@article{Goldman, author = {Goldman, Dodi}, title = {Transformations of Desire and Despair Reflections on the Termination Process from a Relational Perpective}, series = {Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Vol. 15 (2005), pp. 379-394.}, journal = {Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Vol. 15 (2005), pp. 379-394.}, abstract = {This commentary on papers by Neil Altman and Rachel Peltz argues that while the type of political culture in which one lives has a significant impact on the practice of psychoanalysis, no direct line can be drawn from psychoanalytic theory to any particular political persuasion. It is one thing to argue that psychoanalytic insights offer a way of thinking about political relations it is quite another to suggest that they can be used to promote or justify a political agenda. While Altman and Peltz theorize about the negative impact of manic defense in contemporary culture, this commentary suggests that there are natural fluctuations in one's ability to respect inner reality and a degree of manic defense employed in everyday life that is quite normal. We all use reality to gain reassurance against death inside. But, when we are >distracted from distraction by distraction< (Eliot, 1971, p. 120) external objects are prematurely deadened so that the needed reassurance through external reality becomes increasingly elusive. Challenging some of Altman and Peltz's political assumptions, the commentary suggests that if psychoanalysis is to contribute to the political realm, it must do so on the basis of how it differs from other approaches to understanding what it means to be a human being.}, language = {en} } @article{Goldman, author = {Goldman, Dodi}, title = {Reply to Renik and Spezzano}, series = {Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 11 (2001), pp. 269-281.}, journal = {Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 11 (2001), pp. 269-281.}, abstract = {In responding to Dr. Fairfield's paper, I offer a somewhat personal statement about my own intellectual evolution and changes in the cultural landscape during the past few decades. I argue that postmodernism subsumes such dissimilar phenomena that it is virtually impossible to take a stand either for or against it. Accepting Fairfield's contention that analysts adhering to an allegedly postmodern view of subjectivity often surreptitiously reintroduce modernist elements in their thinking, I express serious doubt whether there is any discipline that could accurately claim to be >consistently postmodern.< I see Fairfield's argument that >any description we give of subjectivity is no more and no less a story than any other< as only half right. Conceptualizing selfhood or subjectivity >not as an entity but as another language for the way a person inclusively symbolizes experience,< I argue that, although cultures and individuals may vary enormously in the >story< they tell as to the content of their inclusive symbols of experience, the process of forming an inclusive symbol is of a different order, where the word story seems hardly to apply. I use a clinical example to highlight how, from an analytic point of view, the core affective processes that allow someone to come together to feel something meaningful are more important than the way in which subjectivity is conceptualized. I conclude by noting how even those analysts who feel comfortable riding the current postmodern wave seem to struggle to withstand its dangerous undertow. I suggest that analysts remain pluralists about postmodernism - believing in postmodern fashion that there is a variety of narratives to be told of postmodernism too, some more congenial to analytic work than others.}, language = {en} }