body. There were sessions where Ada studied the doors as if they

ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90

496 T. Pollak

were a pair of opening eyes (her own eyes opening up to see the world or
Ruth’s eyes opening to see her) or two breasts (the special way in which she
handled the door-knobs seemed to Ruth like playing with nipples), and
I believe the symmetrical organization of this drawing originates in this
exploration. Bion (1967) assumed an analogous relation between the sym-
metry of the two sides of a body and the symmetry in object relations, and
saw in both a primal foundation for the later development of conceptions
(p. 113). Later in this session, Ada began sucking a paintbrush and then
asked Ruth for a roll of scotch-tape and put it between her lips in a way
that highlighted the hole in its middle. She chewed it until it collapsed. Ruth
and I thought about the pathological characteristics of Ada’s subjective
experience of her mouth, both as a hole and as a prototype for adhesion
(Tustin, 1981). I would like to add a formal dimension to these substantial
and important aspects. In the context of Ada’s activity, the ‘nipple in
mouth’ experienced, as a main organizing element, is essential for creating a
psycho-physical centre. In addition to being an important component for
survival and relating, the mouth is also the foundation for an all-encompass-
ing grasp of the body as a symmetrical structure, standing as reference to
the symmetry of vision and visibility.
Later, Ada contracted her lower orifices in front of the mirror. Through
the help of symmetry, she expanded the ‘being within’ experience, which she
began with the cupboards, to her orifices, with their holding-in capability
(nipple, excrement, internal objects). In the drawing, the lower circles (lower
orifices) are located in a top–down symmetry to the upper circles (upper
orifices). The mouth is the centre and the eyes and lower orifices are sym-
metrically spread around it. Developmentally, the stage at which the mouth
serves as a central organizer is characterized by a motor symmetry, when
the baby is not mature enough to differentiate between the two sides of the
body and its upper and lower parts, and moves in a symmetrical, global
manner. The paper’s margins serve as an envelope only by the fact that the
lines intentionally stop just before they reach the margins. It resembles the
way in which Ruth’s important presence is only explicitly felt.

Second, third and fourth drawings. These drawings schematically express the
clarification of the vertical heterogeneity of the spinal organization which
unites prominent elements into one entity. It is rather amazing to see the
clear connection made between the four elements (head, chest, belly and
lower orifices).
Ada started all these drawings by folding a page in two, creating a
‘hidden’ central vertical line. ‘Central’ is a relative concept, built on equal
distances between edges, and thus the folding creates a focus on the con-
nection between envelope and centre. This is a new centre where the
emphasis is less on the symmetry and more on the vertical organization
made possible only by reference to gravity. It seems that, in this phase of
therapy, Ada was ready to search for the reciprocity between the organiz-
ing forces of gravitation and the ‘gravitational magnet’ of object relations.
During her jellyfish-like phase, she could realize this reciprocity only
through ‘melting’ from a high place into Ruth’s holding arms. Once a

Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90 ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis

 The ‘body–container’: A new perspective on the ‘body–ego’ 497

solid nucleus had taken shape (relying on the renunciation of global

homogenous experience) the physical and ‘frontal spine’ organization was
evident from Ada’s ability to straighten up for deliberate communicative
activities.
Ada’s activity in this period consisted mostly of combining – with scotch-
tape, plasticine and colours. The ability to combine is based on the ability
to endure separateness. At first the transference ⁄ countertransference relation
was recruited to help refine the distinctions between places in real space (in
the consulting room) and elements of the ‘body–container’ (head, chest,
belly, lower orifices and skin). The aim here was to permit the emergence of
transference ⁄ countertransference phantasies. It is very typical of children
with autism to separate inseparable objective and subjective aspects of expe-
rience, and, lacking the intimate subjectivity so crucial to human experience,
focus on the formal. We are all familiar with the way this happens in autis-
tic language, but this is only secondary to the way autistic children deal with
the ‘body–container’ experience.
Before these three drawings Ada had already drawn a single vertical object
identical to the objects in the second drawing and called it ‘a man’. In the
second drawing here, she articulated pairs of such objects, similar in formal
structure yet clearly distinguishable, big and small, Ruth and Ada.
In the third drawing, Ada created a vertical three-dimensional object.
She ‘hung’ four circles on the central line and placed an additional one
by the second line, on the left side of the page. The third drawing was
preceded by rolling a page into a long cylinder that she cut into many
rings. In this way she turned the page into a three-dimensional sculptural
object containing a real physical inner space. The formation of a three-
dimensional container (Meltzer, 1975) was imaginable, and the rhythmic
cutting brought the fourth dimension of continuity and time to Ada’s
and Ruth’s mutual experience.
The activity in the room filled with emotional meaning; anxiety (Ada is
scared), passion (Ada wants Ruth), and gathering and disassembling. Ada
suffered from constipation for months, which was then interpreted as an
expression of Ada’s need to feel the existence of a holding inner space by
closing the anus. She contracted the anus too hard, so as to counteract the
anxiety that relaxing would result in the collapse of that fragile ability. The
constipation was not an outcome of conflicts and tension typical of anal
organization, but a part of the concrete aspects of ‘body–container’ forma-
tion. Thinking beyond a binary fashion (shutting in or pouring out), or
admitting the flexibility of closing and opening the body–container’s ori-
fices, was not yet possible.
In one session, Ada stood very close to Ruth, strenuously holding in her
excrement. Ruth felt and said that: ‘‘Ada wants Ruth inside’’. It was an
interpretation that expressed the concrete equation between physical sensa-
tions and object relations. It emphasized Ada’s passionate involvement in
holding something inside, rather than fearing to let it go. This interpretation
made Ada touch her head (Ruth felt she was looking for the fontanelle),
then her chest, navel and bottom, as if checking for the chain of body–con-
tainer elements. Ada’s activity was possibly driven by the new realization

ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90

498 T. Pollak

that her ‘body–container’ experience was held together by her relating to

Ruth.
I think of the third drawing as representing the ability to observe a
psycho-physical scheme from distance and from the side. A body’s profile,
a theme repeated in the following drawings, allowed Ada to refer integra-
tively to those aspects in her experience previously perceived as isolated.
A clear differentiation between the front and rear faÅades is visible, along
with their complementary relation which creates a three-dimensional
object. The psycho-physical space is experienced as both unifying and
continuous in the central space between the vertical lines, and containing
differentiation–separation into four clear ‘vertebrae’ in the front, and the
anus in the back.
It became evident that Ada’s relation with Ruth provided at that time a
dimension of depth to Ada’s objects. It was not surprising, therefore, to dis-
cover that the two-dimensional lines of the two earlier drawings were now
replaced by inflated, circular forms.
The fourth drawing resembled the profile of a man. There are the four ver-
tebrae around a vertical organizing axis, with special emphasis on the head,
and on the baseline as a gravitational base. In my conceptualization, the
‘frontal spine’ is a metaphorical cord with proto-mental experiences attached
to it, but it should not be open to endless permutation (psychosis). The hor-
izontal baseline plays the essential role of the ‘knot’ in this cord of meta-
phorical vertebrae, a real limiting fact, allowing upward and downward
orientation. In the phase Ada was going through at this time, the separation
processes allowed Ruth to often remain seated, serving as a fixed point,
while Ada held herself safely on her feet, staring at her from various per-
spectives. The marks on the right side of the page may represent Ruth sit-
ting and Ada standing in front of her, again, in a complementary
simultaneous reference of the autonomous ‘body–container’ and object
relations.
The fifth drawing ties the final knot in Ada’s string of drawings by being
so different from the previously schematic drawings. This drawing shows
that Ada had attained a new level of representation, free, flowing and transi-
tional. It articulated the theme preoccupying her at that time – two sepa-
rated yet intimately related subjects. We can visualize two figures embracing
and looking into each other’s eyes. It is not exactly clear what belongs to
whom, and a two-way open echo exists between the two, precisely as the
transitional space beneficially allows. Affect was very important in this per-
iod: it was full of love and pleasure continuously directed at Ruth. Break-
down anxiety had been replaced for a while by a flexible control over
‘body–container’ functions, allowing a new level of transference–counter-
transference relations.
In the lower right corner of this drawing, the two circles connected by a
line can be seen as representing the abstract scheme of eye contact as proto-
type for two containers in mutual reference.
It was incredible to discover Ada’s great motivation to get to know (K)
the psycho-physical space through the therapeutic relationship, the subjec-
tive revelation of spinal organization being so central to this effort.

Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90 ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis

 The ‘body–container’: A new perspective on the ‘body–ego’ 499

Adam
Adam is a 35 year-old bachelor, treated twice a week. I will introduce a
detailed description of one session from his seventh year of psychotherapy,
where a desire for a new realization within object relations worked its way
through the mutilated path of a shattered ‘body–container’ experience. The
session illuminates the way in which an intricate and multi-layered mental
structure may rely on the model I have suggested for primal psycho-physical
organization. The mental movement displays its deep roots in a formal pre-
representational and preverbal matrix of experience.
Adam was a reserved single male in his 30s, functioning, considering his
capabilities, to a reasonable if limited extent. He was very anxious at the
prospect of forming intimate relationships and, over the years, our therapeu-
tic relationship provided him with the only tangible emotions he allowed
himself to experience.
Adam’s impulse for mental survival and his strong will for change were
prevalent throughout the therapeutic process. They overcame a backdrop of
imminent mental death in a ‘bomb-shelter’ of obsessive rituals, feelings of
repulsion (merging) and murderous feelings (separation), directed towards
himself and others. The exhausting establishment of taboos in the therapeu-
tic setting was essential for both of us, as protection against a disgusting
and terrifying sinking into a pre-directional (inside–outside, pleasure–pain)
quicksand.
Once the therapeutic setting was established through the formation of
beneficial splits, the sessions were filled with guilt-free reports of ‘scientific’
explorations, mostly conducted through casual sexual relations. Adam
explored his bodily functions in a manner one can view as perverted, iso-
lated from affect and meaning within a relationship, and missing the way
physical sensations merge into integrative experiences. At the same time, in
rare moments in the therapeutic relationship, he looked for affect, and
for the differentiations and integrations needed to create meaning.
Even though he experienced both his body and mind as ‘cremation ashes’
alienated from his subjective experience, he looked for a way to connect the
formal crumbs blocking his development to a container possessing aesthetic
qualities (Meltzer, 1988).
At the start of one session, I noticed that Adam’s eyes were swollen and
almost shut. Not looking at me, he let out a deep sigh as he sat down and
placed his cellular phone on the table between us. Until then, Adam had
talked a lot about this table but never placed anything on it, prevented by
his associations with incestuous touching. When he placed the phone on the
table, an uneasy feeling of anxiety and unwanted bodily contact arose in me
but, regaining composure, I realized that Adam might be making room for
a new link that had not been possible before.
Adam took the cellular phone, placed it on his knees and pressed the keys
in a detached manner. Once in a while, the phone would turn on, emit a
sound, flash and then turn off, flash again, emit a sound that reminded me
of the cry of a baby, heard and immediately silenced. Adam looked very ill
to me and I felt like comforting him physically. I leaned forward a little,

ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90

500 T. Pollak

smiled at him and attempted to catch his eye, to ‘turn him on’ to a state of
reception, but he did not respond and continued to turn the phone on and
off. I remained looking and listening silently for a long time. Remembering
his history, I thought about a baby lying in his mother’s lap, as she turns
her eyes ‘on and off ’, turning his experience on and off with detached mind-
lessness. From my lengthy acquaintance with the passive characteristics this
experience created in him, I said the first words: ‘‘Your buttons are being
played with …’’. He immediately turned the phone face down (in my fan-
tasy, it remained turned on) and stared at me as if our session had just
begun: ‘‘I have just come out of my anaesthetic. I had the operation today’’.
‘‘What operation?’’ I was surprised for a second time, as when he had put
the phone on the table. Totally confused in time and space, I felt as if I was
being turned on and off uncontrollably. ‘‘I could not lie on my back any
more; I’m worried by a spinal tumour. The doctor said it was nothing, just
fatty growth under my skin but I asked to have it removed immediately.
Today! I have just woken up.’’
He had turned me off. I had no idea what he was talking about and
I asked what was suddenly so scary about his back. He said he was afraid
of an immobilizing spinal injury. I asked: ‘‘It was under the skin, right?’’ He
became detached again and said impatiently: ‘‘I don’t know why I keep talk-
ing about this’’. I felt awful; I thought my response had been foolishly con-
crete. However, he continued: ‘‘I wanted to talk about something else’’. He
talked about his recent fear of watching TV, having stomach-aches and diar-
rhoea regardless of the program he was watching. He had to turn the TV
off, but then always needed something to eat and hated it. I was turned on
again. Knowing his history I wondered whether it had something to do with
his mother. Adam shared with me two associations, both concerning his
nearly blind mother. In the first, he was sitting on the pot with his sleeves
fastened by a safety-pin over his hands so that he could not handle the
excrement or put it in his mouth, as he had done before. As he explained:
‘‘I believe Mummy was scared – [being almost blind] she could never be
sure everything was in its right place’’. In his second association, his mother
is sitting very close to a television screen, almost attached to it, her eyes
closed, trying to ‘watch’ a movie by listening to its soundtrack.
The session was almost coming to an end. It was tempting to interpret
the pathological connection between the maternal function and his psycho-
physical organization (eyes, mouth, digestive system and rectum), but I was
holding my breath. I knew we would not have the opportunity to refer in
depth to the large amount of material that had come up in the second part
of the session but was hoping I could respond to some of his raw feelings
and focus on the anxiety that flooded him regarding his back. I suggested
that maybe he had wanted to get rid of something in order to come to our
session ‘a new man’ and added that maybe he was terrified of his hope that
I am not blind. We continued working on these complex materials for a long
time, the ‘body–container’ model always on my mind.
I found it significant that Adam came to the session after an urgent oper-
ation, which in his fantasy was probably connected to our relationship (to
him, it was obvious that I should magically know all about it). We both

Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90 ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis

 The ‘body–container’: A new perspective on the ‘body–ego’ 501

knew that he had always thought some moles on his back disgusting and
that he feared exposing them. He experienced them as dried-up nipples or
dead eyes hiding in his back, anxious for their blindness not to be revealed,
shielded from the blindness of the observer.
In everyday life, his libidinal investment was almost permanently displaced
from the frontal nipple–mouth–eye relation to his back, signifying a with-
drawal from object relations, elimination of the soft ⁄ hard dialectic, and
entrenchment in defences so tightly sealed they could lead to immobility.
Such a ‘back-ward’ organization blurs sensory input and disrupts the possi-
bility of nourishment and any full realization of inner space. The collapse of
the ‘skin–ego’ and the ‘frontal spine’ into each other creates a two-dimen-
sional experience, which dictates, as Adam demonstrated, the adhesion of
front to back, mental to physical, and fantasy to act. His libido naturally
tried to attach itself to the structural hooks of the ‘body–container’, but
intense anxiety transformed this opportunity into a threat, a growth
(tumour) rather than a growing. In his phantasy his passion was danger-
ously imprisoned, like a subcutaneous cyst that must be surgically liberated
rather than transformed in a transitional space.
In this phase of the therapeutic relationship, he was unconsciously ready
to face the painful necessity of turning his inanimate displaced passion into
a visible, communicative, hot and flowing bleeding, a matrix which could
later accept the representations characterizing mental activity.
After the concrete ‘medical’ act, Adam exposed these actions to the ‘gravi-
tation’ of the therapeutic relationship, trying to shake himself free of the
adhesion by creating a new psycho-physical reality in the context of object
relations. The exposure proceeded on four representational and communica-
tional levels.
(1) He showed me. Adam’s detached non-communicative use of the cell-
phone could have easily been felt and interpreted as resistance, a position
that would have blocked an important mental need. My associations, partly
based on our previous explorations of the ‘body–container’ elements, helped
me think that in the therapeutic setting, the use of the phone could have a
creative and communicative potential on the very special level I am referring
to. The cell-phone was used to introduce the pathological skin envelope (for-
bidden touching), the importance of facial orifices that turn communication
on and off (the cell-phone keys), the connection between the seen and the
heard, the differentiation between hard, sealed back and soft frontal faÅade,
and the rhythm of arousal and relaxation. My interpretation derived from
this insight.
In performing this act he avoided eye-contact, he was ‘auto-erotic’, with-
out affect or passion, so that all the elements of the ‘frontal spine’,
expressed by the cell-phone, were experienced through splitting and denial
of dependence on the maternal alpha-function. To dream him one had to
see him. He was trying to regulate his anxiety at the prospect of new proto-
mental organization, but this ‘catastrophic’ change had become possible pre-
cisely because he was aware of my awareness, of my ability to ‘see’ him, and
to dream his hidden passion for geographical organization of phantasy
(Meltzer, 1975).

ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90

502 T. Pollak

(2) In the second part of the session, Adam verbally ‘reported’ his earlier
acts with no insight. He was heard.
(3) My concrete reaction changed the level of his mental activity. Adam
suddenly voiced a positive, invaluable statement: ‘‘I want to talk!’’ The
‘I want’ position was a first and revolutionary step for him in his very long
journey towards an ‘I love’, then still inaccessible.
(4) Adam made associations. He pictured the distorted organization of his
‘body–container’ elements as linked to the maternal function. We were shift-
ing between form and content, between affect and conflicting representa-
tions. In Adam’s internalized scheme, maternal eyes were castrated, both
concretely and metaphorically, from any potential receptivity. His mother’s
gaze ‘cannot keep things in their right place’. This early castration could not
be grasped in a differentiated manner because the referential traces of the
frontal spine’s additional potentialities can be detected only within regulated
and organized object relations. In Adam’s case, overwhelming anxiety con-
cealed those referential traces. Usually, all the body–container’s functions
co-exist simultaneously and reciprocally. In Adam’s case, maternal reverie
was unavailable. Maternal anxiety, or Adam’s constitutional anxiety pro-
jected onto the maternal function, did not permit the internalization of a
unifying scheme and the proto-mental functions were crushed and split into
a suffocating tangled pile (see his first association). They were adhesively
held together by excrement, this being the only binding element known to
him, even at the cost of his self-disgust.
It is impossible not to view this session through the prisms of object rela-
tions, of the qualities of the communication and thinking, the conflicts, the
castration, etc. While such perspectives are all appropriate and pertinent,
they risk being too far from the patient’s own experience.
Adam brought to our mutual thinking eyes, mouth, stomach and anus, all
bound together in a horrifyingly tight bulb. He was ready to shift his atten-
tion from his back to his digestive system, to fill up, to experience his inner
space as painful not yet capable of holding what came in. He wanted to
change the predictable plot, in which a little child puts back into his mouth
what has come out of his bottom. This was a blindness in which the physical
and the mental, the real and the phantasmal, the internalized and
projected – are identical. At that time, one paradoxical possibility was all
he knew – to switch off his vision so as to switch off his blinding anxiety.
Having once imagined what his back would look like, I now began imagin-
ing him wiping tears from his staring eyes.
In attaining, in the last part of our session, the possibility of fantasy and
verbal communication, we attained a shift from form to content, from
wounded narcissism to passion for the object, and to fear of it.
The conceptualization of the ‘body–container’ brought me closer to a fur-
ther level of experience, where I was able to respond to needs which are
barely exposable or communicable. This averbal layer of experience is a pre-
requisite for personalization and structure, including language. It requires
tolerance for the concrete which is in danger of neglect or misunderstanding.
My understanding of Adam’s specific body–container organization perme-
ated into our nonverbal communication and found its way to our shared

Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90 ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis

 The ‘body–container’: A new perspective on the ‘body–ego’ 503

experience. A direct verbal interpretation was not required for a very long
time. I felt that Adam and I could begin playing with the ‘frontal keys’.
I hoped to see the light in our eyes turn on and off, hear our ‘melody’ start
and stop, pass from communication to non-communication, and differenti-
ate and associate front and back, hard and soft, the material and the experi-
enced, the embodied and the contemplated. This hope I perceived as a
breathing rhythmic unifying matrix, putting the formal ‘in the right place’
to allow creation.
In addition to other therapeutic skills, each of the clinical situations pre-
sented demands from the therapist a ‘surgically’ accurate diagnosis of the
innate potential for reciprocity between proto-mental functions in the con-
text of object-relation. In Ada’s case, things were physically experienced,
using Ada’s and Ruth’s own bodies. Adam’s use of his cell-phone demands
respect for concrete, analogical, non-phantasmatic communication. Adam
has in mind a scheme, but this scheme was alienated from any subjective
meaning – it was a formal organization of ‘things’, not of proto-mental
functions.

Conclusion
The ‘body–container’ model is an attempt to describe the formal organiza-
tion of the psycho-physical space. This organization is both a primal devel-
opmental goal and a structure always present as the texture of this layer of
experience since our given bodily structure is doomed to be experienced
under the ‘magnetic’ force of object relation. Clinical material pushed me to
believe that the drive for physical survival and the drive for object relations
are spontaneously and unconsciously interwoven to create a psycho-physical
scheme structured as an envelope and a vertical axis. The mental envelope is
wildly discussed in psychoanalytic theory and I introduced the structure and
function of the vertical axis, which I call the ‘frontal spine’. The ‘frontal
spine’ is an associative flexible axis linking heterogeneous bodily functions –
the upper orifices (eyes and mouth, and by way of innate cross-modal
correspondences it also contains the smell and hearing systems), the respira-
tory and digestive systems and the lower orifices. The reciprocal relationship
between the ‘frontal spine’ and the skin–envelope is essential, as two pre-
container formal-signifiers needed for the container–contained realization.
When this primal organization is massively damaged due to constitutional
factors, trauma, or the nature of early object relations, we often see an
entirely rigid or confused body scheme alongside unravelled and deviant
object relations. Characteristic of the experience in such cases are sensory
qualities deriving from bodily memory, which are barely capable of trans-
forming into mental representations. In these cases the process of clarifying
the body–container scheme is very chaotic, endlessly shifting between undif-
ferentiated splinters of form, and existing solely in the therapist’s mind.
Confusion between front and back and amorphous, crushed or severed ver-
tebrae is inevitable, as I have shown in the clinical material here. Both thera-
pist and patient usually experience this process as terrifying, confusing and
overwhelming, and that is exactly when a model is needed.

ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90

504 T. Pollak

When normally achieved, the body–container’s organization is sponta-

neously present and the therapist’s awareness of it is redundant. When,
for whatever reason, the primal psycho-physical organization is distorted,
the therapist’s awareness of the formal perspective can contribute to: (1)
the clinical observation of raw materials so indefinite and ‘meaningless’
they may not even register on the therapist’s mind; (2) sustaining the
therapist’s empathy for these crude materials; (3) avoiding inappropriate
understanding of the patient’s formal not-represented physical and
behavioural materials as acting-out, as a psycho-somatic symptom or as a
negative therapeutic reaction; (4) expanding therapeutic communication:
after serious considerations it might lead to an ‘interpretation in action’ –
a special sort of imitative communication, a real physical stimulus, or an
alternation of the therapist’s physical presence so it becomes a medium
of nonverbal communication to the patient; (5) offering channels for ver-
bal communication based on identifying the distortion in this very primi-
tive formal layer of experience or relating to split-off sensory or
physiological information, so as to integrate and organize it, in both
transference and countertransference.
Theoretically, the model can be a crucial tool in clarifying the meta-
psychological status of the formal aspect of experience suggesting a formal
perspective to allow further understanding of the embodied subject.
Where existence is fragmentarily experienced through physical and senso-
rial asymbolic splinters, that is where formal interpretations are needed as a
pre-condition for primal subjective realization of the body–container. We
should regard spinal or formal interpretations, dealing with the structural
organization of the ‘body–container’ in the same way as we regard enve-
lope–interpretations (Giovacchini, 1990).
The body–container scheme never reaches satiety; it is always incom-
plete and open to the interweaving of additional schemas, just as comple-
mentary colours create an optical movement. Now that body and mind
stand revealed to us as two faces of the same formal scheme, I wish to
draw attention to the fact that this scheme fuses together the experience
of the body as a physical actuality, ‘a thing’, amazing in its unfamiliarity,
inaccessible to passion or transformation, with the innate formal structure
that is always present. This duality is the primal arena of motion and
resonance: it is at once genesis and terminus, boundary and potentiality.
The core of this model is the foundation for an innate formal resem-
blance between ‘self ’ and ‘other’, and as such a matrix for identification,
adjustment and communication. The model holds together the tension
and dynamic movement between body and mind as two differentiated yet
inter-related aspects of a psycho-physical continuum. Experience is built
both on psycho-physical unifying tendencies, characterized by formal anal-
ogies, as well as on splitting tendencies, allowing differences and comple-
mentarities in functioning and modes of experience. The model should
help preserve the unifying matrix of heterogeneous aspects and prevent
an artificial isolation or alienation between body and mind in both expe-
rience and theory.

Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90 ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis

 The ‘body–container’: A new perspective on the ‘body–ego’ 505

Translations of summary
Der ‘Body-Container’: Eine neue Sichtweise auf das ‘Körper-Ich’. Psychoanalytische Theorie und
Praxis neigen dazu, sich auf die metaphorischen und symbolischen mentalen Reprsentationen zu kon-
zentrieren, so dass die Bedeutung einer kçrperlichen ‘Prsenz’ oft beiseite geschoben wird, einer kçrperli-
chen ‘Prsenz’, die Eigenschaften hat, die der Struktur der Reprsentationen weder untergeordnet werden
kçnnen noch sollten. Mit der Vorstellung des ,,Body-Container’’-Modells in diesem Aufsatz wird der
konkrete physische Kçrper wieder unmittelbarer in den psychoanalytischen Diskurs eingefhrt. Dieses
klinisch-theoretische Modell verbindet das ‘Kçrper-Ich’ (Freud, 1923) mit der Idee des Containers (Bion,
1962). Damit soll ein neues integratives Psyche-Soma-Schema entworfen werden. Die ,,Body-Container’’-
Erfahrung ist vorhanden als eine subjektive Erkenntnis durch von vorneherein existierende psycho-
physische Formen, die als Hlle und als zentrale vertikale Achse strukturiert sind. Diese Formen sind
das Ergebnis unserer gegebenen kçrperlichen Struktur, die unter der ‘magnetischen’ Kraft der Objektbe-
ziehungen erfahren wird. Die mentale Hlle ist bereits in der psychoanalytischen Theorie diskutiert wor-
den (Bick, 1968; Anzieu, 1989, 1990), und ich mçchte die Eigenschaften der vertikalen Achse vorstellen,
die ich als das ‘frontale Rckgrat’ bezeichne, wobei ich dessen grundlegende Wechselwirkung mit der
Hlle der Haut herausstelle. Das vorgeschlagene Modell bietet neue Einsichten in die psycho-physische
Organisation primitiver mentaler Zustnde und kann zum Verstndnis der komplementren strukturellen
Beziehung zwischen in der menschlichen Erfahrung ‘verkçrpert’ und ‘reprsentiert’ beitragen. Zwei
klinische Beispiele illustrieren die therapeutische Arbeit, die sich auf Stçrungen in der primren psycho-
physischen Raumorganisation in verschiedenen Entwicklungsstadien bezieht.

El ‘‘continente corporal’’: Una nueva perspectiva sobre el ‘‘yo corporal’’. La teora y la prctica
psicoanalticas tienden a centrarse en representaciones mentales metafricas y simblicas en una forma
que suele apartar la importancia de una ‘‘presencia’’ corporal que posee cualidades que no pueden y no
deben ser subordinadas a la estructura representacional. Mediante la introduccin del modelo de ‘‘conti-
nente corporal’’, este artculo reintroduce el cuerpo fsico concreto en el discurso psicoanaltico de una
manera ms directa. Este modelo clnico-terico vincula el ‘‘yo corporal’’ (Freud, 1923) a la idea de con-
tencin (Bion, 1962) con el propsito de crear un nuevo esquema psique-soma integrador. Se accede a la
experiencia de ‘‘continente-corporal’’ como entendimiento subjetivo a travs de formas psicofsicas a pri-
ori estructuradas como una envoltura y un eje vertical central. Estas formas son el resultado de nuestra
estructura corporal experimentada bajo la fuerza ‘‘magntica’’ de la relacin de objeto. La envoltura
mental ya ha sido discutida en la teora psicoanaltica (Bick, 1968; Anzier, 1989, 1990) y la autora desea
introducir las caractersticas del eje vertical al cual llama ‘‘la espina frontal’’, enfatizando su reciprocidad
constitucional con la envoltura de la piel. El modelo propuesto ofrece nuevas perspectivas de la organiza-
cin psicofsica en los estados mentales primitivos y puede contribuir a la comprensin de la relacin
estructural complementaria entre la experiencia humana corporal y la representada. Dos ejemplos clni-
cos ilustran el trabajo teraputico relacionado con las perturbaciones en la organizacin espacial psicof-
sica primordial en diferentes niveles de desarrollo.

Le ‘‘contenant corporel’’ : Une nouvelle perspective sur le ‘‘moi corporel’’. La thorie ainsi que
la pratique psychanalytique ont tendance  focaliser sur les reprsentations mtaphoriques et symboliques
d¢une faÅon qui souvent met de c t l¢importance d¢une ‘‘prsence’’ corporelle possdant des qualits qui
ne peuvent, ni doivent Þtre soumises  une structure reprsentationnelle. En introduisant le mod
le de «
contenant corporel », cet article rappelle, de faÅon plus directe, le corps concret et physique dans le dis-
cours psychanalytique. Ce mod
le clinique et thorique fait le lien entre le moi corporel (Freud, 1923) et
l¢ide du contenant (Bion, 1962) qui vise  crer un nouveau schma intgratif de psych-soma. L¢expri-
ence du contenant corporel est disponible comme une ralisation subjective  priori par des formes psy-
cho-physiques structures comme une enveloppe et un axe central vertical. Ces formes sont le rsultat de
notre structure corporelle donne vcue sous la force « magntique » de la relation  l¢objet. L¢enveloppe
mentale est dj traite dans la thorie psychanalytique (Bick, 1968; Anzieu, 1989, 1990) et je souhaite in-
troduire les caractristiques de l¢axe vertical que j¢appelle la « colonne vertbrale frontale », en mettant
l¢accent sur la rciprocit constitutionnelle avec l¢enveloppe de la peau. Le mod
le propos offre de nou-
veaux clairages sur l¢organisation psycho-physique des tats mentaux primitifs et peut contribuer 
la comprhension de la relation structurelle complmentaire entre l¢incarn et le reprsent dans l¢expri-
ence humaine. Deux exemples cliniques illustrent le travail thrapeutique pertinent aux troubles de l¢orga-
nisation de l¢espace psycho-physique principal sur des niveaux de dveloppement diffrents.

Il ‘corpo- contenente’ : Una nuova prosepettiva del ‘Io-corporeo’. La teoria e la prassi psicoanaliti-
ca tendono a concentrarsi su rappresentazioni mentali metaforiche e simboliche in un modo che spesso
trascura l’importanza di una presenza corporea dotata di qualit che non dovrebbero, a giusto titolo, es-
sere subordinate alla struttura rappresentazionale. Introducendo il modello di un ‘contenente-corporeo’,

ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90

506 T. Pollak
questo articolo re-introduce in modo pi diretto la concretezza fisica del corpo nel discorso psicoanaliti-
co. Questo modello teorico-clinico collega l’ ‘Io corporeo’ (Freud, 1923) alla nozione di ‘contenente’
(Bion, 1962) al fine di creare un nuovo modello psichico-fisico. L’esperienza del ‘contenente corporeo’

accessibile come realizzazione soggettiva mediante forme psico-fisiche a priori strutturate come strato
protettivo e come asse verticale da me definita ‘spina frontale’; tale denominazione vuol mettere l’accento
sulla reciprocit di quest’asse con lo strato protettivo della pelle. Il modello che propongo offre ulteriori
insight nell’organizzazione psico-fisica degli stati mentali precoci, e pu contribuire alla comprensione
della relazione di complementarit strutturale fra l’esperienza umana corporea e quella mentale. Due es-
empi clinici illustrano il lavoro terapeutico relativo alle turbe dell’organizzazione dello spazio psicofisico
nelle diverse fasi dello sviluppo.

References
Alvarez A (1992). Live company. London, New York, NY: Routledge.
Alvarez A (2006). Some questions concerning states of fragmentations: Unintegration, under-
integration, disintegration, and the nature of early integrations. J Child Psychother 32:158–80.
Anzieu D (1989). The skin ego. New Haven, CT, London: Yale UP. [(1985). Le moi-peau, Paris:
Bordas.]
Anzieu D (1990). Formal signifiers and the skin-ego. In: Psychic envelopes. Chapter 1, 1–27. Lon-
don: Karnac. [(1987). Les signifiants formels et le moi-peau. In: Anzieu D, Houzel D, editors. Les
envelopes psychiques, 1–22. Paris: Dunod.]
Bick E (1968). The experience of the skin in early object-relation. Int J Psychoanal 49:484–6.
Bion WR (1962). Learning from experience. London: Maresfield.
Bion WR (1967). A theory of thinking. In: Second thoughts: Selected papers on psycho-analysis, 56–
79. London: Heinemann.
Ferrari AB (2004). From the eclipse of the body to the dawn of thought. London: Free Association
Books.
Freud S (1923). The ego and the id. SE 19, 3–66.
Gaddini E (1978). Transitional object origins and psychosomatic symptoms. In: Grolnick SE, Barkin L,
Muensterberg W, editors. Between fantasy and reality, 109–31. New York, NY: Aronson.
Gaddini E (1987). Notes on the mind–body question. Int J Psychoanal 68:315–29.
Giovacchini PL (1990). Epilogue: Contemporary perspective on technique. In: Boyer L, Giovacchini
PL, editors. Master clinicians on treating the regressed patient, 353–83. Northvale, NJ, London:
Aronson.
Haag G (1991). Some reflections on body–ego development through psychotherapeutic work with an
infant. In: Miller S, editor. Extending horizons, 135–47. London: Karnac.
Haag G (2000). In the footsteps of Frances Tustin: Further reflection on the construction of the body–
ego. Int J Infant Observation 3:7–22.
Kristeva J (1982). Powers of horror: An essay on abjection. New York, NY: Colombia UP. [(1980).
Pouvoirs de l ’horreur: Essai sur l’abjection. Paris: Edition du Seuil.]
Kristeva J (1984). Desire in language: A semiotic approach to literature and art. New York, NY:
Colombia UP.
McDougall J (1989). Theatres of the body: The psychoanalytic approach to psychosomatic illness.
New York, NY, London: Norton.
Meltzer D (1975). Explorations in autism. Strath Tay: Clunie.
Meltzer D (1988). The apprehension of beauty. Strath Tay: Clunie.
Pollak T (2003). Image formation of a ‘frontal spine’ in work with autistic children. Israeli Psycho-
analytic Journal 1:565–603.
Milner M (1969). Hands of the living god. London: Hogarth.
Segal H (1957). Notes on symbol formation. Int J Pychoanal 38:391–7.
Spitz RA (1955). The primal cavity. Psychoanal Stud Child 10:15–240.
Stern D (1985). The interpersonal world of the infant. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Tustin F (1981). Autistic states in children. New York, NY: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Tustin F (1986). The protective shell in children and adults. London: Karnac.
Tustin F (1987). Autistic barriers in neurotic patients. London: Karnac.
Winnicott D (1957). Transitional object and transitional phenomena: A study of the first possession.
Int J Psychoanal 34:89–97.

Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90 ª 2009 Institute of Psychoanalysis