TY - JOUR A1 - Stein, Ruth T1 - Some thoughts on self-disclosure and the danger-safety balance in the therapeutic relationship JF - Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 12 (2002), pp. 393-420. N2 - The letter to the September 11, 2001 terrorists is analyzed in an effort to understand the state of mind of a religious suicide-killer. The letter has a solemn, serene, even joyful tone that is infused with love of God and a strong desire to please Him. The author suggests that incessant incantation of prayers and religious sayings while focusing attention on God led to a depersonalized, trancelike state of mind that enabled the terrorists to function competently while dwelling in a euphoric state. On a psychodynamic level, the theme of father–son love is used to explain the ecstatic willingness of the terrorists to do what they saw as God's will and to follow transformations from (self) hate to love (of God), and from anxiety and discontent to the a narrowly focused fear of God. Homoerotic bonding and longing, coupled with repudiation of >femininity,< are explained as an inability to >kill< the primal murderous father, as the mythological Primal Horde. Freud's description of sons' (group members') hypnotic love for their father leader (which, that when not reciprocated, turns into masochistic submission), seems pertinent for the understanding of the sons' >return< to an archaic, cruel father imago. >Regression< to the father is compared with classical maternal regression. Y1 - 2002 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stein, Ruth T1 - Reply to Symposium on the Grünbaum Debate JF - Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 11 (2001), pp. 431-450. N2 - In this review of Ritual and Spontaneity in the Psychoanalytic Process, I suggest that Irwin Hoffman's claim that his proposed paradigm of constructivism is revolutionary becomes more comprehensible and substantial if we realize that constructivism not only is an epistemological stance but is a profoundly ethical and even theological position that sees construction as construction in the face of death. The pronounced dialectical approach Hoffman is espousing and developing enables us to see the underside of uncertainty not only as epistemological complexity but as the ever present potential for moral fallibility and guilt. Y1 - 2001 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stein, Ruth T1 - Psychoanalytic Expertise JF - Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 09 (1999), pp. 811-823. Y1 - 1999 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stein, Ruth T1 - Money, love, and hate contradiction and paradox in psychoanalysis JF - Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 08 (1998), pp. 547-560. Y1 - 1998 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stein, Ruth T1 - Introduction: Hermeneutics and you JF - Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 07 (1997), pp. 869-880. Y1 - 1997 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stein, Ruth T1 - Dialectics Forever: Reply to Commentaries JF - Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 05 (1995), pp. 301-310. Y1 - 1995 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stein, Ruth T1 - Descending the Therapeutic Slopes – Slippery, Slipperier, Slipperiest: Commentary on Papers by Barbara Pizer and by Glen O. Gabbard JF - Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 05 (1995), pp. 257-289. N2 - Excerpts from prolonged analytic work with a multiply traumatized young man who deliberated a sex-change operation are presented, highlighting some problematics in the treatment of transsexualism, a gender-identity disturbance that may become significant in recent psychoanalytic and cultural discourse on self and gender. The paper aims both to report some >technical< issues in such an analysis and to throw some light on such themes as identification, domination and submission, sadomasochism and guilt and shame, narcissistic entitlement and empowerment, desire and recognition, gender and difference, and the vertiginously multiple meanings and emotional elaborations of masculinity and femininity. The analytic itinerary is recounted with emphasis on diverse relational approaches that were attempted to fit the delicate balance of the patient's needs, his quasi-delusional transferences, and his capacity to persevere in a mutually >nightmarish,< though possible and feasible psychoanalysis. Y1 - 1995 ER -