Visual disturbance as occult communication

Abstract

This article is an elaboration of an idea of Nina Coltart to do with using one's first impressions of a patient. I consider this a form of phantasy communication and link it to a classic, but neglected, text which considered such matters, Psychoanalysis and the Occult (Devereux: 1953). Next I provide clinical and other examples of such visual disturbance. My thinking is that transference/councertransference often involves fleeting, visual eruptions of primary process which can be thought of as occult communications.