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>Psychoanalytic Considerations on the Defences from Confrontation with the Stranger<: The conscious and unconscious are qualities of the contents of the psyche attributed, for the most part, to social processes, that are themselves unconscious. In this way the conscious area is largely an illusion. The total man, from the most distant past to the potential future, remains unconscious. One is a member of society, but also member of the human race and, as such, citizen of the world. Humanism is the antithesis of all xenophobic nationalism, all racism and all prejudiced thought. The repression of emotions, sentiments and thoughts which strike the family harmony are part of a strategy of survival adopted by the individual from the start of infancy. The operation of estrangement begins from oneself in order to conform with the family and social environment. Ostracism is avoided by directing it towards repressed and split parts of oneself and towards all aspects on the outside to which those parts allude, according to the defence mechanisms of identifiaation with the aggressor and the projection. Not only is >primordial man< estranged, but also and above all man in his potentiality of development, the >new man< who has overcome narcissism and the symbioticincestuous attachment. The revolutionary character is the strangest of all in today's Western society. The Author supports these positions by the analysis of two dreams and by a brief history of witch hunt.
The distinction between the having mode and the being mode seems to be the basis of E. FROMM's clinical approach, which finds its main application in the center-to-center relatedness between analyst and patient. Analysts can understand a patient because they experience what the patient experiences. The dialog is based on reciprocally communicated emotional and conceptual responses and reactions; both identities come into play. The psychoanalytic session can save itself from the having mode by addressing the patient's living memory, which represents the past relived in the present, according to the being mode. Case material from a psychoanalytic session with a 31-yarr-old woman is included. (German and Spanish abstracts.)
Biancoli presents a case study illustrating an application of E. FROMM's theoretical concepts to clinical work. The case ...is of a young woman torn between an unstable, aggressive, and impulsive attitude and a desire to form lasting and loving relationships; the case history takes us through the difficult steps that gradually lead the patient to a better understanding of the origin of this conflict and the transferential testing of the analyst. Biancoli points out that FROMM saw the role of ...psychoanalysis as articulating >real possibilities< or progressive change. This discovery of alternatives in the consulting room requires from analyst and analysand alike a realistic assessment of internal or external contraints--inherent in any specific situation--and a willingness to forgo illusory or unrealistic plans for change. A commentary by Ana Maria Barroso follows this chapter.
Groddeck is not a fully recognised part of the history of psychoanalysis. Several reasons induce us to rediscover his work. He is the analyst of man's compulsion to symbolise, even if in doing so he remains an expression of late Romanticism with some aspects of irrationalism. He opens a way of understanding the relationship between psyche and body through the original concept of the It. His psychotherapeutic practice offers themes of reflection to present-day psychoanalytic research. Many psychoanalysts refused Groddeck's unconventional and provocative activity and his declarations against science. Other psychoanalysts had friendly relations with him, particularly Ferenczi, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann and Fromm. They learnt deeply from his example of creative and independent thought and love of truth.