IPSO PANEL MODERATOR / SPEAKER
The Civilised and the Discontented: How to Save The Piggy?
While dealing with psychic existence from singular to plural, from individual to society, Winnicott’s descriptions of the abstract place that he calls “the place where we live” is a thought-provoking starting point. In this presentation, it will be emphasised that this abstract place can be a temporal element in the individual’s relationship with the plural. Winnicott states that “where there is trust and reliability, we can speak of a potential space”. This space can become a space of “infinite separation” or it can also be a space that the infant, the child, the adolescent and the adult can creatively fill with play within a relationship of trust. Artistic investments that extend beyond the place and time in which we live, can transform this potential space into a creative playground, thus reconstituting the space in a new and different way. The first example to be discussed in this presentation is William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” which is the story of boys who are both supporting actors or heroes and antiheroes of the human psyche: “A baby can be nurtured without love, but without love or impersonal guidance it is impossible to create a new, autonomous human being” says Winnicott. If we consider from a psychoanalytic point of view on the fate of the group whose “capacity to be alone” is being tested, their fate would be “’to return to where they came from” by quoting the words of Simon, who is able to confront “the chief monster within”. The other example to be discussed is Carmina Burana (Songs of Bayern), which can be considered as a creation that operates in apres-coup. In this piece of work, the poems of the Goliards, which have become the symbols of rebellion, preserve their vitality in the potential field throughout the thousand-years-long adventure of humanity. After their encounter with Carl Orff’s creativity, they had overcome all prohibitions and bans and were able to reach our ears. Thus “the society in which we live in the time in which we live” is being constructed within continuously turning wheels:
The wheel of Fortune turns:
I go down, demeaned;
another is raised up;
far too high up
sits the king at the summit –
let him fear ruin!
for under the axis is written
Queen Hecuba
Meltem TEMİZ is a psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, psychotherapist, member of the International Psychoanalysis Association (IPA). She has served in the board of directors, scientific board and organising committee of Psike İstanbul Psychoanalysis Association. She has translations in the Turkish Annual of International Journal of Psychoanalysis (IJP). She is one of the co-ordinators of the Turkish Annual Seminars, Introduction to Psychoanalysis Seminars and the Second Level Case Studies. She is a seminar leader in Psike Istanbul’s formation programme affiliated by the International Psychoanalytic Association.