The analyst’s ‘work of figurability’is the achievement of allowing his or her own mind to undergo this retrogressive movement, when that is needed in order to accompany the patient’s mind.‘Achievement’because the experience can be disturbing and disorganising for the analyst as well as the patient.But the analyst’s mind, being more mobile along this axis of representability/nonrepresentability, may be able psychically to register a perception of the void and bring it into the realm of the representable.The analyst may then be able to find a way of articulating it to the patient as a representation that can be made use of. It is important that this work of figurability ‘originates in community with the patient’s psychic functioning’.This means that when the understanding in terms of representation can finally be reached, it has a sense of meaning and conviction for the patient.
The Work of Psychic Figurability Mental States without Representation César Botella and Sára Botella