ABSTRACT In my work with a migrant family, I explored the youngest daughter’s symptomatology and relationship with her mother; analysis offered an approach to her traumatic history, as well as her private pain, which I was initially able to experience through the complex psychological fabric woven between both mother and daughter. The ideas contributed in this paper are drawn from the clinical case, where the central focus on traumatism, pain and migration were the ostensible grounds with which the family sought assistance; however, other issues arose, such as the daughter’s entry into adolescence, psychic pain in the body which marked difficulties left in the wake of fear of separation, and losses which were at first be experienced as external, but referred to experiences of internal loss. In addition, there were numerous mournings originating in early traumata, which descended from transgenerational mournings and traumatic situations.

ABSTRACT The author investigates voice and body-self in the analytic space. A look at the role of music and voice in Stone Age ritual, being the core of human culture, and at the role of the mother's voice, being the unborn child's first encounter with the Other, shows the influence of the voice on psychic life. Beyond the symbolic discourse, voice and body-self organize the exchange of emotions. This level becomes crucial when a symbolization disorder dominates the encounter as a result of traumatization. The analytic couple is not limited to a focus on words and images. Both analyst and patient have access to the perception of their body-self; moreover, the sound of the voice proves to be isomorphic to the states of the body-self and provides vocal information. In the analytic space a traumatic inscription in the body-self (encapsulated body engram) can be focused on. Somatic narration describes a way to work through such an engram. Here, the patient is invited to describe his or her body perceptions and thus the disorganized tensions of traumatization can unfold in the analytic space. This enables a cathartic process of overcoming the destructive qualities of traumatic memory. A case report illustrates the method.

ABSTRACT This paper revisits Francis Pasche's 1993 seminal essay From the Ambivalent Superego to the Impersonal Superego. Particular emphasis is given to Pasche's view on the specific verticality in the relation between the ego and superego, and on its evolution. Pasche conceptualises the transformation of this relation from primary admiration and idealization towards an impersonal superego, which he describes as apophatic - defined by what it is not. In doing so, Pasche outlines an ethical horizon that is central to his conception of psychoanalysis, and more specifically of the analyst's inner stance. These ideas are discussed more precisely in reference to some of his other papers. Beyond Pasche's concepts, further reflection is given to the relationship between the ego and the superego and to the way it evolves, notably through processes of de-identification.