Playing Dead
An Unconscious Fantasy, Bodily Focused Defenses, and Their Roots in Infancy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8334656 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sally Moskowitz (307 Seventh Avenue, Suite 2203 New York, NY 10001, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2005 |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 891-916 |
| Publication date | 2005-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0651 • E-ISSN: 1941-2460 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00030651050530031701 |
| PMID | 16187638 |
| OpenAlex | W2146268127 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 27 |
A patient's unconscious fantasy of being her mother's dead baby emerged during the course of a long analysis, and was understood asherexpression andexplanation, constructedandelaborated throughout her development, of a fundamental and formative early infant state and experience. This patient's identification with a baby who had died before she was born was connected to her major complaint, a pervasive feeling that she could not act with intention, and to her obsessive ruminations, compulsive actions, and masochistic attacks on her body. The bodily based aspects and focus of these defenses were autistic-like, self-directed activities that can be understood as having their roots in what was experienced as catastrophic loss in the earliest weeks and months of life. Infant research, particularly on contingency detection, is especially useful in clarifying the ways in which these defenses may form, and in reconstructing and tracing the trajectories and intricate transformations of body ego, self- and other representations, and defenses from their earliest beginnings to their current manifestations in patients' fantasies and symptoms
Art · Developmental psychology · Fantasy · Literature · Psychoanalysis · Unconscious mind · Child and Animal Learning Development · Child Therapy and Development · Infant Health and Development · Psychology
Infants of Depressed Mothers Show "Depressed" Behavior Even with Nondepressed Adults
Adhesive Identification
Three-Month-Old Infants' Reaction to Simulated Maternal Depression
Taking the intentional stance at 12 months of age
Some Comments on Masochism and the Delusion of Omnipotence From A Developmental Perspective
Representation and internalization in infancy
Reapproaching Mahler
Detection of intermodal proprioceptive–visual contingency as a potential basis of self-perception in infancy
Violation of expectancy, loss of control, and anger expressions in young infants
Mind and Its Relation to the Psyche‐soma
Pathological Defenses in Infancy
Emotions and emotional communication in infants
Some Early Prototypes of Ego Defenses
Borderline Personality Organization
The Irrelevance of Infant Observations for Psychoanalysis
The contribution of mother-infant mutual influence to the origins of self- and object representations
Unconscious Fantasy and Disturbances of Conscious Experience
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |