Nicolas Abraham
| Nicolas Abraham | |
|---|---|
| Born |
23 May 1919 Kecskemét, Hungary |
| Died | 18 December 1975 (aged 56) Paris, France |
| Nationality | Hungarian |
| Fields | psychoanalytic theory |
| Alma mater | University of Paris |
| Known for | his work with Maria Torok |
Nicolas Abraham (French: [a.bʁa.am]; 23 May 1919 – 18 December 1975) was a Hungarian-born French psychoanalyst best known for his work with Mária Török. The pair took a very individuated approach to psychoanalytic theory, thinking that the use of preset notions (castration, desire for the mother, etc.) may be too binding upon an individual's motives to clearly fit within the framework of their personal experiences. Abraham was educated at the Sorbonne in philosophy and completed his analytical training in the 1950s.
Abraham (along with Mária Török) worked within the Freudian paradigm, but as fleshed out by the findings of Sándor Ferenczi; and indeed extended both—as with his concept of 'a parasitic inclusion', an extension of 'introjection, as defined by Ferenczi'. Together with Török 'he introduced several key concepts of contemporary psychoanalysis: the family secret, transmitted from one generation to the next (theory of the phantom), the impossibility of mourning following the emergence of shameful libidinal impulses in the bereaved before or after the death of someone (mourning disorder), secret identification with another (incorporation), the burial of an inadmissible experience (crypt)'.
Especially noteworthy has been 'the work of Nicolas Abraham and Mária Török on the intergenerational transmission of the phantom' created by trauma. 'Abraham and Török use the word "nescience" to describe the phantom effect. It refers to the gap in knowledge where the trauma resides'. Arguably at least 'the "phantom" represents a radical reorientation of Freudian and post-Freudian theories of psychopathology, since here symptoms do not spring from the individual's own life experiences but from someone else's psychic conflicts, traumas, or secrets'.
Equally influential has been their concept of the "crypt". 'According to the theories of Abraham and Török, the construction of a crypt takes place when a loss, a "segment of an ever so significantly lived Reality—untellable and therefore inaccessible to the gradual assimilative work of mourning"—cannot be admitted as a loss'. The crypt is thus 'a place in the inside of the subject, in which the lost object is "swallowed and preserved".
...
Wikipedia