**4.1 The primal repressed**

Freud [16], in his paper on repression, differentiated primal repression from repression proper. The former may not be representable, while the latter is repressed of buried material behind defenses that may surface in the course of psychoanalysis out of the preconscious. Linked to the variability of repression, Green [17] concluded that meaning making that is representable is *preconscious.* Psychoanalysis directly addresses the repression of self-reflection ("self-consciousness"). As a consequence, the unrepresentable, deeply unconscious material, does not surface in language.

In Freud's terms, the primal repression or the arch-repressed (*Urverdrängung*), which remains un-representable (through language), is tightly linked to drives, *Triebe,* and instincts *Instinkte.* Therefore, *Freud's* "*unconscious*" remains, in Eagles' terms a "*cauldron full of seething excitations*" [18]. In fact, Derrida [19] further observed that Freud's psychoanalysis generates, by means of FA, a "breakdown" that deconstructs the representational system that censors the emergence of the repressed [19]. Solms [20], inspired by affective neuroscience, clarified the difference between drives (Triebe) to be used as demands that need to be met to create *homeostasis* versus instincts (Instinkte), which are innate predictions or activities preprogrammed and reshaped for development and survival. The latter is connected to the seven protoemotions previously described by Panksepp1 [21, 22].

Returning to the nineteenth-century Vienna, Otto Weininger, a philosopher and contemporary of Freud, used the term *henid* to refer to fragments of thought [23]. Henids also surface during the creative process [24] and may surface in the course of a psychoanalytic encounter. When noticed, henids may give rise to countertransference reactions related to a sense of impenetrability of an analysand's mentation. However, in many cases, it is a mutation of a deeper repressed that may find a preconscious association that initially bares limited expressive valence. Yet if carefully examined, henids may give a hint to a much deeper content that necessitates a special empathic exploration.

As it is noticed, the unrepresentable may surface in a variety of verbal and emotional enactments that can be captured nonverbally (by means of a large set of nonverbal mirroring mechanisms of the brain) by the psychoanalyst. Ferenczi [25] reported what he referred to as "thought transference," an instance when the analyst and analysand experience the same thoughts or similar thoughts. This type of resonance may bare significance, among which is the natural timed mirroring of

<sup>1</sup> Panksepp's seven proto-emotions/instincts include four positive (SEEKING, PLAY, CARE, and LUST) and three negative (PANIC/GRIEF, FEAR, and RAGE).

mental and emotional content that resurfaces in expressed language. One can expand the understanding of such mechanisms to somatic body mirroring [26], subliminal perceptions by the amygdala [27, 28], or even more complex interpretations in the realm of quantum physics [29–32].

Associations and connectivity may be created with neural stimulation arriving from many areas of sensory input of the Self, both in analyst and analysand. These would include the mirror neuron system [33] and the amygdala [27], which recognizes faces and movements, even below the perceptive threshold. The right amygdala is known to register interaction, facial expressions, and movements at the subliminal level below conscious perception. This is particularly pronounced in individuals with a history of trauma [28]. The olfactory system provides subliminal stimuli from the interacting environment. These are transmitted directly to the frontal cortex and by means of the cortico-subcortical reentrant circuits [34], back to the cortex. Thus, the brain can "see" without knowing, which may be transformed into knowing without seeing [35]. The amygdala and mirror neuron system are not part of the DMN, but they have extensive communications with the subcortical areas of the striatum (basal ganglia) and the nearby thalamus, which provide information from somatic areas [36]. Thus, a subliminal signaling system mapping coordinates of another self exists. This system can provide sudden intrusive thought into the cortex, hence an ability to receive signals that may be mixed with "free" thoughts generated by the wandering mind of the DMN [37]. This may be one of many mechanisms by which one experiences synchrony with someone in relatively close physical or emotional proximity.

Psychoanalytically, Barratt affirms that for primal repression, which does not reveal itself in language [4, 38–40], FA reveals "thing representations," which are the surface in forms of reactions, affects, or "disruptions" (in Bion's terms). These are "chasms" that will exist during FA, between representable and meaningful archived memories and traces of the unrepresentable. This will resonate with the analyst's own approximate internal representation. This is translatable into meaning to different degrees, but sometimes defies interpretations at all [4, 38–40]. In this sense, FA is a complex mechanism of deconstructing the repressed.

The study of the "arch-repressed" or the unrepresentable content links our inquiry to many aspects of mental life and decision-making processes under circumstances of regression. Ideas are tracible to Bergson's discussion on memory and moral values [41]. Strohminger and Nichols [42], by studying individuals who developed dementia, have found moral traits (honesty) to be preserved with personality in patients with frontal-temporal neurocognitive impairment. In psychoanalysis, this is translatable into preconscious representation [38]. FA, in revealing initially unrepresentable unconscious fragments, may, in fact, address and reach the deep moral layers of consciousness. FA and psychoanalysis act as an onto-ethical discipline that promotes social affiliation and discourse [40]. The arch-repressed, which may reveal itself indirectly through FA (as "things"), may contain some of the ontological coordinates, which are translatable into preconscious representation [38]. Mirroring, mimicking, and imitation in group interaction may function concomitantly to create synchrony as a form of implicit "knowing" within the field of analyst and analysand [43].
