TY - JOUR A1 - McLaughlin, Neil T1 - The coming triumph of the psychosocial perspective: lessons from the rise, fall and revival of Erich Fromm JF - Journal of Psychosocial Studies, Vol. 12( No. 1-2, 2019), pp. 9–22, Y1 - 2019 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rudnytsky, Peter L. T1 - Othello and Macbeth: Complementary Borderline Pathologies at the Basic Fault JF - P. Rudnytsky: Formulated Experiences. Hidden Realities and Emergent Meanings from Shakespeare to Fromm, London and New York (Routledge) 2019, pp. 167-186. N2 - This chapter employs Caroline Polmear’s contemporary reinterpretation of Michael Balint’s concept of the basic fault as a lens through which to read Othello and Macbeth. In Polmear’s view, borderline pathology arises due to a traumatic rupture in the primal bond between mother and child, and it can take the form of either ocnophilia (clinging to people) or philobatism (clinging to spaces). It is proposed that Othello and Macbeth are representations of these complementary character-types. Othello cannot tolerate any separation from Desdemona, while Macbeth retreats into schizoid isolation. The handkerchief, the loss of which is tantamount to the loss of Desdemona’s love, was received by Othello from his mother at the time of her death, while in Macbeth the rupture of the mother-child bond is figured both in Macduff’s having been >untimely ripped< from his mother’s womb and by Lady Macbeth’s description of killing the baby that was nursing at her breast. Two clinical examples—one of an actual patient, the other of Philip Roth—are offered to illustrate the reciprocal interplay of literature and psychoanalysis. It is argued that the traditional notion of >applied psychoanalysis< should be replaced by what might be called, following Shoshana Felman, >implied psychoanalysis,< or what Fromm has called >literary psychoanalysis.< Y1 - 2019 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rudnytsky, Peter L. T1 - The Indispensability of Erich Fromm: The Rehabilitation of a >Forgotten< Psychoanalyst JF - P. Rudnytsky: Formulated Experiences. Hidden Realities and Emergent Meanings from Shakespeare to Fromm, London and New York (Routledge) 2019, pp. 70-103. N2 - This chapter provides a comprehensive overview and rehabilitation of Erich Fromm’s importance as a psychoanalyst. Fromm is lauded for having been an unsurpassed analyst of psychoanalytic politics and the incarnation of what it means to be an independent psychoanalyst, who was unjustly attacked both by orthodox analysts and by his erstwhile colleagues in the Frankfurt School. His 1935 essay, >The Social Determinants of Psychoanalytic Therapy,< in which the influence of Ferenczi and Groddeck is directly acknowledged, and his 1959 book, Sigmund Freud’s Mission, are hailed as summits of his achievement, while The Greatness and Limitations of Freud’s Thought shows him in decline. Three weak points in Fromm’s thought are identified: (1) his tendency to flatten out an individual level of analysis into a purely social level; (2) his penchant for shifting the blame for the problems in psychoanalysis away from Freud onto his followers; and (3) his assumption that motherly love is unconditional. Fromm’s defense of radical humanism is compared with that of Orwell, and it is shown to be grounded not only in philosophy but above all in natural science in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. Y1 - 2019 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rudnytsky, Peter L. T1 - Groddeck’s Lessons JF - P. Rudnytsky: Formulated Experiences. Hidden Realities and Emergent Meanings from Shakespeare to Fromm, London and New York (Routledge) 2019, pp. 152-163. N2 - This chapter examines both >Groddeck’s teaching,< in the sense of the enduing value of his contributions to psychoanalysis, as well as >Groddeck’s lessons,< that is, what we can learn from his blind spots. The question of who is a psychoanalyst stands at the center of Groddeck’s relationship to Freud, and in accepting Groddeck’s assertion that transference and resistance are the >hubs of treatment,< Freud offers his most expansive definition of a psychoanalyst. Groddeck’s genius is most fully displayed in The Book of the It, the epistolary form of which casts him at once in the roles of analyst and patient. From Groddeck’s biography, it is clear that he was an extremely traumatized individual, as is further attested by his analysis in Letter 25 of his penchant for the number 26,783. But Groddeck does not recognize that he has been traumatized, and his one-sided theory that the It is >responsible for everything< reflects his inability to give due weight to environmental factors. Despite his astonishing candor, Groddeck never discusses his divorce from his first wife or the tragic story of his daughter Barbara, wounds that must have too painful for him to expose to the gaze of the reading public. Y1 - 2019 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rudnytsky, Peter L. T1 - Freud, Ferenczi, Fromm: The Authoritarian Character as Magic Helper JF - P. Rudnytsky: Formulated Experiences. Hidden Realities and Emergent Meanings from Shakespeare to Fromm, London and New York (Routledge) 2019, pp. 104-114. N2 - This chapter employs Fromm’s concept of the >magic helper< to analyze the symbiotic nature of the Freud-Ferenczi relationship. Because both sadists and masochists, according to Fromm, are unable to tolerate genuine freedom, the sadist is dependent on the masochist, no less than the masochist is dependent on the sadist. As Clara Thompson, who was in analysis with both Ferenczi and Fromm, recognized, Ferenczi suffered from his need to be loved and accepted by Freud, and unconsciously resented him for that reason. Fromm’s contrast between the >original self< and the >pseudo self< parallels Winnicott’s antithesis between the True Self and the False Self, as well as Horney’s antinomy between the >real self< and >phony self.< Marcuse’s critique of Fromm is based on an adherence to Freud’s outmoded drive theory. Whereas Freud plays the role of what Daniel Shaw calls the >traumatizing narcissist< in his relationship with Ferenczi, Ferenczi, until his emancipation in his final years, exhibits the deformations resulting from what Bernard Brandchaft calls >pathological accommodation.< Y1 - 2019 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rudnytsky, Peter L. T1 - Freud as Milton’s God: Mapping the Patriarchal Cosmos in Psychoanalysis and Paradise Lost JF - P. Rudnytsky: Formulated Experiences. Hidden Realities and Emergent Meanings from Shakespeare to Fromm, London and New York (Routledge) 2019, pp. 39-69. N2 - This chapter offers a proto-Frommian reading of Paradise Lost. The opening section reviews the debate between >theological< and >Romantic< critics of Milton’s poem—C. S. Lewis and Stanley Fish, on the one hand, and A. J. A. Waldock and William Empson, on the other. Although Waldock pointed to the structural contradictions in the epic, and Empson argued that God was >put on trial< in the narrative, the neo-Christians have gotten the upper hand because the neo-Romantics have been unable to provide an overarching framework to account for their observations. The middle section furnishes such a framework by synthesizing Kenneth Burke’s >logological< analysis of the Fall as inevitable from a narrative perspective with Bernard Paris’s insight that God is the supreme narcissist in the poem. The final section compares Milton’s God and Freud as patriarchs who impose a double bind on their followers and are motivated by a compulsive need for fame. Y1 - 2019 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rudnytsky, Peter L. T1 - Trauma and Dissociation: Ferenczi between Freud and Severn JF - P. Rudnytsky: Formulated Experiences. Hidden Realities and Emergent Meanings from Shakespeare to Fromm, London and New York (Routledge) 2019, pp. 137-151. N2 - The conflict between Freud and Ferenczi during Ferenczi’s final period centers as much on their differences in technique as on Ferenczi’s revival of Freud’s pre-1897 trauma theory. Severn is the first patient since the 1890s whose childhood sexual trauma was the focus of her analysis, just as she was the first since Anna O. whose trauma-based dissociation was integral to her treatment. The corollary of the revival of trauma theory is a model of the mind based not on repression but dissociation. Ferenczi belongs to a tradition of analysts including Breuer, Fairbairn, and Sullivan who worked with a dissociation model. The fountainhead of this tradition is Janet, but though Ferenczi read and quoted from Janet, no references to Janet are found in Ferenczi’s work after 1924, when he began to move away from Freud. It is necessary to integrate scholarship on Ferenczi with the vast body of work on dissociation. Ferenczi is situated between Freud and Severn. Reversing the traditional verdicts, Ferenczi’s relationship to Freud is viewed as an enactment, whereas his relationship with Severn constitutes an authentic dialogue. Y1 - 2019 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rudnytsky, Peter L. T1 - The Other Side of the Story: Severn on Ferenczi and Mutual Analysis JF - P. Rudnytsky: Formulated Experiences. Hidden Realities and Emergent Meanings from Shakespeare to Fromm, London and New York (Routledge) 2019, pp. 117-136. N2 - This chapter presents the discovery that Elizabeth Severn’s 1933 book, The Discovery of the Self, contains disguised case histories of both herself and Ferenczi, and thereby constitutes a companion volume to Ferenczi’s Clinical Diary. From having been known primarily as >R.N.,< the most important patient in the Diary, Severn emerges as a subject and original contributor to psychoanalysis in her own right. Severn’s reception of Ferenczi’s legacy is compared to that of two of his other American patients, Izette de Forest and Clara Thompson, the latter of whom envied Severn for her closeness to Ferenczi. Multiple correspondences between the accounts of Ferenczi and Severn of their mutual analysis, as well as of their histories, are set forth. The significance of Strindberg’s play, The Father, for Ferenczi’s transference to Severn is examined. Ferenczi and Severn are shown to have been two deeply traumatized individuals who healed themselves by finding their spiritual counterparts in each other. Y1 - 2019 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rudnytsky, Peter L. T1 - Introduction >One Man Cannot Be the Same as Many<: Glimpsing New Paradigms through Old Keyholes JF - P. Rudnytsky: Formulated Experiences. Hidden Realities and Emergent Meanings from Shakespeare to Fromm, London and New York (Routledge) 2019, pp. 1-35. N2 - The introduction sets the stage for the ensuing chapters by meditating on the key phrases in the title, which are indebted to and inspired by the work of Donnel Stern as well as Philip Bromberg. Fromm is praised for his espousal of a humanistic psychoanalysis as well as his critique of authoritarianism, and his concept of >literary psychoanalysis< is introduced. Freud’s interpretation of Oedipus Rex is shown to be important as much for its >unformulated< assumption of a >hidden reality< theory of the mind as for his extrapolation of the idea of the Oedipus complex. The humanism of Fromm is contrasted with Sullivan’s claim that personal individuality is an >illusion<; Stern and Bromberg are critiqued for decoupling trauma from dissociation and for positing that these are normal conditions of the mind. It is argued that a forensic stance is warranted in hermeneutic endeavors and that it is possible to reconcile objectivist and constructivist epistemologies. Y1 - 2019 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rudnytsky, Peter L. T1 - >I Am Not What I Am<: Iago and Negative Transcendence JF - P. Rudnytsky: Formulated Experiences. Hidden Realities and Emergent Meanings from Shakespeare to Fromm, London and New York (Routledge) 2019, pp. 187-204. N2 - This chapter tackles the perennial critical conundrum of Iago’s motivation. Agreeing with Coleridge’s assessment of his >motiveless malignity,< it argues that all attempts to explain Iago’s character in terms of individual psychology prove inadequate and that he can be more satisfactorily understood by employing Fromm’s concept of >social character.< Iago is the prototype of early modern capitalist man who exhibits the >pathology of normalcy< and exemplifies three of Fromm’s four >unproductive orientations<—exploitative, hoarding, and marketing. Iago’s lack of a sense of self leads him to destroy rather than to create, and thus manifests the impulse for negative transcendence, or what Fromm terms necrophilia. As necrophilia is the most malignant form of the anal character, this analysis accounts for the pervasiveness of anal imagery in Othello, including in the speeches of the otherwise feeble Clown. Iago, neither devil nor human, is at once a product of his age and the quintessence of all those, from Caligula to Hitler, for whom madness is a way of life because they seek to transcend through destruction the limits of human existence. Y1 - 2019 ER -