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Today it is still necessary and useful to deal with the empirical foundations and cultural dimensions of a discipline such as psychoanalysis that has played a vital role in shaping the contemporary world, on both sociocultural and clinical levels. This study aimed to describe and summarize the perspectives of experienced psychoanalysts on important aspects of psychoanalysis today. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 62 psychoanalysts. The interview data were processed using a theory-informed thematic analysis. There were 12 macro-themes: important aspects of psychoanalysis, important authors in psychoanalysis today, >contemporary psychoanalysis,< the proliferation of psychoanalytic >schools,< psychoanalytic identity and psychotherapy, psychoanalytic training, the Oedipus complex, dreams, the relationship between psychoanalytic theory and outcome and process research, the relationship between psychoanalysis and research in the neurosciences, empirically validated psychoanalytic concepts, and the marginalization of psychoanalysis. Our study revealed the image of a pluralistic psychoanalysis that the participants interviewed show they have, with various schools/definitions/sources, where Freud and the classical model are contested by numerous other approaches.
I argue in this paper that every society has its own >libidinal drives< that may or may not paralyze the capacity of individuals towards freedom. Fromm calls this the social character. Social character is the unconscious canalization of individual libidinal drives for the attainment of social objectives instituted by the dominant figures of society. I theorize that the Freirian dyadic alliance persists because of a dominant characterology permeated by the ruling authorities. The dynamics of social character structure not only eludes the oppressed conscious awareness, but it also actually strengthens the domination and control through the institutionalization of structural policies enacted and implemented by the oppressors. Hence, what Freire laments in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed is equalized and smoothen by how the marginalized and the downtrodden cling incessantly towards the oppressors. By depending upon the dominant ruling authorities, the oppressed find fulfillment and satisfaction, upon which they fortify the dyadic-symbiotic relations. This happens because of the dynamics of their character structure that caters to the instinctual drive to survive. The social character gives rise to the inner satisfaction of oppressed libidinous desires and needs, thus equalizing their own emotional needs. Furthermore, the very nature of their submissiveness is a character trait that unknowingly recanalizes their elementary needs in life. Hence, by understanding how the Frommian social character influences social behaviors the symbiotic element that cements the Freirian dyadic relation is unlocked. Through unraveling the dynamics of social characterology, the Freirian dyadic symbiosis ungrounds itself and eventually grasps why the majority of the poor and marginalized are motivated and find fulfillment therein as a matter of survival from controlling authorities.
This article methodologically explores Erich Fromm’s theory of narcissism in socio-theoretical terms while referring to his theory of alienation. It thereby portrays the foundations of an analytical method of far-right politics in the context of capitalism and demonstrates that malignant narcissism touches off fascism without regard to authoritarianism. Essentially, the Freudian psychoanalytic concept of narcissism lies in Fromm’s social theory. However, it is possible to discern the theoretical essence of his social theory characteristically in his conception of alienation. By focusing on this theoretical concern, I argue that in Fromm’s social theory the concept of narcissism works on a socio-pathological level, particularly in the way in which it synchronizes with alienation, a social phenomenon that fulfils its important functions in conjunction with the marketing orientation under the conditions of a market society, and therefore that the concept plays an overriding role in his theory of alienation. I conclude that the relevance of a Frommian critical social theory of narcissism for our society is best showcased by the concept of postfascism.
The Persian Freud: Freud’s early reception through translation between the 1930s and 1970s in Iran
(2021)
This paper deals with the translation of Freud’s works into Persian in the framework of reception theory. It covers the 1930s and the 1970s, which correspond to the pre-revolutionary period in Iran. The method is historical and draws upon documents, that is, paratexts, written by the translators. The first period, from the 1930s to 1945, was marked by a lack of full translations of Freud’s work, and incoherent accounts of Freudian ideas were published in literary and intellectual magazines. In this initial period of introducing Freud to Iran, there was an unsophisticated understanding of the Freudian discourse; moreover, the discourse was not engaged with other discourses of the time. The second period, from 1945 to the 1970s, saw translations whose prefaces indicate that the discourse was received uncritically by and through translators. Translators took Freud as an intellectual whose ideas could help the Persian intellectuals to fight >superstitions.< However, the translators, who did not have any religious orientations, did not level any criticism against Freudianism at the time.
This paper aims at the presentation of ethical and political grounds of the pedagogy of asylum, which, in its assumptions, refers to concepts of such thinkers as Emmanuel Levinas, Erich Fromm, George Steiner, Hannah Arendt, Michael Walzer, Avishai Margalit, Jacques Derrida and Janusz Korczak. Utopia of hospitality, presented in its basic assumptions, constitutes a look at the social life, life of individuals and communities, as concentrated in asylums, while its author thinks that it forms an answer to modern challenges to Western democracies, education and politics in the >Age of Migration<.
The Narcissistic Character [Reprint from R. Funk: Life itself is an art, New York 2019, pp. 110-129]
(2021)
The mother’s body, the role of pleasure in the mother–infant relationship, and the traumatic risk
(2021)
In this paper, I wish to talk about the process of becoming a mother, with particular attention to the role of the mother's bodily experience, during pregnancy and childbirth, in developing maternal competencies. Studies on neurophysiological mother–infant interaction allow us to focus on a series of specific bodily based processes that support their relationship in order to guarantee the establishment of a secure attachment. The experience of pregnancy and childbirth, through the body, reactivates the somatic memories of the woman, with the possibility of a re-enactment of traumatic experiences on the one hand, but also with the possibility of a transformation and an integration of these experiences through physiological, biological, psychological processes characteristic of motherhood. Neurophysiological processes related to bodily pleasure can make the difference. The literature at hand describes a post-traumatic stress disorder in women due to the conditions of giving birth, with particular attention to women with a history of sexual abuse during childhood. We should ask ourselves exactly how psychoanalysis considers this new emergent issue and how it should reconsider the role of the mother's body.