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Christine Anzieu-Premmereur is a psychiatrist and adult and child psychoanalyst in New York, a member of the Société Psychanalytique de Paris, and the Columbia University Psychoanalytic Center. She chairs the IPA Committee for Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis (COCAP) and is co-founder of Pulsion Institute. She published on Addiction, Infantile Depression, the Process of Representation, Playfulness in Analysis, and Psychosomatics. She co-edited with the COCAP “The Infinite Infantile and the Psychoanalytic Task: Psychoanalysis with Children, Adolescents and their Families” in 2022, and with Vaia Tsolas “A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Contemporary Search for Pleasure: The Turning of the Screw” in 2023.

“The program for 2026 is great, I’m happy to be part of it. I propose two seminars to examine the importance of the body in psychoanalysis.”

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Seminar I.

CATASTROPHIC ANXIETIES OVER THE LIFE SPAN

The impact of catastrophic anxieties on children, adolescents, and adults is a growing concern for psychoanalysts. The compulsion to repeat, a defense mechanism against traumatic experiences, manifests in various symptoms, including addiction and self-harm. Psychoanalytic thought, particularly the concepts of the death drive and the role of the object in countertransference, is crucial in understanding and addressing these issues.

Early depression in infants and children, marked by apathy and detachment, can lead to problematic dissociation later in life. Childhood trauma, often unrecognized, can result in chronic effects like dissociation and somatic symptoms. Adolescence, a time of crisis, can exacerbate dependence and hinder the development of coping mechanisms, potentially leading to addiction and self-harm as a means of dealing with emotional pain.

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Seminar II.

THE BODY IN ADULT’S ANALYSIS. THE USE OF PLAYFULNESS

Understanding unconscious functioning requires a structured container and an organizer for body sensations and emotions. This is a crucial step in analytic work with non-neurotic patients, a topic of ongoing debate for years. This reminded me of Andre Green’s work on the negative, Didier Anzieu’s Skin Ego theory, Joyce McDougall’s addictive repetition, and Piera Aulagnier’s developments on psychosis. The role of body sensations and corporeity has recently gained increasing interest in the psychoanalytic world.

Many adult patients who come for analysis are partially or totally unable to play at the beginning.  And their achievement of the capacity to play could be one of the indicators of substantial progress and, sometimes, also of the possibility of completing a treatment.