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The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki represent a historical break that can be understood from a social psychological position as a collective trauma of the >generic identity<. The >peaceful use of nuclear power< served as an >integration ideology of the 1950s< and corroborated the worldwide denial of nuclear danger. Not until the ecology and peace movement of the 1970s and 80s did a fundamental criticism of both the peaceful and the military use of nuclear power take shape. These initiatives, which were critical for growth, had a particularly strong, influential, and lasting effect in West Germany as the movements that were critical for expansion received here additional impetus from the confrontation with National Socialism and with the Holocaust's >breach of civilization.< The author described these psychohistorical processes as early as 1986 in an article in an issue of psychosozial on the topic of >Nach Tschernobyl – regiert wieder das Vergessen?< (>After Chernobyl – does oblivion rule again?<). The considerations outlined back then are taken up again under the shadow of Fukushima, and pursued from the social psychological perspective.
I have chosen, for the jubilee volume, my article >Freedom vs. Intolerance – Variations on the Theme of Supernatural Wives and Husbands<. It appeared in the volume entitled >We are all Indians< Violence – Intolerance – Literature, edited by Wojciech Kalaga and Tadeusz Sławek (Katowice 1990). This was a special time for all of us; today it is called the time of breakthrough, or transformation. The topic of my article, and most other articles contained in this volume, is connected with the problem of freedom and enslavement, which, bearing in mind the atmosphere of that period, was almost inevitable. Thus, the reader will find, in that article of mine, reflections concerning the so called positive and negative freedom, some thoughts about Erich Fromm’s book >The Fear of Freedom<. I used there also an old proverb, quoted in the writings of Sir Isaiah Berlin: >to be free is nothing, to become free is the very heaven<, a proverb that sounded very appropriate in the times when we all in Poland were regaining our lost freedom. The article itself is a heady mixture of threads and motifs taken from classical and modern philosophy, folktales, Biblical traditions and mythology, whereas the typical literary studies, or history of literature, are virtually absent there. This rather unconventional approach is, to some extent, typical of the style of academic discourse characteristic of the English studies as understood and practised in the University of Silesia at that time, that is in the 1980s and 1990s. This style was shaped, among other persons, by the, often indirect, influence of such personalities as Wojciech Kalaga, Tadeusz Sławek, Emanuel Prower, Tadeusz Rachwał, or, last but not least, Ewa Borkowska, who also contributed to the volume in question. Naturally, I am solely responsible for what I wrote in that article, which is a rather faithful reflection of my interests (and perhaps also obsessions) in that very memorable period of time.
This paper aims to present the body as a possible psychic retreat in the face of annihilation anxiety. The sensations produced on the body seem to be a preferable place of psychic retreat in the patient's efforts to assuage her tormented intrapsychic reality. In such cases, unconscious phantasies are experienced mostly on the bodily level because of their intensity and primitive nature. Accordingly, self- and object representations tend to reside in the body and are accessible via the body. In this regard, bodily sensations offer a sense of continuity and cohesion, and allow for the further psychic elaboration of the unconscious conflicts.
This article deals with the six German-Jewish psychoanalysts who fled from Nazi Germany to the Netherlands in the 1930s. Watermann and Landauer perished in the German concentration camps. Levy-Suhl survived the German occupation of the Netherlands but died soon after. Reik went on to the USA before World War II. Lampl and Keilson lived and worked in the Netherlands for the rest of their lives.
Review Kakar, S.: >Kultur und Psyche. Psychoanalyse im Dialog mit nicht-westlichen Gesellschaften<
(2013)
The long term perspective
(2013)
In today’s world characterized by changed systems of values and materialism, pedagogy should emphasize education for a positive self-image, especially in the contemporary school, whose educational goals are freedom, independence and individuality. This theoretical analysis provides a review of research on the importance and relationship of positive self-image with other factors, such as social skills and academic achievement. Simultaneously, the methods and procedures by which teachers can foster a student’s positive self-image are displayed. Although the degree of positive self-thinking is for the most part formed in interaction with other people, it is extremely important to raise students’ awareness about their own internal strengths as well as their possibility of choice. The education of a positive self-image can be considered a part of >positive pedagogy< or >positive education< which focuses on traditional skills and happiness, but also joy – fervor that accompanies being (Fromm, 2004, p. 130)
In 1950, Elihu Katz submitted his MA thesis called >The Happiness Game – A Content Analysis of Radio Fan Mail< at Columbia University. It was supervised by Leo Löwenthal, and drew on recently published work by Paul Lazarsfeld, Robert Merton, and Erich Fromm. The topic for the thesis came from Löwenthal, who, as Katz now recalls, was then preparing to become Director of Research for Voice of America. Somehow, he obtained from CBS, perhaps through Lazarsfeld, several thousand letters sent in to the network during the early months of 1948. He was interested in letters sent by listeners in anticipation of such mail landing on his desk in his new position. The letters were sorted into different bundles and assigned to various graduate students for analysis. It was a happy chance that the bundle assigned to Katz were letters sent in by listeners (overwhelmingly female) in response to a request from a popular radio broadcaster of the day, Ted Malone. Malone asked regular listeners to his daytime show to note whenever they felt happy across the whole of February 1948 (a leap-year) and, at the end of the month, to send him a letter telling of their happiest day. Over two thousand letters were received, and from this, a sample of 236 letters was selected and submitted to a careful content analysis which formed the substance of the thesis. Immediately following this, Katz entered the doctoral program in the Department of Sociology and began to work with Lazarsfeld, a collaboration which culminated in Katz’s work on the Decatur survey material that Lazarsfeld had commissioned in 1943. It became his doctoral thesis and was published as >Personal Influence< (1955), co-authored by Katz and Lazarsfeld – a landmark in American sociological literature.
Review Friedman, L. J.: The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love's Prophet: The Art of Being Erich Fromm
(2013)
Erich Fromm analyzed how man is divided in his sense of true self. This division within forces him to cling to abstract and concrete entities outside of himself and Fromm calls this >transference< which he, after all, borrowed from Freud. This transferring of man’s individuality to outside forces brings temporary relief to his experience of powerlessness and loneliness. The transference makes man acquire a masochistic character wherein he submits himself to outside irrational forces that perpetually dehumanize him. This is the reason why his ethics is a struggle to bring back the power of man within, nursing his potentialities to change himself and transform his world. Ethics, for Fromm, is a form of normativity which leads man into freedom to fully actualize his own sense of self.
Since the concept of imaginative elaboration of body functioning, which is essential to Winnicott's idea of psyche-soma, has rarely been investigated up to now, this article sets out to do this and tries to pursue the meaning and articulation of that concept in the corpus of Winnicott's theory. In this way, it contributes to bringing the body to the core of psychoanalytical theory.
This article probes psychoanalytic theory regarding the repercussions of traumatic experiences in memory function. Both memory and trauma are fundamental to psychoanalysis and lead to the psyche's constitution as well as to its limits. The relationship between trauma and memory, based mainly on an aspect beyond the pleasure principle, points toward a function at the limits of the psychic, something between the body and the psyche, between perception and representation – all of which is responsible for psychic differentiation. Trauma has been associated with death drive dynamics and automatic anxiety, which constantly require a prior link to the establishment of the pleasure principle. When there is no possibility of linking and transcribing an event, its effects are negative, that is, it causes narcissistic damage. Ferenczi considers the object's role to be the determinant as far as an event's traumatic fate is concerned. When the object cannot accommodate the subject's needs or assign some meaning to the traumatic experience, introjection and psychic inscription are interrupted. We suggest that the lack of intersubjective recognition occasions the nonrepresentation and the meaninglessness that emerge as corporeal acts during psychoanalytic treatment.
Taking Freud's >Beyond the pleasure principle< as a case in point, the author draws attention to how Freud had a tendency to develop different theories simultaneously and to neglect to state how they were related to each other. The theory of traumatic neurosis, which he explains by both the theory of the two egos and the theory of the mental apparatus and the energies at work within it, is cited as an example. Similarly, Freud's definition of the death instinct is also not reconcilable with his previous definition of the instinctual drives. A third example is that of Eros, important parts of whose definition are at variance with Freud's previously formulated definition of the sexual drives. In none of these cases, the author argues, did Freud replace the >old< theory >with the >new< one. He simply retained the old theory and added the new one, without integrating them.
I present and analyse here the phenomenon of a specific language that was spoken within the walls of a maximum security prison in the south-east of England between 2006 and 2007. In doing so, I look at the adolescent who becomes an offender, and how his language is thereby altered, here exploring language in groups and drawing on Freud and Bion, as well as the sociological contributions of Emery, Goffman and Messerschmidt, and the linguistic contribution of Teresa Labov. Examining the social structures that the language enforced, I examine my own role within and outside the prisoners' language, and explore what the prisoners learned from me and my language, and vice versa. I explore the nature of learning a language inside a prison, and examine the need for a homogeneity of language and the social adhesive in the language used. I look at my experience of one-to-one teaching versus group teaching: specifically, the differences in language used by the prisoners in these different scenarios, and try to determine to what extent language comes from outside influences and what to extent it forms and permutates inside. Using actual examples, I argue that despite the exuberance and inventiveness of the language, its usage follows Freud's >“Beyond the pleasure principle,< in that there is an attempt to reduce excitation. Finally, I regard prison language as a psychic retreat, drawing on the work of Steiner, Meltzer, Emanuel, and Leader (among others); and I ask questions not only about the prisoners, but also about the function of learning inside a prison itself, while regarding the language used as a depressive defence. No identifying reference to any single prisoner, or any specific crime, has been included in these pages. The people and the place that are alluded to throughout have been rendered anonymous.
Complex dynamics of forgiveness: Psychological, interpersonal, and psychotherapeutic implications
(2013)
The distinctive correlates of forgiveness are studied and analyzed in this paper. It is concluded that superficial and hasty forms of forgiveness might have a harmful impact on self-respect, self-concepts, self-complexity, and authenticity. Even deep forgiveness might not completely free the individual from negative side-effects, and there is some doubt whether complete forgiveness is possible. The paper also examines what place forgiveness should have in therapeutic settings and how it could be practiced in an accurate and safe manner.