The phobic moment

This article suggests a theory of the phobic phase that seems to emerge during the phenomenon Michael Fordham termed the “deintegration of the self”. Denise Lyard, referring to Erich Neumann, interpreted it as feedback from the archetypes. The theory stems from the question of whether the phobic phase and function might be a psychic manifestation of the father, the bridge to the outer world and the pathway out of the womb. When the transition to the outer world fails, the phobia appears, either as a self-defense mechanism – a symptom which then invades the entire field of the subject’s relationship to his environment – or as an ego-defense mechanism, which causes more occasional symptoms.