aint i a stinker

dani, 30, they/them - - - "memory is not an instrument of exploring the past, but its theatre"

[acertainknot]

Language forces a space between interpersonal experience as lived and as represented. And it is exactly across this space that the connections and associations that constitute neurotic behavior may form. But also with language, infants for the first time can share their personal experience of the world with others, including “being with” others in intimacy, isolation, loneliness, fear, awe, and love.

Stern, D. N. (1985) The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology. New York: Basic Books. p. 182.

[acertainknot]

The surest way to keep a channel deniable is to prevent it from becoming a part of the formal language system.

Stern, D. N. (1985) The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology. New York: Basic Books. p. 180.

[acertainknot]

[S]lippage between personal world knowledge and official or socialized world knowledge as encoded in language [...] is one of the main ways in which reality and fantasy can begin to diverge.

Stern, D. N. (1985) The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology. New York: Basic Books. p. 178.

[acertainknot]

The mother’s misunderstanding serves to teach the child that the child’s specific meaning is only a subset of her possible meanings. It is in this way that mutual meanings get negotiated.

Stern, D. N. (1985) The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology. New York: Basic Books. p. 178.

[acertainknot]

Should we really insist on “constitutive impossibilities” of the existing global order today, at a historical moment when this order can only reproduce itself by way of brutally violating what appeared till now as its constitutive impossibilities?

Žižek, S. (2026) '"IF UNITED EUROPE IS DEAD, EVERYTHING IS ALLOWED"', ŽIŽEK GOADS AND PRODS, 24 April. Available at: https://slavoj.substack.com/p/if-united-europe-is-dead-everything (Accessed 3 June 2026).

[acertainknot]

The paradox that language can evoke experience that transcends words is perhaps the highest tribute to the power of language. But those are words in poetic use.

Stern, D. N. (1985) The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology. New York: Basic Books. pp. 176–177.

[acertainknot]

Suppose we are considering a child’s perception of a patch of yellow sunlight on the wall. The infant will experience the intensity, warmth, shape, brightness, pleasure, and other amodal aspects of the patch. The fact that it is yellow light is not of primary or, for that matter, of any importance. While looking at the patch and feeling-perceiving it (à la Werner), the child is engaged in a global experience resonant with a mix of all the amodal properties, the primary perceptual qualities, of the patch of light—its intensity, warmth, and so on. To maintain this highly flexible and omnidimensional perspective on the patch, the infant must remain blind to those particular properties (secondary and tertiary perceptual qualities, such as color) that specify the sensory channel through which the patch is being experienced. The child must not notice or be made aware that it is a visual experience. Yet that is exactly what language will force the child to do. Someone will enter the room and say, “Oh, look at the yellow sunlight!" Words in this case separate out precisely those properties that anchor the experience to a single modality of sensation. By binding it to words, they isolate the experience from the amodal flux in which it was originally experienced. Language can thus fracture amodal global experience. A discontinuity in experience is introduced.

Stern, D. N. (1985) The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology. New York: Basic Books. p. 176.

[acertainknot]

[acertainknot]

[W]hen people do not know the structure of their own bodies and are at a loss to explain dreams, they form the concept of a soul [...] it is a question of the technical conditions under which primitive man struggles for existence.

Plekhanov, G. [1909] (1976) ‘On the So-Called 'Religious Seekings’ in Russia’, in Selected Philosophical Works, Volume III. Translated from Russian by R. Dixon. Moscow: Progress Publishers. p. 317.

[acertainknot]

Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) dir. Miranda July

[acertainknot]

Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) dir. Miranda July

[acertainknot]

[O]nly rarely and under certain exceptional conditions is individual psychology in a position to disregard the relations of this individual to others. In the individual's mental life someone else is invariably involved, as a model, as an object, as a helper, as an opponent; and so from the very first individual psychology, in this extended but entirely justifiable sense of the words, is at the same time social psychology as well.

Freud, S. [1921] (1955) ‘Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego’, in J. Strachey (ed. and trans.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XVIII: Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Group Psychology, and Other Works (1920–1922). London: The Hogarth Press. p. 69.

[acertainknot]

The myth is a story which answers the questions: Why? How? The myth is the first expression of mans awareness of the causal connection between phenomena.

Plekhanov, G. [1909] (1976) ‘On the So-Called 'Religious Seekings’ in Russia’, in Selected Philosophical Works, Volume III. Translated from Russian by R. Dixon. Moscow: Progress Publishers. p. 311.

[acertainknot]

Russian “advanced people” have never given serious thought to religion. At one time, this was no great loss, but now the time has come when the neglect of religious questions may lead to very grievous consequences. It is necessary now to think and speak about religion very seriously.

Plekhanov, G. [1909] (1976) 'On the So-Called 'Religious Seekings' in Russia', in Selected Philosophical Works, Volume III. Translated from Russian by R. Dixon. Moscow: Progress Publishers. p. 309.

[acertainknot]

[T]he experience of searching for a family to observe is an emotionally meaningful one, and that if engaged with on this level, it can represent a valuable learning experience for the observer. [...] This task may arouse latent vulnerabilities in students which should be recognised and explored by the seminar leader and wider institution to foster engagement in the task and protect against overuse of unconscious defences. Postgraduate students or those not on psychoanalytically oriented courses may be particularly vulnerable to this as they are less likely to be familiar with infant observation at the outset or have support from their own analysis.

Mostoufi, M. & Acheson, R. (2021) ‘Searching for a family in parent-infant observation; a reflective account of a postgraduate student and their seminar leader’, Infant Observation, 24(1). p. 36.

[acertainknot]

Through the systematic observation of an infant and their primary caregiver, as well as other family members, the observer has the opportunity to encounter primitive emotional states in both the infant and family, as well as in themselves, through their response to the events that take place. A large part of observation is the ‘learning from experience’ (Bion, 1962) that occurs when the observer reflects on how emergent material makes them feel and act. Through presentation and discussion in the seminar group, elements of transference and countertransference can be understood, allowing the student to gain a deeper understanding of both the infant and family unit as well as of themselves. The ‘task’ of infant observation, as defined by Rustin (1989), is to explore ‘the emotional events between infant and mother’ and the ‘aim’ is ‘to describe the relationship between infants and others, including the observer, and to try and understand the unconscious aspects of behaviour and patterns of communication’ (p. 7). The different elements of the experience make it an appropriate medium through which deeper understanding of psychoanalytic theory can develop, and interest and ability for future clinical work can be tested.

Mostoufi, M. & Acheson, R. (2021) 'Searching for a family in parent-infant observation; a reflective account of a postgraduate student and their seminar leader', Infant Observation, 24(1). pp. 23–24.

[acertainknot]

Humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together.

Leo XIV (2026) Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding The Human Person In The Time Of Artificial Intelligence, Encyclical Letter. Vatican: The Holy See. Available at: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html (Accessed: 27 May 2026). §1.