Matte-Blanco's model of mental space is a view from the standpoint of cognitive variations on the client's inner world and the interaction of a psychoanalytic pair

PSYCHOANALYTICAL THEORY OF MATTE-BLANCO

Abstract

The paper details the pioneering views of the Chilean psychoanalyst Ignacio Matte-Blanco. Matte-Blanco approaches psychoanalysis not from the perspective of psychodynamics but rather from the point of view of cognition and offers a look at the internal world of a person as well as the interaction of two internal worlds in the psychoanalytic pair "analyst-client" meaning variations in thinking. Based on a mathematical theory Matte-Blanco introduces to psychoanalysis the terms of asymmetrical and symmetrical logics (thinking) as well as their combination: bi-logical thinking. Operating with these three modalities of thinking which are represented in various proportions in the human psyche he describes the psyche as a stratified structure with an unlimited number of levels.

Matte-Blanco employs Freud's theory of the unconscious. In the author’s opinion Matte- Blanco’s concept can also be juxtaposed with Freud's topographic model – for better understanding of the course of the psychoanalytic session, the process of analysis as well as for discovering a required degree of engagement in the interaction of the analytic pair at a particular moment. The paper is just a start of an immersion into the multiplicity of Matte-Blanco’s views and implies a continuation in the form of subsequent papers that will reveal the phenomena of a fundamental antinomy, the multidimensionality of mental space, etc., that will allow a different look at the traditional perception of various psychoanalytic phenomena.