Dynamics of the Depth of Mental Space within a Psychoanalytic Pair in the Context of the Topographic Model of the Mental Apparatus and the Concept of Matte-Blanco

The paper details the pioneering views of the Chilean psychoanalyst Ignacio Matte-Blanco. Matte-Blanco approaches psychoanalysis not from the perspective of psychodynamics but rather from the point of view of cognition and offers a look at the mental space of a person as well as the interaction of two mental spaces in the psychoanalytic pair «analyst-client» meaning variations in thinking. Based on a mathematical theory Matte-Blanco introduces to psychoanalysis the terms of asymmetric and symmetric logics (thinking) as well as their combination: bi-logical thinking. Operating with these three modalities of thinking which are represented in various proportions in the human psyche he describes the psyche as a stratified structure with an unlimited number of levels. Matte-Blanco founds himself on the Freudian theory of the unconscious, his topographical model where consciousness is the highest level of asymmetric thinking, and all the levels of symmetrization belong to the unconscious domain. A great practical significance follows from the description of the intermediate levels where the combination of asymmetric thinking with symmetrizations gives rise to a new type of logic - the bi-logic. Access to the bi-logic of the unconscious is often made possible through the identification of the phenomenon of the fundamental antinomy of a human being. Having discovered such a phenomenon in a psychoanalytic session we can find ourself at the door to the unconscious and have a look there. This discovery as well as the study of the levels of depth have become a subject of the detailed analysis of the psychoanalytic session where the manifestation of the phenomenon of the fundamental antinomy was quite clearly shown. It also provides a detailed description of a psychoanalytic pair immersion dynamics at different levels of the mental space the analysis of which allowed the author to formulate some hypotheses as far as the approach to the psychoanalytic session is concerned.