Fantasy and the Process of Fantasy-Building <sup/>

Revisiting Freud's metapsychology regarding unconscious fantasy, and taking stock of Michel de M'Uzan's exemplary study of the problem of unconscious affect, the author contends that, strictly speaking, no more than there are truly unconscious affects, there are no unconscious fantasies. Instead, the author describes a process of fantasy-building, briefly illustrated with clinical material and put to the test of other psychoanalytic conceptualizations such as primal fantasies, <i>après-coup</i>, psychosomatic theory and the masochistic fantasy in Freud's "A child is being beaten."

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Publication Details

Journal
Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
Published
2025-09-28
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/00030651251357821
Primary Topic
Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

Fantasy and the Process of Fantasy-Building <sup/>

Dominique Scarfone
Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
article

Fantasy and the Process of Fantasy-Building <sup/>

Dominique Scarfone
article en

Abstract

Revisiting Freud's metapsychology regarding unconscious fantasy, and taking stock of Michel de M'Uzan's exemplary study of the problem of unconscious affect, the author contends that, strictly speaking, no more than there are truly unconscious affects, there are no unconscious fantasies. Instead, the author describes a process of fantasy-building, briefly illustrated with clinical material and put to the test of other psychoanalytic conceptualizations such as primal fantasies, <i>après-coup</i>, psychosomatic theory and the masochistic fantasy in Freud's "A child is being beaten."

Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
Openalex Percentile: Top 62%
Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
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Fantasy and the Process of Fantasy-Building <sup/> — Dominique Scarfone · Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (2025) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS