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In this article, I interpret Hezbollah’s birth and role in Lebanon’s sociopolitical life from a group and family psychoanalytic perspective. In particular, I examine whether Hezbollah, as one of Lebanon’s >children,< can be seen as the >designated patient< and >symptom< of its large family, nation-state >incestual< dynamics and complicated separation and individuation process. As a designated patient, Hezbollah performs the double-sided function of gluing its fragmented nation-state together while carrying the weight of being its breaking force. In this logic, Hezbollah’s paradoxical role in the Lebanese nation-state family would be similar to that of a >scapegoat/Messiah,< who carries both the family’s incestual dynamics and internal tensions and its hope for a solid and cohesive nation-state identity. To build a cohesive nation-state identity, Hezbollah’s ideology acts as a prosthesis for Lebanon’s narcissistic fragility, which replenishes the narcissistic hemorrhage of its perforated bodily and psychic envelopes. I also reflect on whether a national mediation process informed by a group psychoanalytic approach could help Lebanon constitute a more functional ego-nation-state and thus renounce the need for a designated patient. Hezbollah would be better capable of giving up its pathological ideological position.
Frankfurt School Critical Theory and the Persistence of Authoritarian Populism in the United States
(2022)
more universal psychological dynamics. If creative writing is interesting in itself, its failure can be fascinating. It is not unusual for some successful authors to find themselves unable to write. They suffer what is commonly known has >writer’s block,< a term coined by the psychoanalyst Edmund Bergler in his seminal study of blocked writers in the 1940s and 50s. This paper illustrates how the psychoanalytic study of >writer’s block< can go way beyond Bergler’s theorization. A writer who cannot write is also someone experiencing inner conflict, a self not living up to its expectations, a person that has lost the ability to play. Freudian, ego psychology, and object relations theory are some of the theoretical lenses used to look at >writer’s block,< and to show how this circumscribed phenomenon can shed light on more common struggles and muddles. A brief narration of the author’s experience of writer’s block is presented as an illustration of the parallels between psychoanalysis and writing, especially regarding the importance and use of reverie.
Shakespeare’s great play King Lear traces the downfall of a man who retired without sufficient insight into the impact of his decision. The author uses the play to frame questions about the course of her own retirement from psychoanalytic practice, on May 31, 2019. How might the decision to retire change the analyst’s sense of her own identity, and her patients’ perceptions of who she really is? What are some of the challenges of living in retirement, without the structure and purpose an analytic practice provides?
In a comparative study of texts selected for their insights and occasional blind spots regarding fascist experiments of the past 100 years, Delogu examines fascism’s exploitation of fear (of change, loss, and death), disruption, and extreme inequality. The book offers an accessible and persuasive argument linking fascist authoritarianism, also called “right-wing populism,” to certain underlying conditions, such as a rise in us-versus-them thinking; distrust or simple apathy regarding democratic institutions, norms, and results; the vulnerabilities that result from extreme inequality (economic, social, racial); and addictions and codependency. Stressful events, such as a pandemic, an environmental disaster, or deep recession aggravate these harmful factors and make the fascist temptation, including the use of violence, almost irresistible. Delogu’s distinctive examination of texts that plumb the unconscious reveal linkages between actions and unavowable motives that purely historical and theoretical studies of fascism leave out.
Erich Fromm criticizes the common notion that >obedience is a virtue< and >disobedience is a vice.< To prove his point, he argues that obedience can be utilized by any unjust and inhumane authority for their evil ends. Not only that, but he also says that the history of Western civilization is replete with stories of the struggle for the affirmation of the human person as an individual entity through disobedience. Thus, Fromm argues that disobedience can be utilized for the liberation and evolution of the human person. Therefore, he affirms that disobedience can be considered a virtue.
In this paper, I explore the nature of Paul Williams’ portrayal of the psychological growth of the narrator in The fifth principle and Scum. Growing up in an impoverished environment, both as a child and as an adolescent, the narrator experienced forms of neglect and abuse, which, together with the fantasies that he created, left him traumatized and close to being totally shattered. This is conveyed quite graphically through the use of various stylistic devices that include shifts in the method of narration in both books as well as the innovative use of language in Scum. Through extensive introspection as well as the help provided by others, the narrator suggests that he became sufficiently psychologically independent as well as capable of feeling connected to others in sustained ways.
In this paper, I explore the nature of Paul Williams’ portrayal of the psychological growth of the narrator in The fifth principle and Scum. Growing up in an impoverished environment, both as a child and as an adolescent, the narrator experienced forms of neglect and abuse, which, together with the fantasies that he created, left him traumatized and close to being totally shattered. This is conveyed quite graphically through the use of various stylistic devices that include shifts in the method of narration in both books as well as the innovative use of language in Scum. Through extensive introspection as well as the help provided by others, the narrator suggests that he became sufficiently psychologically independent as well as capable of feeling connected to others in sustained ways.
The postmodern Querfront
(2022)
The aim of this paper is to give the reader an overview of several theoretical, empirical, and clinical features of survivor guilt, and to integrate recent contributions of psychodynamic theory and, in particular, of control-mastery theory into the understanding of the concept alongside the latest findings in social psychology about it. After introducing the concept of survivor guilt and its origins in clinical observations on the consequences of having survived severe traumas (e.g., internment in concentration camps), we will discuss the findings in social psychology on the concept of survivor guilt in everyday social interactions, which is based on a conception that does not connect it strictly to severe traumas. We will then focus our attention on clinical observations and empirical research studies about survivor guilt, discussing the hypotheses developed by several control-mastery theorists about its role in psychopathology. Finally, we will illustrate some manifestations of survivor guilt with a brief clinical vignette.
Foreword
(2022)
Recent scholarship has mapped the dynamic between humiliation and violence, including the role of trauma and self-esteem. While existing research has mostly focused on individuals, there is a strong case for applying this framework to the macrosocial level. Taking an interdisciplinary approach that combines psychoanalysis, cultural anthropology, and political sociology, this paper carries out a step-by-step application of Gilligan’s shame/violence theory to the case of Greece, focusing on the post-2009 era known as >the Crisis.< This paper outlines the root causes of the shame/violence dynamic in Greece, with reference to communitarian moral codes and honor crimes, as well as political divisions, unresolved trauma, and shame/violence spirals originating in the mid-twentieth century. It then examines the role of humiliation during the current economic crisis, as well as the surge of political aggression. The application of Gilligan’s theory provides us with a compelling interpretation of civic culture in contemporary Greece, throwing light on patterns of collective self-harming behavior (>suicide by cop>) – as both a possible result of subjective humiliation, and a means of seeking pity and attention. The paper also identifies the existence of accumulated shame, which could lead to outbreaks of political extremism.
>To hear with eyes< is a Shakespearean expression used by Masud Khan as the title of his article written in 1971. In this text, Khan recounts the clinical case of a young model who told him certain things, but in whose body, lying on the couch, he saw other things. Khan’s article is almost 50 years old, and since then the clinical management of bodily issues and subjective dissociations has become more pressing. We have more and more patients who do not use the couch and who seek our gaze. If Khan privileged the analyst’s gaze on the patient’s body, we can now broaden this horizon, adding layers to the relationship between body expressions, gestures, and rhythms in the clinical encounter. Non-neurotic patients are very sensitive to this; in the analyst’s interventions, what patients perceive is the gesture, rather than the content of what is said. In the same way, we must be attentive to the rhythm of each subject during the sessions of analysis. The more traumatic the subjective process is, the more important are the perception of and respect for the patient’s rhythm, as well as the possibility of being able to get in synch with their rhythm.
This text aims at a multi-dimensional reflection on Erich Fromm’s conception of the human being. Starting from Marxist-Freudian sources of the philosopher’s thought, the authors show the fundamental ideas underlying his version of psychoanalysis. Next, Fromm’s view of the human being as a social being is discussed, referring to the concepts of unproductive and productive orientations. Another important dimension of Fromm’s thought that is discussed is the reflection on the nature and functions of the symbolic language of the unconscious, which reveals to the human being both the best and the worst aspects of his or her personality. One of the most famous concepts of the American philosopher is also discussed – the distinction between the being mode and the having mode. The authors draw attention to the value Fromm placed on a life oriented towards the being mode. Finally, they remind us, following Fromm that a human being turns towards himself in his or her dreams, going beyond all the schemes and concepts that bind his mind when he or she is awake. The understanding of oneself that comes from a deep reflection on the content and character of a dream can awaken in a person the recognition of previously unknown dimensions of his or her mind; from now on, he is not merely someone immersed in the reality of everyday life. Crossing the horizon of oneiric imagination, he or she becomes free, in the dream, and she experiences the freedom of being on waking.
This paper aims to emphasize the fundamental role of unconscious processes in our adaptation. We will point out how we are able to unconsciously perform higher mental functions such as setting goals and planning how to pursue them, dealing with complex data, and making choices and judgments. In the first part of this paper, we will describe the main features of conscious and unconscious processes as pointed out by recent empirical research studies, and we will see how safety is essential in pursuing our fundamental goals, and how unconscious mental processes are strongly oriented towards preserving our safety and pursuing these goals. Finally, we will discuss control-mastery theory (CMT), an integrative, relational, cognitive-dynamic theory of mental functioning, psychopathology, and psychotherapy processes developed by Joseph Weiss and empirically validated by Weiss, Harold Sampson, and the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group over the last 50 years. This conceptualizes unconscious processes starting from this >higher unconscious mental functioning< paradigm and, in accordance with research data, stresses that our main goal is to adapt to reality and pursue adaptive developmental goals while preserving our safety. Three clinical vignettes will help show how the concepts proposed by CMT have important implications for therapeutic process.
In this essay, the author will explore the use of countertransference in the therapeutic process, with particular emphasis on Oedipal love. We begin with countertransference as conceptualized by interpersonal psychoanalytic theorists, who immediately pointed out the technical relevance of the therapist as a person, and the importance of the use of the therapist’s feelings, thoughts, life experiences, and states of mind in the therapeutic relationship. Just as dreams, slips of the tongue, peripheral thoughts, and physical gestures are useful in reading the patient’s unconscious experience, accepting, examining, and exploring countertransference become useful in reading the analyst’s unconscious experience. The author will then identify a more radical and contemporary conception of countertransference as representative of the analyst’s unconscious receptivity to the patient within the enactments in which transference and countertransference reciprocally affect each other. Finally, the author will concentrate on the Oedipal feelings experienced by the therapist and their importance in treatment. A clinical case will illustrate the clinical ramifications of these hypotheses.
Review Ahron Friedberg with Sandra Sherman. Psychotherapy and personal change: Two minds in a mirror
(2022)
Editorial: On survival
(2022)
This article analyses a particular case of sanity and madness within the therapeutic setting as an expression of psychosis. It describes the story of a boy named Pedro who, between the ages of 12 and 16 years, struggled with mental balance – oscillating between lucidity, within a broken mind, and the madness required to stay healthy. The psychotherapeutic path was marked by a set of characters – real and fictional – that revealed his split functioning. In the plots Pedro created, he used the evil characters of any given movie saga in order to express himself. Like a dream, these narratives functioned as metaphors and metonyms, where the condensed forces of evil took over the symptom – which brings us to psychosis – while the good side, represented by an isolated and unprotected figure with which Pedro identified, revealed the displaced material of his unconscious desire. Although the psychotic parts of Pedro’s personality had been rehabilitated and integrated, his mental functioning remained marked by dissociation with reality, linked to the psychotic dysfunctionality. Therefore, even if his psychotic parts were contained and masked by clever humor, they were an indelible trace of his mental life.
This article intends to reflect on some aspects of psychoanalytic theory and practice, to help psychoanalysis evolve. It is therefore important to update psychoanalytic language and practice so that new potentialities and self-transcendence, in the sense of self-expansion are taken into consideration. It is of the utmost importance to take aspects of development and the relational realm into consideration, as well as the way through which the subject repeats their history, maintaining themselves stagnant and in contact with representations that go back to their early relationships.
The article is devoted to the analyses of theoretical models of historical development, evaluation of them and coming to the best one. Thus the authors generalize, summarize and mark out six of them: 1) Cyclical (the old one: Herodotus, Aristotle, etc.), 2) Eschatological (A. Augustine), 3) Progressive (Hegel, K. Marks), 4) Theory of historical-cultural types (N. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, etc.), 5) postmodernist (J. Lyotard, J. Derrida) and 6) >Axial age< (K. Jaspers). Through analyses, we can conclude that the only last one is completely free from any kind of determinism, anarchism and impersonalism and has universal and personal sense. At the end, it analyzes the latest ideas of socio-political development (F. Fukuyama. S. Huntington, etc.). The idea of an alternative post-industrial path of development and the need to build a personalistic society is also expressed (N. Berdyaev, E. Fromm and A. Panarin). Based on the concept of the >Axial Age< the authors suggest existential-personal understanding philosophy of history, which was supported by humanism of the Kyrgyz and Russian writer Chingiz Aitmatov (1928 – 2008) and >philosophy of existential event< Merab Mamardashvili (1930–1990), that depends on moral decision of each person, – only in this way can we obtain social progress.
The riddle of time and space
(2022)
Time is the most important feature or fundamental describer of normal human experience and is also the most eminent forgotten element of psychoanalysis. Freud believes that the unconscious is timeless and believes that it perceives any given moment as new and immaculate. He makes very little effort to illustrate the origin of time; however, he points to the function of the Pcpt-Cs as the key to this riddle. After him, fewer psychoanalysts can be found who have systemically researched this subject, except for André Green, Hartocolles, Arlow, and Sabbadini. In this paper, I have tried to illustrate how the sense of time is related to libidinal cathexis. I have displayed, through some pathological situations such as melancholy, mania, and schizophrenia, and a clinical vignette, that the more ego invests libido in the objects, the faster we sense the passage of time and the more it withdraws libido from the objects into itself, the slower time passes. Finally, using my previous viewpoint about transitional time objects and phenomena, I have presented some ideas about an object relation account of the origin of the sense of time.
It is argued that Brouwer’s philosophy of mathematics makes perfect sense if viewed from an Eastern philosophical perspective, as a mathematics in what Erich Fromm called “the being mode of existence.” The difficulty Western philosophers have accepting its validity under Brouwer’s own justifications is that mathematics is one of the highest prized treasures of Western philosophy (those footnotes to Plato’s dialogues).
Some people diagnosed with schizophrenia show an alteration of the sense of self. From a psychodynamic perspective, it has been hypothesized they have disorders of the integration of self/other identification/differentiation processes. From a neuroscientific view some with this diagnosis present dysfunctions in neural correlates of representation of self from other (the implicit sensorimotor-based bodily self), and self united with other. In >Sense of self and psychosis, part 1< we discussed scientific literature offering empirical evidence for the psychodynamic clinical observations that patients with diagnoses of psychoses didn’t receive adequate early infancy parental care and sufficient affective-sensorial/tactile interactions. Introducing parental care/cutaneous interactions seemed relevant in the analytic treatment of psychoses, as the pioneers of the psychoanalytic approach to psychosis suggested. From this theoretical basis we developed amniotic therapy, which reproduces the affective-tactile interactions of early infancy, insufficient in cases of psychosis, and aims at integrating the processes of differentiation and identification. We present a single case study of an experimental intervention plan including amniotic therapy. Results showed increases in interoception and global functioning, with significant decreases in positive symptoms suggesting that amniotic therapy contributes to increasing the protective strength of self-boundaries and integration of identification/differentiation processes.
We will describe in two articles (>Sense of self and psychosis<, 1 and 2) the theoretical basis and the methodology of a new therapeutic group approach called amniotic therapy, which aims to improve the sense of self of psychotic patients. In this first article we explore the role of the surface of the body and its early sensorimotor interactions in the processes of self/other identification and differentiation. We propose that these processes have common origins, the body surface and its interactions, but different destinies, depending on where the body’s surface is projected. When it is projected intrapsychically we have differentiation, and when it is projected externally onto the body’s surface of the other, we have identification. Identification is a reciprocal process, in which the self’s and the other’s surfaces mutually contain each other and co-create a shared field. The neural correlates of identification and differentiation are discussed. The second article, which follows, describes amniotic therapy and explores a single case study.
This article raises the question why is it that, despite Jewish tradition devoting much thought to the status and treatment of animals and showing strict adherence to the notion of preventing their pain and suffering, ethical attitudes to animals are not dealt with systematically in the writings of Jewish philosophers and have not received sufficient attention in the context of moral monotheism. What has prevented the expansion of the golden rule: »Love your fellow as yourself: I am the LORD« (Lev 19,18) and »That which is hateful to you do not do to another« (BT Shabbat 31a:6; JT Nedarim 30b:1) to animals? Why is it that the moral responsibility for the fellow-man, the neighbor, or the other, has been understood as referring only to a human companion? Does the demand for absolute moral responsibility spoken from the face of the other, which Emmanuel Levinas emphasized in his ethics, not radiate from the face of the non-human other as well? Levinas’s ethics explicitly negates the principle of reciprocity and moral symmetry: The ›I‹ is committed to the other, regardless of the other’s attitude towards him. Does the affinity to the eternal Thou which Martin Buber also discovers in plants and animals not require a paradigmatic change in the attitude towards animals?
In 1939 Sigmund Freud published his latest book, Moses and Monotheism, which is his most unusual and problematic work. In Moses Freud offers four groundbreaking claims in regard to the biblical story: [a] Moses was an Egyptian [b] The origin of monotheism is not Judaism [c] Moses was murdered by the Jews [d] The murder sparked a constant sense of unconscious guilt, which eventually contributed to the rational and ethical development of Jewish monotheism. As is well known, Freud’s Moses received extremely negative reviews from Jewish thinkers. The social psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm, who wrote extensively on Freud as well as on Judaism and the biblical narrative, did not explicitly express his position on Freud’s latest work. This paper offers explanations for Fromm’s roaring silence on Freud’s Moses.
This paper focuses on how sometimes it is possible to encounter nodal concepts that seem to lead to a perceptible consistency of the intertwining of some >fil rouge< in the theories and sensibilities of psychoanalysts who are otherwise very different from each other. Ninety years after the last conferences held by Ferenczi in America, it emerges that Ferenczi remains a point of reference for numerous authors and continues to influence many of the theories proposed. In particular, the concept of agency, as theorized by Jonathan Slavin, would seem capable of organizing a series of observations in analytic practice within a coherent theoretical framework, while remaining unsaturated enough to allow further reflections and connections with the theories of other scholars, among which that of Edgar Levenson appears significant. Levenson and Slavin, in the wake of Ferenczi, highlight how the analyst must avoid both the risk of an aseptic neutrality and the risk of collusion with their own narcissistic desire at the expense of the desire of others, since the realization of these risks would hinder the patient from becoming an agent of themself.
The author presents a model of clinical intervention based on patients’ mentalization, or mind reading, that is, the function of the mind to understand the mind. The action of mind reading means a type of thought, mostly not conscious, implicit, often not even encoded in words, that expresses the meaning >I think that you think that I think.< Thoughts about the analyst’s states of mind crowd the minds of patients, taking shape in these questions: >What do you think I have in mind?< and so >How do you plan to act towards me?< If the analyst does not capture and does not disambiguate the doubts, the patient’s perplexity and insecurity can intensify and produce emotions of anxiety, fear, fright, but also anger towards a silent interlocutor. Conversely, the analyst who mentalizes the state of mind of the patient and verbalizes it heteroregulates the patient’s fears and anxiety level. Mentalization and affect regulation are also related to the analyst’s recognition of the patient’s metacognition process. At the conclusion of the theoretical section, a clinical sketch shows examples, and highlights in therapeutic work the abovementioned theoretical issues.
After publishing a psychoanalytic inquiry on Enescu’s and Stravinsky’s Oedipal operas, it seemed worth offering comments about other artistic depictions based on Oedipus’ myth. Josep Soler’s and Xiao-song’s versions were studied in relation to their orientalist sources. Soler’s opera shed further light on Oedipus’ paranoid crisis in his duet with the blind seer. Seneca, Soler’s main inspiration, also influenced Méreaux’s Oedipal opera, which portrays the phantom of Laius requiring vengeance for his murder, a situation similar to the one Freud and Jones commented on in their analysis of Hamlet. Another ghost was found in Pierre Bartholomée’s OEdipe sur la route, which depicts a return of Oedipus’ own complex and its psychopathological comorbidities even after he chastised himself. Psychopathological symptoms were also observed in Sacchini’s version, probably the most famous of all Oedipal operas in its century. Furthermore, the focus now is not only on Oedipal operas, but also on a version of the Jocasta debate. Also attended to in this article are other operas and artistic representations that do not deal directly with the Oedipus myth. A list of 30 Oedipal operas with musical examples offers a fruitful space for debates on psychopathological issues related to the most important complex in psychoanalysis.
The reunification of Germany took place in 1990. As an analyst brought up in the former West Germany, but practicing in Berlin, I have observed over and over again that patients who come from what used to be East Germany (German Democratic Republic) – even those born after 1990 – have a strong need to distinguish between East Germans and West Germans. In their minds, Germany seems still to be a divided country. A split identity appears to have been internalized, producing >West German< and >East German< racists who despise, in the >other< kind of German, a devalued aspect of what being German means. I have tried for many years to understand the hidden meanings of this defensive maneuver for the analytic couple, and beyond this for the relation between the East and West German societies. Here I discuss these unresolved shadows in German identity. Analyses in Germany may be dominated by the splits they provoke, which interfere with patients’ capacities to think. Patients may relate instead to a >German< object that is impersonal, nonempathic, and rejects the idea of an independent internal world. The defensive use of this object in the transference has to be continually worked through in the analysis.
My parents’ death struggle, my clinical work with dying patients, the euthanasia of Freud, and a fear of dementia form the background to my reflections on dying patients, hospices, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. The change in public opinion has resulted in a displacement from Nazi crimes to the present focus on the right to self-determination. Consequently, a law allowing assisted suicide or euthanasia has been adopted in several locations, such as Oregon in the USA, the Benelux countries, Switzerland, and Canada. The fear of suffering, hopelessness, and inability are strong arguments to allow euthanasia and aided suicide. A compelling case against it is its negative social consequences, the infringement into the private sphere when the sick person and their family must decide if they are willing to accept assisted suicide or euthanasia. Although the >right to death< provides freedom to some, for others it is a forced choice that interferes with the dying process. I conclude by highlighting the palliative model, wherein death is perceived as a part of an individual’s life and as a normal process, although this task is hard for the family to contain, especially when the dying person is in pain and agony. Dying is not merely an individual process. It affects the whole family as well as the future generations’ views on reciprocity and responsibility.
This article aims to be an intervention into the recent discussions on the importance anxiety and ontological security in the study of International Relations (IR) (Kinvall and Mitzen, 2020; Hom and Steele, 2020; Rumelili, 2020). The paper poses an alternative critical starting point based on the Marxist concept of alienation. Marx’s work on alienation continued in historical materialist traditions such as in Lukács’ (1971) analysis reification has a lot to offer to the discussions on emotions and anxiety and the development of a politically relevant critical theory of IR. My purpose is to draw attention to the potential of Marxist social theory and particularly the concept of alienation in contributing to the development of an emancipatory critical IR theory. Most of the recent discussions on anxiety remain at an abstract level. The recent existential accounts of anxiety and ontological insecurity have subjectivist and idealist conceptions failing to account for the structures of power and domination in capitalist society. However, Marx’s concept of alienation deals with the consequences of power and domination in a more historically specific way (Sayers 2011, 1) providing the basis for a more meaningful social critique oriented to human emancipation.
Analytic writers have studied existential anxiety or annihilation anxiety, emanating from traumatic disruptions to people’s sense of going-on-being, reminders of their finitude, and facing a chaotic reality, and suggested that they can endure this anxiety by being with and living through it together with another person. The literature suggests that to be with patients who experience such anxiety, therapists need to indulge >narcissistically< in their own memories and fantasies of similar experiences, and, in parallel to the patients, enter transient regressive states. Sometimes, however, therapists are faced with a chaotic analytic reality that arouses existential anxiety in themselves, and seek to share it with their supervisors who, by experiencing parallel regressive states, can identify with their supervisees and grasp their experiences. Supervisors who consistently fail to be with their supervisees at such moments and persist in offering them new constructions of therapeutic materials might strengthen the supervisees’ defensive operations and disrupt their development as therapists.
Children construct their inner worlds by internalizing real and imagined aspects of their parental figures and their families as whole objects with their relational configurations. These familial configurations are often evoked in the context of communities that, similarly to families, struggle to preserve and advance their unity and collective values, interests, and symbols. Supervisees acknowledge their internalized familial relational configurations when they explore their countertransferences and their transferential responses to the analytic community. Understanding these transferences in supervision may facilitate the process of assimilating the analytic community into supervisees’ professional selves. Moreover, the supervisors represent and mediate both the community’s balanced and flexible relational therapeutic positions and its complexities. These positions might provide the supervisees with new group-object experiences and change their defensively organized rigid familial relational configurations, thereby further integrating the supervisees’ professional selves as well as strengthening the analytic community.
The authors examine the influence that psychoanalysts’ economic situation has on the current state of psychoanalysis, particularly focusing on the situation in Germany and employing a perspective afforded by Marxian commodity analysis. Their analysis brings them to conclude that, in psychoanalysis, the suspension of truth value, the tolerance shown towards contradictory concepts, the lack of conceptual criticism, and the exclusion of sociocritical issues seem to be effects of psychoanalysts’ interest in realizing the exchange value of their psychoanalytic treatment and their accompanying lesser interest towards its use value.