“Realizations Prevented From Emerging: Concretization In The Analytic Field"
Presented by Caron Harrang, LICSW, FIPA, BCPsa
In this presentation, Caron Harrang explores how psychoanalytic theory—when relied upon too rigidly or defensively—can inadvertently become concretized within the analytic field, foreclosing the emergence of new thoughts and realizations. Drawing on Bionian and post-Bionian field theory, Harrang examines oscillations between concrete and metaphorical thinking as a normal and vital feature of psychic life, and considers how these movements can become arrested in times of clinical turbulence. Through vivid clinical vignettes, she illustrates how an analyst’s premature recourse to theory may function as a retreat from uncertainty, disrupting reverie and a co-dreaming atmosphere of the analytic group of two.
Harrang advocates for a hermeneutic clinical stance that holds theory lightly—as metaphor rather than explanation—allowing lived emotional experience to remain foreground. Her presentation invites participants to reflect on their own relationships to psychoanalytic theory, uncertainty, and negative capability in analytic work, particularly at moments when emotional intensity presses for closure rather than openness.
This paper was recently published in German as Erkenntnisse, die nicht zutage treten dürfen: Konkretisierungen im analytischen Feld in the Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse. This scientific meeting marks its first presentation to an English-speaking audience.
Learning Objectives
1. Participants will be able to identify forms of pathological concretization in the analytic field and distinguish them from healthy oscillations between concrete and metaphorical thinking.
2. Participants will deepen their capacity to reflect on how theoretical certainty may function defensively in moments of clinical uncertainty or emotional turbulence.
3. Participants will gain clinical tools for cultivating a more flexible, hermeneutic stance that supports reverie, co-dreaming, and the emergence of new realizations in analytic work.
