WAINSTEIN, V.L. Meu coração pertence à mamãe: efeitos da transmissão psíquica entre as gerações em um caso clínico de distúrbio alimentar [My heart belongs to my mother: effects of psychic transmission between generations in a clinical case of eating disorder]. Doctoral Thesis – Instituto de Psicologia USP, 2022.
Available on: https://doi.org/10.11606/T.47.2022.tde-17052022-134829
Abstract: The thesis entitled My heart belongs to my mother: effects of psychic transmission between generations in a clinical case of eating disorder aims to articulate the unique psychic processes of a young bulimic patient with the intersubjective link configured between mother and daughter, to verify whether it is possible to establish a relationship between the appearance of the eating disorder and the pathological mechanisms of psychic transmission between generations. The patient’s clinical material was obtained in sessions with psychoanalytic guidance and through the application of the Drawing-of-Family-and-Story Procedure. The clinical material of the patient’s mother was collected in two interviews with psychoanalytical guidance and through the application of the same graphic projective technique. The theoretical framework of psychoanalyst Haydee Faimberg, who coined the term transgenerational telescoping, was used to give texture to the analysis of the clinical material to designate the mechanism by which alienating identifications belonging to previous generations make the subject a depository of a history that does not belong to him. The alienating identification is sustained as result of the work of two complementary forces: the parasitic deposit of fragments of an object relation story that belongs to another generation and the subject’s denial of the narcissistic wound imposed by the Oedipus complex. Data analysis showed that alienating identifications make the elaboration of the psychic inheritance impossible, leading to the repetition of traumatic experiences that cause enormous suffering and that freeze time in a timeless present. In the case of bulimia, time elapses cyclically between eating-vomiting-sleeping moments, with no record of the circadian rhythm and no projection of a future time. The methodology proposed for the study of psychic transmission between generations proved to be effective since the interpretation of the speech of both the patient and her mother, together with the analysis of the graphic production of both, shows the way in which the mechanism of alienated identifications operates in the psyche of both the patient and the mother.