THE SILENT KILL - MALE AND FEMALE DESTRUC TIVENESS IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PRACTICE

There is an ongoing discussion where efforts are made to divine if the re are gender related ways of expressing destructiveness. In the prese nt paper the focus is primarily on the psychoanalytic encounter. The b asic qualities of the psychoanalytic situation can, among other potent ial meanings, unconsciously be symbolized as a primal scene. This awak ens hate in the infantile transference and attacks are directed agains t these linking qualities of the analytic setting and against the link between analyst and analysand. In the analysand's unconscious this is related to an incapacity to integrate masculine and feminine aspects of the personality. The impression is that the masculine destructivene ss expresses itself as a cutting off, while the feminine destructivene ss appears as a withdrawal. These differences emerge somewhat later in the development of the personality. These forms of destructiveness ha ve to be related to the feeling of envy and exclusion in relation to t he primal scene. The aim of psychoanalytic work in this area is the in tegration of split off areas of the personality.