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.
This article is the result of a study on Psychoanalysis and Racial Matters which has been conducted by a group of black Brazilian psychoanalysts affiliated to the Círculo Psicanalítico de Minas Gerais – CPMG, Brazil. Even though Brazil is a multiracial and miscegenetic country, the lowest levels of the social pyramid have always been occupied by its black citizens who represent almost half of the Brazilian population. Therefore, the idea that people have about blacks is that they are ugly, dirty and weak: the image of failure. In this article we have considered the effects that are caused by this imaginary psychic register which has been historically produced on the psyche of the black Brazilian. Although Psychoanalysis has had significant influence on mental health in Brazil, it has made little or no contribution to the understanding of this matter. To further our comprehension of this enigma, we pose the question: what does a psychoanalyst hear when a black person speaks?
Three papers on depression
(1976)
This study reports the results of the content analysis on Balada Cinta Majenun Novel by Geidurrahman El-Mishry about the love of the main character using the psychology of literature approach. The purpose of this study was to reveal the meaning of the main character's love based on Erich Fromm's love theory. The data used was the text in the novel. Reading and taking note were used to collect data. The data was classified based on the object of erotic love and divine love. Then, they were analyzed using the psychology of literature and interpreted using contextual meaning. The result showed that there was a love shift from erotic love to God love. It was influenced by the rejection of love and the concept of love that the main character owned as a result of following tharikat that later shaped his way of life into religion-oriented. His religious path, from love to the creatures that led to the path of God, gave rise to the desire to be united with God.
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.
Summum jus, summa injuria
(2005)
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.