Engraving representations and identity search

Presented at XXII Valcamonica Symposium Rock art in the frame of the Cultural Heritage of Humankind

2007, May 30

S. Freud’s psychoanalysis definition is: a combination of psychic apparatus investigation instrument and a therapeutic method to treat neurosis. His first interest was concentrated on treatment of hysteria and demaentia praecox cases, then he revealed that same psychic mechanism that could be found at the basis of  nevrotic and psychotic sympthoms, could also be found, even if on a different degree, in dreams, lapsus of normal people.
Psychoanalysis became an investigation and interpretation instrument of many other manifestations of human being behaviour; among them art, poesy, religion and social phenomena.
Furthermore psychoanalysis has revealed that traces of adult mind can be found in children-s one and it  enlarged its interests to the beginning of civilization, pointing out that ontogenesis is a short repetition of phylogenies. For this reason Freud was called “psyche archaeologist”.
This was just to remind similarity between archaeologists’ and psychoanalysts work and to explain why among agreements and disagreements a comparison is always possible. But to make this comparison fertile of further openings its necessary to accept each other differences, which means, in psychological words, to go over egocentric language and use a communication mean that can be shared.
In psychonalysis such step requires the overpass of a resistance that arrives (not always) in analytical relation, thanks to positive transference between patient and psychoanalyst. If it does not occur, any exchange or acquisition will be temporary.
In  my work I’ve verified hat for some people (non only children), it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to follow psychoanalytical rule of free associations. In such cases the overpass of narcissistic position and communication of preconscious/conscious material, must go through a perceptive mean such as photographs or other graphic expressions such as designs, plans, diaries, ecc.
I would like to share with you some considerations on the origin and function of engraving representations, making hypothesis  that there is a relation between those made by our ancestors and those produced and studied in psychoanalitycal cabinets.
Marta Vigneri says: “…scientists should be concerned not only about the survival of past time, but also about how it survives. It is particularly important in artistic production”.
Interpretation of rock art has brought many scientists of different matters, to the hypothesis of possible meanings, life stile, habits, practical abilities and mental knowledge of our ancestors. Among the some psychoanalysts have affirmed that traces left by our ancestors might demonstrate their need to differentiate themselves from the environment, including other human being; a mean to leave traces that  can be recognized by themselves and the others.
N. Peluffo has stated: “…I don’t regret the hypothesis regarding de-fusion processes that lead to acknowledge of myself as a separated entity from other similar or different. For example my hand engraved on the rock, in a world without mirrors, makes me able to recongnize it and to compare it with someone else hand. In a world where sensibility, perception, motricity and action are main knowing methods, engraved hand gives me the opportunity to keep somewhere my photograph. Myself-hand is in the grave.”
It is interesting to notice that this same symbol of hand impression as identification sign,  recurs also in tales and legends.
I can give some example: one can be found along the western Italian coast at Gaeta, in the so called “broken mountain”. People believe that the earthquake that determined the deep split of the rock on the sea, coincides with Jesus Christ’s death. On one side of the rock one can see five furrows. A Latin inscription reminds the legend according to which a Turkish who did not trust the divine miracle, had applied with scorn his hand on the rock. A new miracle had happened and the unbeliever hand had slinked into the rock leaving its impression.
An other example is Fatima’s hand jewel very widespread in the East, inspired to Mahomet’s daughter legend. The jewel represents Fatima’s suffering for her husband treason; the legend tales that she put her hand into the boiling water.
In both cases hand should be the symbol representing the trace of a traumatic event: earthquake and treason.
Few years ago Disney Picture Production made a cartoon entitled “Koda a brother bear”. It’s a story that takes place at the end of glacial era and tales the story of a clan and the relation between man and totem. There too, in some scenes of the movie, engraved hands are represented and we can find reference to separation/identification mechanisms: young men during passing rite to adult life should leave their impression on the rock, in order to state their identity and distinguish themselves from animals.
In Bergamo, last year, during the night a teen ager has tapestried the city with hand impressions made with a red spray. He was then captured, and admitted his fault, but nobody knows, maybe neither himself, the reason of his action: a way to sign territory, to say “the city is mine” or a trial to search his identity?

Biological birth does not coincide with psychological one which requires certain acquisitions and time to complete separation/identification process.
Pioneers of infantile psychoanalysis and among them M.S. Mahler, affirm that such process takes place between 4/5th and 36th month and it proceeds through his own body and his mother’s body, until the construction of a personal identity with specific characteristics.
On perceptive plan, hands is, without any doubt, the first part of the body that baby starts to know since intrauterine life, by sucking and then looking.
Psychoanalysts, mainly if they work with children, often have the opportunity to see artistic production of their patients.
Design is also important in diagnostic process and in psychotherapy because as younger is the child as often he represents his inside world with design.
Masal Pas Bagdadi has published a collection of her patients’ designs. The book is entitled “Who am I?”. She writes: “ as dreams the design does not correspond to the reality, but it takes some hints from it…children don’t’ reproduce outside reality, but inside reality pushed by the curiosity to know themselves.

	Emmanuel Anati La struttura elementare dell'arte

As I said before, sometimes, in consequence of inhibitions to express his own thought in abstract form, engravings can be the main instruments that psychoanalysts may utilize to stimulate projection of polyedric Ego faceting and facilitate reconstruction re-introjections of a more integrated image.
I can give an example presenting a clinical case: Valentina, a young student who spent several sessions seated in a coin of my cabinet, showing an appositive and suspicious behaviour. One day she asked me why she had always designed horses. Spontaneously I gave her pencil and paper and in this way a communication channel was opened, over passing language obstacle.
She had good artistic skill, as a matter of fact her beloved subject was horse, while she had trouble in designing human being, except those who did not have a clear sexual characteristic, such as legendary people or sacred images.
It is interesting to point out similarity with timing succession of human figure appearance in children and in rock art. It is possible that a 2/3 years old child’s scrawls are first attempt to represent part of his body or his mother’s body, but in order to draw a figure that can be identified as a human being, we must still wait some years and the acquisition of a better control of fine motricity.
The patient had very few social relations, a strange behaviour that discouraged the approach. She told me about strange perceptions (pseudo-hallucinations) very hard to describe by words and very similar to hypnotic state. Sometimes they assumed more common characteristics; they were idealized images that might have a bright or persecutive aspect. On them Valentina had bonded her sexual/aggressive drives. The possibility to design them during psychoanalytical sessions made Valentina able to give them a tangible representation and so she could identify a faceting of her own Ego.
I think that for a patient to give his drawings to the psychoanalysis might have same value as for our ancestors to draw their images in the grave: away from atmospheric agents they where preserved untouched and in confusing identity moments one could go and make a comparison.
So it happened to Valentine: after quite a long interruption of the sessions, she came back to see her drawings, when her personality disorder had assumed the shape of sexual identity doubt.
She went back to her favourite position (seated on the floor) but this time, beside horses, she tried also to represent her ego ideal. She designed a hybrid image called “butch”. The word derives from “butcher” and it is used by certain female homosexual associations, in reference to a very strong man, similar to American marines.
Psychoanalysis went on working on designs and photos at the same time and Valentina could recuperate a rich infantile material.
Since she was a baby she had been obsessed by the doubt of her sexual identity and her background. She thought that if she really was her mother’s daughter she should have born male.
Her phantasy was rich of heroes taken from tales, roman or sacred images. Her favourite tales hero was Valentino who flew on a winged horse and saved a village from an enormous whale and married the princess. Comparison between heroes, horses and her grandmother photographs, revealed incredible similarities. Valentina’s designs show her attempt to identify herself with an infantile personage, very strong, unbreakable, right and honest: her grandmother.
Probably the young woman psychological situation was caused by a traumatic event that marked the family: some years before Valentina’s birth, her mother generated a female baby who died right after she was born. The fact became a family secret, nobody could talk about it and it provoked a continuous sense of guilty in family women.

A sort of wandering phantom of a dead person looking for burial. By the way the died newborn was not buried. Valentina who was born five years later, had inherited Edipo’s feelings: she believed to be the author of a murderer and the usurper of a place that did not belong to her. The phantasy of being a male could permit to cancel the crime; on the contrary, the reality of her gender identity obliged Valentina to face sense of guilty and castration phantom.

CONCLUSIONS

E. Anati wrote that once Sapiens appeared, man became also an artist. “…art production is not only a capacity, but a need of human being.” Anati talks about the need to leave traces, to satisfy a psychophysical discharge and to communicate.
Psychoanalyst can verify the truth of this statement. In my exposition I’ve tried to demonstrate that, except for children, engravings become an instrument of communication when language is made difficult by fixation to precocious developing states. From this point of view design might have the function to treat a wound: extroflection of a divide Ego and re-introjection of a more united structure.

© Bruna Marzi

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Bibliography:

E. Anati, 1995, “Origini dell’arte e dellla concettualità: alcune considerazioni”, Valcamonica Symposium, CCSP.
S. Freu , 1974, “Sulla psicoanalisi”, Opere Vol VI, B. Boringhieri, Torino
M. S. Mahler, 1978, “La nascita psicologica del bambino”, Boringhieri, Torino.
Malde Vigneri, 2005, Psicoanalisi e preistoria in “ Il centro dell’uomo”, a cura di François Sacco Georges Sauvet,  Flaccovio Editore, Palermo.
Masal Pas Bagdadi, 2006, “CHI SONO IO? La ricerca dell’identità attraverso ildisegno”, Franco Angeli, Milano.
N. Peluffo, 2004, “Memoria e arte preistorica”, in atti del XXI Valcamonica Symposium, CCSP,  Capo di Ponte.