Fragile Images of Psyche

Sergey Manevsky

Abstract

This article is an attempt to synthesize several propositions of the theory of objective relations and Jungian paradigm. “Potential space” has a synonym in the concept of the “play-space,” and in turn it is the psychological space of psychotherapy, where the conjunction of the external and internal is always presupposed. Symbolic material is a reflection of several archetypal structures of the collective unconscious. Similar to the couch—a place where the patient experiences psychic regression—is the sandtray, which permits the return to the initial stages of the sense development; touching the sand activates individual tactile and kinetic images and basic archetypes. A clinical case of a patient illustrates denoted positions.

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