EMOTIONAL VERTIGO - BETWEEN ANXIETY AND PLEASURE

Foreword by Alain Gibeault IX

1 What is vertigo? 1
Definitions
Psychoanalysts and the study of vertigo
A clinical example: a request for analysis in a case of vertigo

2 Fusion-related vertigo 21
Anxiety about being destroyed together with the object
Lucs fusion-related vertigo - more frightening than I could ever have imagined
The beginnings of thought

3 Vertigo related to being dropped 33
Anxiety about being dropped by the object
From the feeling of void to the feeling of space and from symbolic equation to symbol

4 Suction-related vertigo 45
Anxiety about being sucked up by the object
A withdrawal that makes sense in the counter-transference

5 Imprisonment/ escape-related vertigo 53
Two active tendencies: fleeing from the object and returning to it Envisaging an active role may lead to apprehension

6 Vertigo due to attraction to the void: the emergence of internal space 59
The irresistible attraction of the void: the feeling of external void as projection of the feeling of internal void
The emergence of inner space: its repercussions

7 Expansion-related vertigo 74
Anxiety about expanding into a world without limits
Expansion-related vertigo appears during the sudden transition from an unlimited representation of the inner world to a limited representation IX

8 Competition-related vertigo 84
Anxiety about surpassing the oedipal rival
Competition-related vertigo from a feminine perspective

9 Vertigo, from anxiety to pleasure 101
Every form of vertigo goes with a form of pleasure
Pleasure and fusion-related vertigo: de-idealization of fusion
Pleasure and vertigo related to being dropped: de-idealization of the carrying object
Pleasure and suction-related vertigo: de-idealization of the emprisoning object
Pleasure and imprisonment/escape-related vertigo: de-idealization of immobility and change
Pleasure and vertigo related to attraction to the void: de-idealization of the void and of projection
Pleasure and expansion-related vertigo: de-idealization of ego expansion
Pleasure and competition-related vertigo: de-idealization of victory

10 What makes a candidate for vertigo? 127
What do we mean when we say someone has vertigo? Search for the specific characteristics of the symptom
The impossibility of linking omnipotence and realistic power
What does no longer vertigo mean on the clinical level?

11 Vertigo in the work of Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein 136
Sigmund Freud: vertigo as an anxiety-equivalent (Freud 1916-1917)
Individual symbolic meanings of vertigo
Freuds theories of anxiety
Were Freuds blackouts instances of vertigo?
Melanie Klein: theoretical concepts supporting my own view of vertigo

12 Dangerous games with vertigo 152
Risking a fall or dicing with death? Players of impossible games
Why run such risks?
Defying the limit: vertigo or equilibrium?

13 Equilibrium: a continuous construction 173
Equilibrium is not the happy medium, between smallness and immensity
A progression imposed by solitude; the de-idealization of equilibrium
Between vertigo and equilibrium: playing with space and time, the changeable and the immutable instantaneity and duration
Vertigo and equilibrium

Bibliography 190
Index of names 195
General subject index 197