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The term primal refers to the [[totality ]] of representations produced at the very beginning of [[mental ]] [[life ]] before there is any differentiation between [[internal ]] and [[external]], [[psyche ]] and soma.

The primal should not be confused with the origin of [[fantasy ]] life, but is an early expression of it and has its own [[contents ]] and its own [[logic]]. Never directly observable, the primal and its functioning can only be inferred, notably in the [[processes ]] characteristic of [[psychosis ]] (although psychosis is not reducible to these).

The primal was not used as the [[name ]] of a [[category ]] by Sigmund [[Freud]], who contrasted the primary processes, describing the [[unconscious ]] [[system ]] and the free flow of [[psychic ]] [[energy]], to the secondary processes, describing the [[preconscious]]-[[conscious ]] system and the binding of energy that allows for postponement of [[satisfaction]]. Freud felt the [[need ]] for a term to describe that which is prior to the primary processes and would precede [[individual ]] life [[experience]], constituting a sort of a priori framework in which the events in the psychic life of each unique individual would be inscribed. In his view, the "archaic heritage forms the nucleus of the unconscious [[mind]]" (1919e, p. 204), the equivalent of [[instincts ]] in animals in that it is innate and inherited based on phylogenetic traces. The [[primitive ]] phases of the [[human ]] [[family ]] thus survive in each individual [[subject ]] and are rediscovered by the [[child ]] according to his or her [[particular ]] life experiences: "In the [[case ]] of human [[being]]. . .this phytogenetic point of view is partly veiled by the fact that what is at bottom inherited is nevertheless freshly acquired in the [[development ]] of the individual, probably because the same [[conditions ]] which originally necessitated its acquisition persist and continue to operate upon each individual" (354-355) (passim) (Introductory Lectures on [[Psychoanalysis ]] (1916-1917) [1915-1917]).

Thus, Freud's [[thinking ]] on the origins of psychic life did indeed involve a "primal" defined on both a historical level (humanity's prehistory) and a [[biological ]] level (the transmission of traces). With his [[notion ]] of "primal [[fantasies]]," Freud provided some elements of the contents of these traces, but their [[structure ]] was considered identical to the one that generally [[exists ]] between all events and their [[memory ]] traces. The only [[difference ]] lay in his hypothesis that what has become fantasy was a [[reality ]] in primal [[times]].

The notion of the primal was studied by later [[psychoanalysts]], not as a phylogenetically inscribed prehistory, but rather as the point of emergence of the earliest representations. In a certain [[sense]], [[psychoanalytic ]] thinking on the primal has been mainly informed by the [[Freudian ]] notion of [[hallucinatory ]] [[wish]]-fulfillment (The [[Interpretation ]] of [[Dreams ]] [1900]). For example, that notion is found in the [[work ]] of Melanie [[Klein]], who distinguished an "unconscious fantasy" that is linked to [[sensation ]] and stems from the [[instinctual ]] impulses themselves. These fantasies quickly become susceptible to being fixed in the [[form ]] of [[visual]], kinesthetic, tactile, gustatory, or olfactory [[images]]. Only secondarily can these fantasies become associated with representations of [[external reality]], and later, under certain conditions (e.g., [[analysis ]] or the child's spontaneous play) capable of being verbally expressed. However, they remain very remote from both [[words ]] and conscious relational [[thought]], and they are governed by emotional logic (Isaacs). At this level, there is no differentiation between mind and [[body]], since overall primitive experience and the corporeal [[schemata ]] associated with it are the determining factors. Traces of this primitive functioning are found in psychosis and [[hypochondria]]. [[Working ]] within a [[Kleinian ]] [[theoretical ]] [[model]], Wilfred R. Bion in Learning from Experience (1962) described the primal as being "at the source of experience," defining something prior to thought made up of sensory impressions translated into mnemic traces (alpha elements). The [[psychotic]], who cannot effect this [[translation]], must contend with sensory impressions in a raw form (beta elements) that cannot be represented as [[thing]]-presentations or [[word]]-presentations. This [[situation ]] constitutes not a primal functioning of thought but its failure. However, this failure makes it possible to locate what would otherwise have been unfathomable because it normally undergoes transformation.

[[Clinical ]] experience with psychotic [[patients ]] also provided Piera Aulagnier with the basis for her development of the notion of the primal. In Aulagnier's [[theory]], mental [[activity ]] is made up of [[three ]] modes of functioning: the primal with the pictogram, the primary with the fantasy, and the secondary with the [[idea]]. These three processes go into effect in succession (following a genetic perspective), but then remain [[active ]] simultaneously. However, as she wrote in The [[Violence ]] of Interpretation: From Pictogram to [[Statement]]: "The [[psychical ]] '[[objects]]' produced by the primal are as heterogeneous to the structure of the secondary, as is the structure of the objects of the [[physical ]] [[world ]] that the I encounters and of which it will only [[know ]] the [[representation ]] that it makes of it" (p. 4). The primal [[process ]] has its own logic. By pictogram, Aulagnier means a representation corresponding to the requirements imposed by the body on psychic [[apparatus ]] (cf. the Freudian definition of the [[instinct]]). But the pictogram's main characteristic is that it is unaware of the [[duality ]] between sensory [[organ ]] and external [[object]]. It is a relational [[schema ]] in which the [[representative ]] is reflected as identical to the world. This implies an extension of the Freudian notion of primary [[narcissism]], but with an original theoretical adjunct. As Aulagnier explained in the same book: "What psychical activity contemplates and cathects in the pictogram is this [[reflection ]] of itself, which ensures that, between psychical [[space ]] and the space [[outside]]-the-psyche, there exists a relation of reciprocal [[identity ]] and specularisation" (p. 25).

Aulagnier's theory of the primal opened the way to a new [[understanding ]] of psychosis. Psychosis can in no way be considered a [[regression ]] to a primal mode, although in the destructiveness of the psychotic process we [[encounter ]] modalities of functioning that are no longer prevalent in [[other ]] contexts.

# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1916-1917 [1915-1917]). Introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. Parts I and II, SE, 15]]