The capacity for confidentiality:

Topology of psychic intimacy and constitution

Abstract

In this paper, the author articulates her conceptualization of intimacy and the intimate as conditions for the psychic structuring process in early infancy which make possible what the writer calls “capacity for confidentiality”.

The paper considers intimacy an intersubjective phenomenon built on the basis of time-space and somatic references, underscoring the importance of the latter as consubstantial to psychic constitution. The interbody bond of the origins gives rise to the constitution of a differentiated psychic space and of the intimate and to an intersubjective intimacy pierced by interdictions. The intimate can be defined as an imaginary construction which, originating in the bond, is seized, and gives rise to the production of a somatopsychic inner life and of thought. The intimate settles in the feeling of agency of closing and opening body orifices for the interchange with the other and becomes consolidated with anal sphincter control. Sphincter mastery and anal eroticism are structuring processes and reorganize the psyche under the sign of the potential autonomy from the other. The experience of being the object that can leave, think and secretly phantasize.

The link between intimacy and sexuality is underlined, as well as the erogenous quality of these processes and the need for the interdiction of the drive excess by the parents together with their enabling what can be shown, said, heard, seen, touched, etc. The author emphasizes the importance of the operation of a “differentiating parental function”, from which it is possible to sustain the differences within a shared common space, contrary to transparency and indiscrimination. Clinical work with the trauma shows us how it affects the construction of intimacy up to different points, expressed by the overflow of a body and a psyche without closings, open or semi-open, the result of failures in the constitution of the intimate and of subjective phantasies.

This theoretical reflection about the origins shows that the development of the capacity for confidentiality is internalized by the analyst in his personal and analytical experience, and becomes supportive of the analytic function and abstinence. Because of all this, the paper suggests that the analytic relation is structurally confidential and that breaches in confidentiality are the result of failures in the construction of a genuine intimate between the analyst and the patient.