It is well known that Foulkes acknowledged Karl Mannheim as the first to use the term `group analysis'. However, Mannheim's work is otherwise not well known. This article examines the foundations of Mannheim's sociological interest in groups using the Frankfurt School (1929-1933) as a start point through to the brief correspondence of 1945 between Mannheim and Foulkes (previously unpublished). It is argued that there is close conjunction between Mannheim's and Foulkes's revision of clinical psychoanalysis along sociological lines. Current renderings of the Frankfurt School tradition pay almost exclusive attention to the American connection (Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer) overlooking the contribution of the English connection through the work of Mannheim and Foulkes.
The aim of the study was to illuminate, from video recorded sequences, interactions between individuals with dementia and aggressive behaviour and caregivers who reported problems dealing with such behaviour and caregivers who did not. Nine caregivers and two residents participated. The video recordings were later transcribed into text and analysed by using a phenomenological hermeneutic approach, inspired by Ricoeur's philosophy. The main themes that emerged from the analysis were >Being involved and developing a positive interaction< and >Being confined to routines and remaining in negative interaction<. The findings indicated the interactions either to be in a positive or negative spiral. Caregivers who had reported problems dealing with behavioural and psychiatric symptoms in dementia focused on accomplishing the task, where the main focus was on >the goal itself<. In other sequences with caregivers who had been satisfied with their capability the focus was placed on >how< the caregivers could reach their goal. Power was central in the material, in different ways, either as a possible way to handle the situation or as a possible way of defending oneself. Parts of Kitwood's framework and Fromm's theory about power >over< and power >to<, has been used in the comprehensive understanding. Our conclusion is that caregivers should use power 'to' when they have to help persons with dementia and aggressive behaviour, as a part of behavioural and psychiatric symptoms of dementia, for being able to give help in the best possible way. They should also act in a sensitive and reflective manner, with the individual in focus.
This article examines the origins and early development of psychoanalytically inspired psychohistory from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. It focuses on Erik H. Erikson, Bruce Mazlish, and Robert Jay Lifton and illustrates their contributions to psychoanalytic psychohistory. Erikson, Mazlish, and Lifton were core members of the Wellfleet group, a research project originally funded by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1965 to conceptualize the foundation of psychohistory. The article gives an account of the early history of the Wellfleet group and argues for specific historical reasons to explain why psychoanalytic psychohistory emerged on the East Coast of the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. A critique of the Wellfleet group in unpublished correspondence of Erich Fromm and David Riesman is also discussed.
본 논문에서는 여성의 자아구조에 대한 접근을 여성의 심리 내지 성격에 대한 접근으로 시도되었다. 여성의 자아구조를 논의함에 있어서 프로이트를 위시하여 융, 아들러와 같은 정신의학자들은 물론 여성심리학자로 하는 호나이와 같은 여성심리학자들 조차 여성의 자아구조를 논의함에 있어서 남성을 염두에 둔 생물학적인 측면을 지나치게 강조한 면이 지적되었다. 그러므로 여성의 자아와 정신구조에 대한 이해는 시대와 문화에 따라 크게 달라지는 것임으로 생리적이고 심리적인 측면만으로 단순화해서는 곤란하다는 것이다. 그리고 남성과 여성과의 관계 속에서 검토되어야 할 필요성이 지적되었다. 그러므로 본 연구에서는 종전의 ‘남성 아니면 여성’이란 식으로 여성을 논할 것이 아니라 궁극적으로는 인간으로서의 여성론이 전개되어야 할 것을 강조하면서 여성의 자아에 대한 심리학적 측면을 연구함에 있어서도 여성의 생리적, 심리적 측면 이외에 사회적, 역사적 측면을 고려하여야 함을 강조하였다.
When we talk about the >quality of life< (QOL) we should inquire just into the >quality< of human life. Generally speaking, a qualitative thing includes something original that has no substitute. Each person's existence is an irreplaceable life, and it has a unique value. QOL is a subject about the qualitative values of human life. The pursuit of QOL is the pursuit of a >healthy< human life or >happiness.< E. Fromm said that a person represents the whole human being, and that an individual is a physico-spiritual totality. He also said that the goal of a person in life is to be himself. According to Fromm, the fundamental human desire aims to conquer >existential dichotomies,< such as >life and death,< >solidarity and aloneness.< Everyone shows one's answer depending on his/her character or personality. Only a >productive character< can get happiness through its answer. That is the basic attitude by which >human nature< and >individuality< are brought into full play at the same time. Such a person gropes for a >sane society<. And such a society ought to bring up sound persons. QOL as elements of a living environment are useful as conditions for happiness. However, the most important thing is the >quality< of each one's life itself. This kind of QOL is shown by the basic attitude as >personality.< A person who lives a well-filled life has a high quality of life. The scale of quality of life as the standard common to human beings is >human nature,< which is also the foundation of human equality. This is the >basis< of human rights. And each person will be the judge of the matter connected with >happiness<, making use of the activation of individuality. So, medical persons should not confuse QOL and >social usefulness!< Medical preference order is not a problem of QOL but purely a problem of medical technique.
This article discusses Sándor Ferenczi’s contributions to the evolution of psychoanalytic theories, and how these ideas were passed through the generations. Ferenczi introduced such concepts as greater activity by the psychotherapist, the need for emotional connection between the therapist and client, the significance of the interpersonal aspects of the therapeutic experience, and the place of empathy within the therapeutic milieu. The second generation reviewed here is the Neo-Freudian, including Andras Angyal, Izette deForest, Erich Fromm, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Karen Horney, Harry Stack Sullivan, and Clara Thompson. The next generation reviewed is that of the foremost humanistic psychologists, Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, Carl Rogers, and James Bugental.
The article explores the romantic face of cannibalism where the act of devouring human flesh is deconstructed as the ultimate expression of love. It focuses on the issue of love cannibalism and the romanticised myth of the loving cannibal which has been functioning as a successful cultural metaphor since the 1990s. The article sets love cannibalism in the broader context of necrophilia, understood both in terms of a sexual disorder and a morbid fascination with the subject of love in death, Finally, it compares the romantic representation of cannibalism in contemporary texts to the similarly romantic depiction of AIDS, the infection which is treated as equivalent with taking control of the lover's body. The core of the article is the discussion of two criminal cases – Jeffrey Dahmer's and Issei Sagawa's – which serve to illustrate the relationship between love cannibalism and necrophilia. The argument is further expanded to examine various representations of necrophilia and love cannibalism in contemporary literature and film.
The author underscores the importance of Slochower's and Grand's papers on the misdemeanors and crimes committed by psychoanalysts during their clinical work. Both authors are described as being courageous in exploring the realm of analysts' secrets, small misdemeanors, and crimes as a valuable source of collecting and processing countertransference material. Instead of looking at every self-involved activity as a theft from the patient, the author suggests that an analyst may have to retreat to self-enclosed activities in order to be fully present for the patient. At the same time, the kind of activity in which an analyst is engaged while listening to a patient may encapsulate and foreshadow crucial aspects of the transference–countertransference dynamic.
All understanding is context dependent, and one of the most significant contexts for clinical purposes is the self-state. How we understand the other, and ourselves, depends on the state(s) we occupy. Dissociations between an analyst's self-states can, therefore, limit or impede understanding of the analysand by depriving the analyst of a fitting context within which to grasp what the analysand says and does. Clinical understanding may require the breach of such dissociations. I lay out some of the implications of thinking about transference and countertransference along these lines, with detailed examples illustrating the consequences of the analyst's dissociations and their eventual resolutions. Among the advantages of this way of thinking is that it amounts to a psychoanalytic account of the hermeneutic circle.
Current understanding of the process of therapy and development focuses on the interactions between the partners. The interaction is a negotiation of differences and of change. The equilibrium of the relationship is inevitably subject to frequent destabilizations, by virtue of normal developmental processes, life events such as losses, and the divergence of aims as each process unfolds. The destabilizations are pivotal to the creation of new states. If a newly emerging state is to be advantageous for the development of the infant or the health of the patient, the associated toxic affects have to be tolerated and dealt with openly. If the analyst defensively hides, opportunities for change will be lost and the old patterns will persist. The therapist and patient, like the parent and child, are engaged together in this mutually altering process.
Despite a burgeoning literature on major analytic boundary violations, there has been little investigation of what might be called analytic delinquencies or misdemeanors – the small and virtually ubiquitous ways in which analysts deliberately withdraw from the therapeutic endeavor. I consider the impact of professional misdemeanors on patient and analyst and compare both with more serious analytic >crimes< and enactments. Professional delinquencies may reflect a therapeutic reenactment, an expression of the analyst's split-off or disavowed need, or an unconscious attempt to self-regulate or to negotiate space within the constraints of the treatment setting. Because the professional ideal leaves so little room for the analyst's humanity, it is often difficult for us to address and work with evidence of our own need when it clashes with what we regard as the analytic contract.
I respond to two key issues raised by Bernstein and Frankel. One concerns the complex and potentially useful impact of misdemeanors on the treatment process. Without, however, minimizing this dimension of misdemeanors, I focus instead on how we deal with instances when we fail our patients by deliberately placing our own needs ahead of theirs. Bernstein raises the possibility that we are most likely to commit misdemeanors when we embrace an idealized Winnicottian model. I disagree, suggesting that all theoretical positions exclude some aspect of the analyst's personhood. Ultimately, we cannot escape the conflict between the analytic ideal and the reality of our nonideal humanity.
The emergence of an American middle school of psychoanalysis. Commentary on Karen Rosica's paper
(2003)
Foucault challenged the unified, the foundational, and the codified system of knowledge because he believed that the epistemological privilege attached to >scientific< theory lead to a dominating discourse. This occurs, Foucault believed, not only through social institutions, but also through the language, rituals, and practices of ordinary communicative experiences, which are vehicles for the subtle domination of knowledge and all knowledge serves power and the dominant hierarchy. Engaging with Foucault, I challenge some traditional psychoanalytic views and indicate how the psychoanalytic discourse contributed to the shaping of female sexuality. Using a >genealogical< approach such as Foucault considered, I trace some of the historical factors as well as the Zeitgeist for women that shaped early psychoanalytic views. I offer, as well, challenges to Foucault's position because I maintain the relevance of truth claims for the advancement of a psychoanalytic theory of mind and behavior. Such claims, however, need to be held lightly, subject, as they inevitably are, to revision through the acquisition of new knowledge. I present the attachment system as a contrast, as well as an addition to some traditional theorizing, thereby expanding our notions of early development and its interdependent base. I especially challenge the concept of early-stage symbiosis and its role in limiting and constraining women's lives. In this article I focus primarily on the power relations that have shaped female sexuality and have influenced our knowledge and understanding of female development. I challenge some normative views. Such a challenge to normativity is consistent with Foucault's entire intellectual journey, as his biographer comments (Eribon, 1991). My vision includes a conviction about the importance of theory construction and its development, and it proceeds from my focus on research data about the organization of mind and the nature of early bonding. I structure my presentation of female sexuality around the inclusion of such knowledge. I concede that as I upend an old >truth< about the developmental line of female sexuality, I am establishing a new one that will need future interrogation. My hope is that the new narrative will offer another perspective to our view of female sexuality.
The Schizophrenic Person and the Benefits of the Psychotherapies – Seeking a PORT in the Storm
(2003)
Reciprocal and Evoked Developmental Changes in Patient and Analyst: Shifting Sands of Influence.
(2003)
This discussion compares Pizer's concept of >relational (k)nots< with >crunches< and double bind impasses. It argues that all of these constructs capture what happens when conventional analytic method – the exploration, elucidation, and interpretation of transference – fails to work. In this context a >last-ditch effort< emerges, a necessary crisis of treatment. The situation is a plea that something must occur >now or never< or the >charade of therapy is over.< This plea is extraordinarily challenging since it embodies contradictory elements wherein the patient's very call for involvement with the analyst is embedded in a process that obfuscates their connection. Notably this sets the stage for the >damned if one ‘gets it’ and damned if one doesn't< experience that is a part of the paradox of recognition/mis-recognition that befuddles many analyses. Extrication from such impasses requires the analyst's recognition that she is colluding in a kind of avoidance or distraction from recognizing their disconnection. Her second act involves meta-communication about their process. That is how their >relational knot< both binds them together while negating their connection. While this observation may be necessary it is recognized as insufficient on its own. Thus her third move out of the impasse requires her to enter into a state of improvisation. That is, to use some part of herself that must surrender from the one-up one-down impasse position of >either your version of reality or mine.< Instead, she must cultivate through her action a third way in which both she and her patient can think about their impasse and do something about it, including something different from what either one might have imagined before.
Book Review. Rochelle G.K. Kainer, >The Collapse of the Self and Its Therapeutic Restoration.
(2003)
In. Reply, I raise a metaphorical glass to celebrate kinship with Philip Ringstrom, a fellow laborer in the relational vineyard. Drawing from his commentary, I note examples of how a colleague's intersubjective understanding carries meaning forward. Ringstrom takes what I have said into his unique experience and relays it back to me in a new way. I feel both deeply understood and challenged. I restate what I believe Russell means when he refers to >the crunch< in therapy and my >take< on Ringstrom's misunderstanding of Russell then leads me to an exploration of ways in which Philip and I may differ as we conceive the treatment frame. Finally, by implication, I hope to have highlighted, through our dialogue, that relational analysts do not define themselves by particular >agreements< but, rather, that they share a common attitude and context in which we continue to labor and explore.
The title of this paper employs a pun (>not< and >knot<) to emphasize that a relational (k)not negates truly intersubjective dialogue by shutting down the spaces, between and within persons, for mentalization, reflective functioning, genuine affect, and negotiation. In treatment, relational (k)nots appear as repetitions that – unlike Russell's >crunch,< with its intensities of crisis – coerce states of noninvolvement between patient and analyst. Persistent relational notting produces a crisis of mutual detachment. After offering in this paper a developmental perspective on the etiology of relational (k)nots based on parental failure to mentalize the child's separate subjectivity, I offer an extended clinical vignette to illustrate notting and subsequent disengagement between patient and analyst, and I suggest potential analytic approaches to untying the (k)not.
Who Is the Psychoanalyst?
(2003)
The desire for self-creation
(2003)
Although Gerhardt's commentary points to substantial points of agreement between us – the claim that human being is embodied being, the critique of rationalisms, and the resistance to relativisms – we also have important differences. The chief of these, from my point of view, concern (1) the functions of theoretical language, (2) the level of commitment psychoanalysts owe to traditional language for the sake of community and continuity, and (3) the issue of reification. My. Reply suggests that Gerhardt has confused the functions of expressive and theoretical language that, for the sake of a >gossipy connection,< she seems to deprive the psychoanalytic community of the self-reflective criticism of its own shared assumptions and that there is a difference between metaphor and the misplaced concreteness that is sometimes called reification.
Much psychoanalytic vocabulary is embedded in discourses, or languagegames, that involve philosophical assumptions that most post-Freudian, relational, and intersubjective systems analysts no longer accept. Terms like transference, projective identification, and representation, however carefully redefined for contemporary purposes, cannot escape their connotative history and loading. It is suggested that psychoanalytic thinkers and practitioners remain open to questioning and being questioned about our use of words, their impact on our attitudes toward our patients, and about our responsibility for disavowed assumptions about human nature and reality.
The Clinton Phenomenon
(2003)
The author, reconsidering the concept of the Oedipus complex, attempts to reestablish its significance as a major developmental milestone, while at the same time disentangling it from any linear assumptions regarding sexual orientation or object choice. A postoedipal phase of development is suggested in which the emphasis on romantic perfection and idealization of the love object, endemic to oedipal processes, is transformed and intimacy and mutual psychic and emotional interpenetrability become the defining features. Oedipal and postoedipal forms of romantic relatedness are always viewed as functioning dialectically, in mutually enriching and invigorating synergy. Specific transference – countertransference manifestations of the transition from primarily oedipal to primarily postoedipal forms of engagement are considered, with special attention given to the notion of >oedipal victors< and >oedipal losers.< Aspects of erotic masochism related to this transitional phase of development are also discussed. A lengthy case example of an erotic impasse between a female analyst and a female patient is offered as an illustration of some of these concepts.
The Erotic Leader
(2003)
Close attention to the process of a treatment is proposed as an ideal vehicle for examining the analyst–patient interaction and teaching analytic listening, understanding, and intervening. A balance needs to be maintained between too dogged attention to details, which can lead the supervisee to feel outclassed, criticized, shamed, and constricted, on one hand, and abandoned and deprived of support because of insufficient input, on the other. In discussing the two treatments presented, I approach supervision with a focus on the dialectic between repetition and transformation in the therapist–patient interaction, the distinction between leading-edge and trailing-edge interpretations, and the coconstruction of model scenes and imagery to broaden the analytic context. In supervising, I would amplify these topics by recommending relevant readings: some papers by Peter Fonagy, Dan Stern and the Process of Change Study Group of Boston, and some of my own work.
Melanie Klein and Jacques Lacan have profoundly influenced the theory and practice of psychoanalysis, particularly outside the United States. This paper explores the similarities and differences between their theories, personalities, and influence on the European analytic community in the aftermath of World War II. Parallels are drawn between the paranoid-schizoid position and the imaginary order, as well as between the depressive position and the symbolic order.
Memory, Narrative and the Search for Identity in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: A Second Chance
(2003)
Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision by Louis Breger (New York: Wiley, 2000, 480 pp.) - This review of Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision by Louis Breger considers the book in view of previous biographies of Freud and of historical scholarship. The strength of the book, which plainly is written for an audience of contemporary psychoanalysts and clinicians, consists in its portrait of Freud's character and his work with patients, both contextualized in terms of human relationships as well as theory. The book also contains impartial assessments of Freud's collaborators, such as Adler, Rank, Ferenczi, Jung, and data about trauma and loss in the lives of patients as well as colleagues.
Two Faces of Monotheism.
(2003)
Self-Disclosure of Serious Illness: The Impact of Boundary Disruptions for Patient and Analyst.
(2003)
Afterword.
(2003)
Foreword.
(2003)
In this response to commentaries by Bernstein and Frankel, I suggest that there has been a shift in the psychoanalytic Zeitgeist with regard to ethical transgressions. At the time my case transpired, analysts' authenticity was prohibited, and >misdemeanors< were met with overzealous judgment. Contemporary theory and practice has come to appreciate the analyst's subjectivity, and the mutual press of the >impossible profession.< But in doing so, it has begun to occupy another polarized position. Instead of imposing moralistic judgment, we are tending to overcontextualize the analyst's acts and displace the analyst's agency onto the patient. Another position is suggested here.
Discussing an intensive case study of female sexual dysfunction, this paper studies mutual deregulation and disintegration as it unfolds in the transference–countertransference dyad. I propose that ethical transgressions are potentiated in analytic dyads in which the analyst's hope for either solitude or mutuality is foreclosed. This hope can be foreclosed by the particulars of the therapeutic interaction as well as by the theoretical and clinical aspects of analytic training. The deregulation that both precipitates and follows such transgression can be healed (in the analyst, in the analysis) only by the restitution of the therapist's agency, the reduction of paranoid-schizoid guilt and shame, and the location (in the analyst) of depressive, >I-Thou< remorse.
The author refers to a roundtable discussion (Psychoanalytic Dialogues 10/1, 2000) of dreams to which a Jungian colleague was invited to contribute, along with non-Jungian analysts. The author outlines how in some aspects of Jung's theory the fulfillment of individuality is achieved throughout the relationship in other aspects, fulfilment seems to be achieved because it is prewired in the individual himself. The author points out that, although Jung himself subscribed to various theoretical concepts, some one-person and others two-person, Jung's clinical stance was almost always relational. If we accept the paradigmatic switch that relational authors refer to, some nonrelational aspects of Jung's theory of dreams are superseded.
In Donna Orange's interesting paper, psychoanalysis is put into dialogue with philosophy as a royal road for questioning certain essentialist habits of thought as Orange asks us to consider the continued viability of certain overly freighted theoretical descriptors given recent shifts in theoretical assumptions. Instead of being viewed as neutral, timeless, culturally disembodied descriptors, our psychoanalytic lexicon is itself sociohistorically grounded in a particular tradition or assumptive context. Thus, given recent shifts in the assumptions on which psychoanalysis is grounded, the continued use of terms from a previous world view or context, without explicit reflection, is, according to Orange, at the least, problematic. The present commentary seeks to raise questions about the reasonableness of Orange's claims – including the use of reason itself as a way into this problem-space. In short, it is argued that the semantic structure of many words in a natural language lexicon derives from the fact of our embodiment – such that the controversial terms are claimed to rest on a background of prereflective, bodily based experiences that exist as echoes saturating the use of such terms. To strip our theoretical discourse of the use of the terms in question would seriously jeopardize losing the layers of sedimented meanings based on unconscious associations that echo through their continued use.
This is the third in a series of papers comparing the work of three contemporary theorists, each of whom is associated with the intersubjective turn in psychoanalysis: Jessica Benjamin (Gerhardt, Sweetnam, and Borton, 2000), Christopher Bollas (Gerhardt and Sweetnam 2001), and Darlene Ehrenberg. This paper describes aspects of the work of Ehrenberg and attempts to show how her trailblazing ideas of the therapeutic relationship and its nuanced particularities bear on issues in intersubjectivity theory. Ehrenberg's distinctive twist lies in her painstaking exploration of the processes of mutual influence in the ongoing therapeutic interaction and their bearing on the analytic process. The manner in which Ehrenberg attempts to integrate both interpersonal and intrapsychic perspectives and uses the interpersonal as a way of locating the intrapsychic is another focus of this inquiry. Moreover, the sense conveyed through Ehrenberg's voice – a voice both sensuous and strident, tender and provocative – in her attempt to make living, breathing contact in the moment with patients otherwise deadened to their own desire is also examined as bearing on issues associated with the intersubjective turn. While our own authorial positioning is never quite declared, our object relational biases exert their influence throughout our reading of her work, not surprising for a paper on intersubjectivity.
This paper discusses clinical cases presented by Comins and Eliot within a paradigm of psychoanalytic supervisory work based on relational theory. Here, in making the medium of supervision more symmetrical with the message of contemporary psychoanalytic ideas about structure of mind health, pathology, and treatment, the relationship between the supervisor and supervisee is considered to contain crucial supervisory data to be delineated and discussed by both members of the dyad. The supervisory relationship is described using three dimensions: power and authority, the data held to be relevant for supervisory conversations, and the mode of the supervisor's participation in the supervisory process.
It is important for every treatment that we analysts feel some room for our own subjectivity and some recognition of this from our patients. But we may feel that our analytic ideals – part of what may be called our >preexisting analytic third<: our analytic inheritance – require that we expunge our subjectivity from view. A submissive attitude toward the preexisting third may result in our committing misdemeanors in an attempt to salvage some feeling of psychic existence in a treatment where we feel negated. We can also think of a different kind of analytic third – an >emergent third< – that is mutually created by the analytic couple. This kind of third can be a platform from which to develop a necessary active, independent, and critical stance toward that which we inherit. The emergent third can find expression through the play structures that may come to shape the analytic relationship. Misdemeanors, therefore, may reflect analysts' inevitably taking on certain roles in the unconscious, restitutive, and often sadomasochistic, scenarios that patients may play out in their analyses. The possible therapeutic value of playing out these scenarios – a possibility suggested by Grand's case material – tends to undermine a clear distinction between freely surrendering to a creative analytic process, and submitting in a self-negating, though potentially helpful, way.