A Framework for the Imaginary

A Framework for the Imaginary is an extraordinary depiction of one analyst's efforts to receive and respond to the vivid impressions of her patients' raw and sometimes even "unmentalized" experiences as they are highlighted in the transference-countertransference connection. Dr. Mitrani attempts to feel, suffer, mentally transform, and, finally, verbally construct - for and with the patient - possible meanings for those immediate versions of life's earliest experiences as they are reenacted in the therapeutic relationship. She uses insights from this therapeutic work to contribute to the metapsychology of British and American object relations as well as to the psychoanalytic theory of technique. In these eleven essays, four of which are printed here for the first time, Dr. Mitrani masterfully integrates the work of Klein, Winnicott, Bion, and Tustin as she leads us on an expedition through primitive emotional territories. She clears the way toward detecting and understanding the survival function of certain pathological maneuvers deployed by patients when confronted by unthinkable anxieties. In her vivid accounts of numerous clinical cases, she provides and demonstrates the tools needed to effect a transformation of unmentalized experiences within the context of the therapeutic relationship. Throughout her writings, she warns of some of the pitfalls we may encounter along the way.