Towards a theory of below representation

In this article, the author attempts to distill the elements of a theoretical modelization which would provide an accurate rendering of the psychic transformations necessary for the advent of representation. He draws upon sources such as Jung’s concept of the archetype and Freud’s concept of hallucinatory wish-fulfillment, reconsidered in light of Fordham’s work on the de-integration and reintegration of the primary self and Laplanche’s theory of primary seduction, which he associates with the model for chaos theory in physics. The author thus concludes that, due to the effect of primal seduction, the archetype turns into a true strange psychic attractor, enabling the determinism of the instinctive pole of the archetype to open up to the possibility of symbolization, the prerequisite to the advent of subjectivity. He ends his demonstration with a brief clinical vignette illustrating the effect of openness to the psychic unknown of primary seduction in transference.