TY - JOUR A1 - Goldner, Virginia T1 - >The Light Militia of the Lower Sky<: The Deeper Nature of Dreaming and Phantasying JF - Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 01 (1991), pp. 249-272. N2 - This article analyzes and critiques the construct of gender as a psychoanalytic and cultural category. Without succumbing to a nonpsychoanalytic notion of androgyny, the argument developed here challenges the assumption that an internally consistent gender identity is possible or even desirable. Beginning with the idea that, from an analytic perspective, the construct of >identity< is problematic and implausible, because it denotes and privileges a unified psychic world, the author develops a deconstructionist critique of our dominant gender-identity paradigm. It is argued that gender coherence, consistency, conformity, and identity are culturally mandated normative ideals that psychoanalysis has absorbed uncritically. These ideals, moreover, are said to create a universal pathogenic situation, insofar as the attempt to conform to their dictates requires the activation of a false self system. An alternative, >decentered< gender paradigm is then proposed, which conceives of gender as a >necessary fiction< that is used for magical ends in the psyche, the family, and the culture. From this perspective, gender identity is seen as a problem as well as a solution, a defensive inhibition as well as an accomplishment. It is suggested that as a goal for analytic treatment, the ability to tolerate the ambiguity and instability of gender categories is more appropriate than the goal of >achieving< a single, pure, sex-appropriate view of oneself. Y1 - 1991 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Goldner, Virginia T1 - Commentary on trop and Stolorow's >defense analysis in self psychology< JF - Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 04 (1994), pp. 583-594. Y1 - 1994 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Goldner, Virginia T1 - Dialogues and Monologues JF - Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 05 (1995), pp. 311-315. Y1 - 1995 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Goldner, Virginia T1 - Supervision Is a Relationship Too: A Contemporary Approach to Psychoanalytic Supervision JF - Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 12 (2002), pp. 537-543. N2 - In its psychic action, the writing and revelation of Janine de Peyer's essay create a parallel process for the reader that must reflect the uncertain pleasures and unsettling demands of the case itself. By taking us into the intimate vortex of therapeutic work with this sexually aggressive and traumatized patient, the author is challenged to write with sufficient specificity to illuminate the psychic and technical demands on the analyst without lapsing into a confessional narrative that defaults into a subtle exhibitionism – a genre that allows the reader to evade the work of identification by becoming an ambivalent voyeur instead. Holding the tension between these two positions in treatment and in writing about such treatment is the focus of this commentary. Y1 - 2002 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Goldner, Virginia T1 - The Rhythm of Recognition Comments on the Work of Louis Sander JF - Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Vol. 14 (2004), pp. 381-396. N2 - Can Love Last? The Fate of Romance Over Time by Stephen A. Mitchell (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2002, 224 pp.) In Can Love Last, Stephen Mitchell deconstructed the resistances – personal, metapsychological, and cultural – to sustaining vibrant and intimate sexual relationships over the long haul. This discussion is concerned with the way in which Mitchell's emphasis on risk shortchanged the importance of safety in long-term romantic passion. By showing how security and dependency needs can fuel rather than dampen eros, the author proposes an alternative thesis. Y1 - 2004 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Goldner, Virginia T1 - Therapeutic impasses in contemporary psychoanalytic treatment: Revisiting the double bind hypothesis JF - Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Vol. 15 (2005), pp. 105-117. N2 - This commentary focuses on how psychoanalysts may theorize the therapeutic action of reading and hearing poetry. It is argued that poetic action is a densely layered one- and two-person process that achieves its psychological effects by potentiating the mental space that is >thirdness,< in Jessica Benjamin's (2004) lexicon. Beginning with ideas about how poetry works on a single subjectivity, Goldner then considers the complex intersubjective and mutative processes that are set in motion when an analyst reads a poem to a patient. Building on Bollas's (1987) construct, the >transformational object< and on Ogden's (1998, 1999) and Akhtar's (2000) theories of poetic action, the author proposes that poetry can be usefully understood as a >transformational third.< Y1 - 2005 ER -