The Matricial Space or The Analyst as a Person

Viviane Chetrit-Vatine

Jerusalem- Psychoanalytic Society of Israel

When a few months ago,I heard about the Sorrento's Annual EPF conference, theme, I felt that the research I am busy with for these past years, related to it in a way as clear as unsuspected for me consciously, till this very moment: The Person of the Analyst.

In fact, in Nice the panel on psychoanalysis of children,I participated in (Gilmore 2002)was already for me, much related to today's theme, even if its title sounds different: Cathexis of affects and the Verbalization of affects in psychoanalysis of children. The question that I asked myself at this time, while I was exposing my work with Shen, a girl eight years old with gender identity problem and borderline trends, was such: Who is cathecting the affects of the patient? Who verbalizes them? Was I dealing with cathexis of the affects or with cathexis of the young patient herself?

Already then, I proposed that it is centrally important for the analyst to reserve a Matricial Space within herself for the patient, that she is, in fact, this Matricial Space for the patient. This Matricial Space, I conceptualized it as a manifestation for the patient of the affective implication of the analyst in a position of Responsibility towards the Other. I claimed, that through this position, the analyst cathexes her patient, cathects her affects.So, I suggested, that this Matricial Space evolves from the Matricial Position, and that this...