OPERATIONAL THINKING

The expression operational thinking was introduced by Michel de M'Uzan and Pierre Marty in 1962 at the Barcelona psychoanalytic congress, based on a so-called psychosomatic approach. It is conceived as a deficient form of thought that is quasi-conscious, without organic links to dreaming, fantasy, or symbolization. It is almost instrumental in nature, and suggests the idea of deementalization. Like "basic depression," operational thinking is said to function as a defensive system and possibly as a structural, antitraumatic factor; in this role, however, it would be liable to introduce an element of disorganization that could lead to somatic disorders. Early on, operational thinking was cast in a metapsychological light within the framework of Freud's first topography; later, it played a role in the second topography (or structural model) and in the second theory of the drives.

This type of thinking repeats and illustrates action, preceding or following it within a limited temporal span. It does not work according to an associative system and elements in it are treated as pieces of the present; it is ostensibly without symbolic scope or trophic sublimatory value. It is thus subjected to reality without signifying it, causing a reduction in the libidinal value of the elements of this reality. These criteria cause it to be conceived as a psychopathological type of thought.

Operative thinking is also linked in this view to deficiencies in the play of identification as well as in all emotional involvement; it renders all relationships "blank" inasmuch as others are considered to be identical to the subject, evoking "projective duplication." Operational thinking reflects behavior that, while socialized, appears as if it is imposed by purely adaptational requirements. By placing emphasis on the economic dimension, it can be described as an archaic breakdown of the evolution of the primary process with libidinal degradation; the processes of investment thus remain at the archaic level, favoring the instrumental functions of life—to the detriment of adequate secondarization—with pseudo-mastery standing in for a sound integration of reality.

This notion has become a clinical construct in psychosomatic disorders and has been theoretically and clinically fleshed out, highlighting the traits that are dynamic in dimension, notably on the relational level, in L'investigation psychosomatique (Psychosomatic research; 1985). This book dealing with operational thinking and served as the rallying point for the group of psychoanalysts dubbed theÉcole psychosomatique de Paris (Psychosomatic School of Paris).

Marty has extended the notion of "operational" to other aspects of mental life besides thinking, and these together, in his view, made up "operational life." Combining this with the notion of basic depression in the first volume of Les mouvements individuels de vie et de mort (The individual movements of life and death; 1976), he defined the framework of a quasi-structural approach that is both a defensive system against trauma and a participating element in what he called "progressive disorganization."

The original theorists of operative thinking privileged the role of the first Freudian topography and—Marty in particular—the flawed category of the preconscious. It should be noted that in the context of Marty's model of progressive disorganization, the death instinct is not the same thing as the death drive in Freudian theory. Present-day authors tend to place operational thought in the context of the second Freudian topography and the death drive, including self-destructiveness.

Alain Fine

See also: Actual; Essential depression; Marty, Pierre; Secondary revision.

Bibliography

Fine, Alain. (1995). L'opératoire comme négatif de la réalité psychique. Revue française de psychanalyse, 59, (1), 173-186.

Marty, Pierre. (1976). Les Mouvements individuels de la vie et de mort (Vol. 1: Essai d'economie psychosomatique ). Paris: Payot.

——. (1980). Les Mouvements individuels de la vie et de mort (Vol. 2: L'Ordre psychosomatique ). Paris: Payot.

Marty, Pierre, and de M'Uzan Michel (1963). La pensée opératoire. Intervention sur le rapport de M. Fain et Ch. David: Aspects fonctionnels de la view onirique. XXIIIe Congrès des psychanalystes de langues romanes, Barcelona, 1962. Revue française de psychanalyse, 27, 345-356.

Smadja, Claude. (1998). Le fonctionnement opératoire dans la pratique psychosomatique: LVIIIe Congrès des psychanalystes de langue française des pays romansà Lausanne. Revue française de psychanalyse, 62, 5, 1367-1440.