Restarting the Imagination, Refinding the World: A Discussion of “Activating Lifeness in the Analytic Encounter” and “‘What If’ Dimensions of the Analytic Field”

Quite different in focus and intent, these two papers address, each in their own ways, an emerging current running through contemporary psychoanalysis. In her paper, Peltz (this issue) outlines the contours of a paradigm shift, in which the question of dehumanization come to the fore. Peltz highlights the importance of a kind of engagement and posture that she describes in terms of the vitalizing presence of the analyst. In exploring what he calls the “what-if” dimension of the clinical field, Cartwright (this issue) re-conceptualizes the imagination in terms of how it frees us up for renewed experience of the vitality of objects. Both papers draw attention to the importance of catalyzing a renewed perceptual engagement with the world of objects in an age of detachment and psychical disenchantment.