Refine
Language
Document Type
- Articles (155)
- Dissertations (5)
- Interviews (5)
- Forewords (4)
- Books (2)
- Reviews (2)
- Collections (1)
Has Fulltext
- yes (174) (remove)
Year of publication
- 2010 (174) (remove)
This paper proposes the use of social psychological and philosophical foundations for designing affective technology that promotes the experience of love. The adopted theoretical basis is the concept of productive love, which is heavily based on Enrich Fromm but also includes theories and scientific findings of numerous psychoanalysts, social psychologists, and philosophers. We conducted a review of the theory about the nature of love and found that social psychological and philosophical approaches differ regarding peoples' understandings. The findings were used to elaborate eight principles of productive love. Based on these principles, we derived criteria for designing affective technology when the objective is to promote productive love. We reviewed the existent studies on affective technologies and implemented the criteria into a system design, the Pictures' Call. A prototype of the system was pretested to illustrate how productive love technology could be based on established criteria.
이 글은 쇼펜하우어의 욕망관과 그것이 갖는 문제점을 살펴보고 이러한 문제점을 어떻게 극복할 수 있는지를 살펴보고 있다. 쇼펜하우어의 철학은 인간 뿐 아니라 모든 존재자들이 자기보존에의 욕망과 종족보존에의 욕망에 의해서 규정되고 있으며 이러한 욕망들은 물자체로서의 의지의 표현이라고 보고 있다. 그리고 쇼펜하우어는 각 개체들과 종족들은 자신들의 무한한 욕망을 충족시키기 위해서 서로 투쟁하고 갈등하는 바 이러한 세계는 생각할 수 있는 세계 중에서 최악의 세계라고 보았다. 쇼펜하우어는 욕망을 극복하는 궁극적인 방법으로 이성에 의한 의지부정을 내세우고 있다. 그런데 이는 이성을 자기보존과 종족보존에의 욕망의 도구로 보는 자신의 철학적 입장과 모순될 뿐 아니라 그의 철학이 이성과 욕망을 서로 대립하는 것으로 보는 전통적인 이원론의 입장으로 전락하게 되는 것을 의미한다. 이러한 문제점을 극복하면서 인간의 욕망을 고찰하는 보다 설득력있는 입장으로서 이 글에서는 말미에서 프롬의 욕망관을 간략히 살펴보고 있다. 프롬은 쇼펜하우어나 서양의 전통적인 이원론적인 입장이 주장하는 것처럼 이성과 욕망이 대립하는 것이 아니라 오히려 생산적이고 긍정적인 욕망과 그것과 결합된 건강한 이성에 대해서 파괴적이고 부정적인 욕망과 그것과 결합된 병적인 이성이 대립한다고 보았다.
루돌프 옷토의 종교 체험에 담긴 교육적 의미 [A Study on Educational Implication of Rudolf Otto's Religious Experience]
(2010)
이 논문의 목적은 종교 체험에 담긴 교육적 의미를 탐구하는 것이다. 특히 루돌프 옷토가 말하는 종교적 감정에 초점을 맞추었다. 종교 체험은 종교를 이해하는 주요한 대상이다. 종교 체험은 매우 다양하지만 공통적 특성을 지닌 것으로 설명되기도 한다. 종교 체험의 감정적 측면에 주목한 옷토는 종교 체험을 성스러움의 체험으로 이해한다. 그는 이를 피조물 감정, 두려운 신비감, 매혹성, 어마어마함, 장엄성으로 나누어 설명하였다. 이러한 성스러움의 체험 내용은 두려움과 매혹으로 대비되어 이해할 수 있다. 바하는 옷토가 종교 체험을 두려움과 매혹성으로 구분한 것을 높게 평가하였다.
필자는 두려움과 매혹의 양극성으로 구분되는 종교적 체험이 지닌 교육적 의미에 주목한다. 종교 체험이 지닌 교육적 의미를 밝혀보고자, 부성애와 모성애의 교육적 영향을 살펴보았다. 그리고 그 연장선에서 두려움과 매혹성을 분석하였으며, 그 교육적 작동방식을 살펴보았다.
프롬에 의하면 부성애는 조건적이고 인위적인 것이고 모성애는 무조건적이고 자연스러운 것이다. 유아에게 부성애는 존경심을 형성하고 모성애는 안정감을 형성한다. 유아는 이러한 마음을 기초로 하여 다양한 관계를 맺어가게 된다.
카를 융은 인간은 양극적 요소를 통합하면서 인격을 성숙하게 된다고 하였다. 옷토가 주장하는 종교체험도 인격의 형성과 관계된다. 두려움은 인간이 자신을 반성하고 바로잡아가도록 하고, 매혹성은 성스러운 존재에게 다가가 평온과 행복에 취하게 한다. 결국 두려움과 매혹성의 종교 체험은 부성과 모성의 사랑과 유사한 교육적 영향을 준다고 할 수 있는 것이다.
사회 압력으로서 일반화된 타자들의 사회 기대 [The Social Expectation of Generalized Others as a Form of Social Pressure]
(2010)
에밀 뒤르케임이 사고와 행위의 집합적 양식이 존재한다는 사실을 발견한 것은 위대한 사회학적 대상의 발견으로 평가되고 있다. 그러나 그는 사고와 행위의 집합적 양식을 도덕적인 것, 종교적인 것과 동일시했다. 이후 조지 허버트 미드나 악셀 호네트 등의 사회학 이론가들 역시 >일반화된 타자들의 집합적 힘<을 도덕적인 것, 종교적인 것과 동일시하고 있다. 반면 허버트 마르쿠제, 에리히 프롬, 알랭 투렌 등의 학자들은 개인이 사회로부터 비합리적인 강제를 경험하고 있다는 주장을 하면서, 시장이나 국가에 의한 강제를 문제시했다. 이 논문에서는 이들 두 학자군에 의해서 조명되지 못한, 사회의 영향에 의한 개인의 행위 부분이 있음을 논증한다. 일반화된 타자들이 공유하는 비합리적 집합적 힘 역시 강하게 작동되고 있으며, 우리 사회에서 가부장적 권위주의, 사회적 과시, 인종차별, 연고·연줄주의 등의 형태로 다양한 사회문제를 야기하는 집합적 힘이 존재하고 있다
유능한 교수자가 된다는 것은 가르치는 사람의 입장에서 현실적으로 절실한 과제이고 바람이다. 페다고지 교육현장이든 안드라고지의 교육현장이든 가르치는 자의 능력이 교육의 승패를 결정짓는 중요한 요인 중의 하나이기에 유능한 교수자를 결정하는 요인 중 하나인 사랑으로 가르치는 것의 의미와 실천적 방법을 분석하고자 하였다. 사랑으로 가르치는 진정한 의미는 모호하며 사랑에 대한 의미부터 해석을 달리 할 수 있다. 에릭 프롬은 사랑의 의미와 방법적인 문제를 논하고 있지만 실제로 교육현장에서 가르침을 위한 사랑의 의미를 이해하고 실천하는 것은 또 다른 문제이다. 본고는 유능한 교수자가 되기 위해 가르침의 가장 원론적인 과제라고 할 수 있는 사랑으로 가르치는 문제에 대한 해답을 찾기 위한 노력의 일환이다. 이를 위해 사랑의 실천적 관점에서 교육의 현장을 분석하고 실천적 사랑의 의미를 탐색하고자 하였다. 그 결과 사랑을 이해하는 것과 실천하는 것의 괴리를 채워줄 함축적이면서 동시에 구체적인 가르침의 황금률은「남에게 대접받기 원하면 먼저 대접하라」는 예수의 사랑의 실천 원리가 최상의 방법이 될 수 있고 이는 따름의 학습 원리 즉 따름학의 실천에 의해 가능하다고 보았다.
The article constitutes a short analysis of the contemporary man who has to deal with widely understood changes, which is often the cause of adaptation difficulties and at the same time is the chance of personality development and gaining many personal benefits. A suggestion reinforcing mental hardness and increasing the chances to satisfactorily deal with different difficult situations is creativity regarded as the process of self‑creation. The text presents a short story of creation, as well as a description of the construct of hardness. Also, mutual permeation of a humanist approach to creativity and the concept of hardness which, seen as a certain part, create a model of personality and suggestion of the way to function in a globalized world for the contemporary man who, being >on the way< and still >becoming<, makes a constant transgression and at the same time, positively answers the requirements of its environment.
Is there a Jewish conception of the individual subject? The issue is quite problematic, for several reasons: 1) it is difficult to speak of Judaism in a monolithic manner, because Judaism is a multifaceted reality, varying according to different epochs and places, to the point that we should speak of >Judaisms<, in the plural; 2) if the question of the individual subject is connected to the vision that the Western (meaning, European, essentially Christian) culture has constructed, Judaism can hardly be defined as “Occidental” or “Oriental”. After a short analysis of these two points, we present the conceptions of the individual subject as developed by two major Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century: Martin Buber (1878-1965) and Erich Fromm (1900-1980). Both based their visions on traditional Jewish sources (Bible, Talmud) but attributed them a universal value.
Le cadre du programme interdisciplinaire de recherche défini par Max Horkheimer dans les années 1930 doit beaucoup à Erich Fromm, qui a introduit la psychologie sociale dans la Théorie critique de la société. Or, une décennie plus tard, Fromm est la cible privilégiée des attaques et sa théorie apparaît désormais comme incompatible avec les positions défendues par Horkheimer et Adorno. Partant de ces tensions qui ont marqué l’histoire de l’École de Francfort, le présent article vise à éclaircir le déplacement qu’elles traduisent sur le plan épistémologique. Si Horkheimer et Fromm partagent des prémisses communes, le premier, dans son travail avec Adorno, se rapproche de manière croissante de la doctrine freudienne alors que le second s’en éloigne. Nous voudrions montrer que l’accord entre Fromm et Horkheimer fut surtout négatif puisqu’il portait sur la critique de Freud : les divergences entre les deux penseurs apparaissent clairement, dès lors qu’on pose en profondeur la question de l’usage de la psychanalyse pour analyser l’un des problèmes centraux de la théorie de la société, l’antagonisme entre individu et société.
>Die geschichtliche Aufgabe des Menschen ist es, menschlicher zu werden< – Paulo Freire >Wenn jemand zu stark unterdrückt wird, müssen wir ihm erlauben, weniger unterdrückt zu werden.< – Erich Fromm Es ist Aufgabe der Menschheit, Geschichte miteinander zu erleben, es ist Aufgabe des Menschen, andere von Angst zu befreien. Rationale Wege zur gesellschaftlichen Befreiung von Angst als Basis friedlichen Zusammenlebens sind das zentrale Anliegen meiner philosophischen Arbeiten. Zentral in dieser Arbeit sind die Begriffe Freiheit und Befreiung als Wege aus Angst und Unterdrückung, wofür in der Hauptsache die Werke Furcht Vor Der Freiheit von Erich Fromm und Pädagogik Der Unterdrückten von Paulo Freire behandelt werden. Die Wahl fiel auf diese Autoren, weil sie einander als Flüchtlinge und Exilanten am CIDOC in Cuernavaca trafen, wo in interkultureller Begegnung intensiv diskutiert wurde. Die vorliegende Arbeit umfasst einen historischen Teil, welcher dazu dient, die Herleitung des Gesellschaftscharakters zu illustrieren. Ein weiterer Abschnitt umfasst die Diskussion der beiden genannten Werke, im letzten Kapitel wird das zuvor Erarbeitete hinsichtlich der Begriffe Entfremdung und Angst reflektiert und über den Subjekt-Objekt Begriff der Autoren der Versuch unternommen, mit dem Begriff der Geborgenheit oder Intimität einen Denkweg aus der Angst zu finden. Wir könnten ihn Liebe nennen.
In this paper, I outline a history of critical marketing studies. The argument put forward that marketing lacks any substantive critical edge is questioned. In surveying our history and finding extensive engagement with a variety of critical perspectives, I connect these with appropriate literature from non-marketing sources to flesh out an account of our critical marketing heritage. I devote considerable attention to the period 1940 to 1990, as this is the historical range of critical marketing literature that most scholars will be unfamiliar with, linking this through citation and discussion to more recently published work. In this way, this paper provides a guide to sources of literature that may have passed marketing scholars by because they violate our disciplinary demands for >recency< (Baker, 2001). As I document, critical marketing studies examines a variety of areas that represent consumer culture theory’s (CCT) >next frontier< if we accept Arnould and Thompson’s (2005) diagnosis. In opposition to Arnould and Thompson’s assertion, CCT’s new frontier, this paper contends, is a frontier that has long been of interest to critical marketing scholars whose work might usefully be re-examined.
Attachment and the driving force of development: A critical discussion of empirical infant research
(2010)
Empirical infant research has led to an enormous expansion of our knowledge of the psychological functions of the infant. From a psychoanalytic perspective, however, it must be questioned whether this research has increased our knowledge of internal psychic life and helped answer the questions of what initiates and drives development. In the first part of this article, we argue that psychoanalysis must necessarily adopt a critical stance towards a scholarly ideal that rests on the positivist empirical tradition. Psychoanalysis has as its object unconscious processes that cannot be directly observed. In the following section, we take as our point of departure the project of attachment theory that Peter Fonagy and his colleagues have developed in an attempt to reconcile psychoanalysis with the empirical and experimental study of small children, and we demonstrate concretely the limitations of such a project vis-à-vis the exploration of the psychic reality of the child. Our line of reasoning continues to demonstrate how drive theory can be shaped so as to contain an object relations theoretical perspective – as has taken place in Jean Laplanche's reinterpretation of the theory of seduction – without abandoning the psychoanalytic theory of the drive and the unconscious.
The author examines different definitions and applications of the terms >psychic energy< and >libido.< With regard to the >psychic energy< terminology, he shows that its application and usage relate in particular to the perspective of Brenner and not to Freud's definition. He argues that Freud uses the term >psychic energy< as a synonym for >libido,< and not >libido< as a synonym for >psychic energy.< It is demonstrated that in Freud's view, up until 1914, >libido< relates to manifestations of bodily sexual tensions, and subsequently this term applies to the manifestations of sexual energy in the psychic field. The author rejects this change in terminology and also challenges Freud's attempt to use dynamic-economic considerations as an explanatory device for epistemological reasons. Freud's concept of energy is inconsistent with the meaning of energy as defined in the physical sciences, and whereas the metapsychological topographical, dynamic, and structural viewpoints have a solid foundation in the representational world to which the psychoanalytic process affords unique access, this is not true of the economic viewpoint. It is claimed that bodily tensions only exist in the representational world in the form of affects, so that, in the author's opinion, the economic viewpoint should be abandoned in favour of an affective one. In the context of the endeavour to obtain pleasure and avoid unpleasure adduced by Freud, this viewpoint focuses on the relationships between affects and the different elements of the representational world, thereby serving as the subject of metapsychological investigation.
The author examines the role that the buying of commodities plays in the identity formation of the individual. He concludes that it is nowadays no longer the instrumental utility value but a psychical utility value that influences the decision to buy a commodity and that the psychical utility value can have different functions for consumers. In neurotically structured individuals, normal consuming can end in an identity extension where the individual identifies transitively unconscious scenes with those in advertisements, thus making these unconscious scenes conscious in their guise. When individuals are mainly narcissistically structured, an >identity of commodities< can be found, that is, a non-personal identity formation mediated by commodities in which the individuals identify reflexively with the scenic figures from Internet games, movies, television programs, and commercials.
Global warming – reality or fantasy? Certainly, global warming is a dystopia linked to other catastrophes in human history, such as the Flood and Noah's Ark. Noah's belief in God saved his life and the life of his family. In our time, we need to sustain our belief in the human capacity to cooperate and survive. This is a necessary background when thinking of the future and analysing the border between fantasy and reality, between fear and paranoia, and in the process in which a new worldview takes form.
The process of a de-territorialized or multilocal world productive system, which is more informational than industrial and more speculative than productive, has led to a crisis in social structures and the breakdown of identity referents that formerly had provided a sense of meaning to individual and social life. We are facing both a breakdown and a disarticulation of institutional and symbolic mediations from the past, and also a process of reorganization of differences and inequalities that are having a strong impact on identities. The individual and collective construction of subjectivity is acquiring multiple forms, some of them unexpected, others unprecedented. In what way does reality question psychoanalysis?
Psychoanalysis is in a somewhat better position in French universities than elsewhere in Europe. Although the situation can at times be difficult, psychoanalysis remains the major reference for students in clinical psychology, both in the adult sector and in that of children and adolescents. This is to some extent related to the setting up of a European interuniversity study group on teaching and research in psychoanalysis and psychopathology (SIUEERPP), which brings together psychoanalyst lecturers (belonging to various schools of thought) in order to defend the ongoing presence of psychoanalysis in training clinical psychologists. Conditions are not quite as good as regards the training of psychiatrists, where it is much more difficult for teaching based on psychoanalysis to survive, even in the few >strongholds< that it still manages to occupy. Things are slightly better in child psychiatry, where the illusion that medication alone is sufficient for treatment is somewhat weaker.
This article presents the evolution of a face-to-face analysis of a severely disturbed 16-year-old girl. In the first part of the analysis, communication was mainly at a nonverbal level, via gestures, body movements, gaze, long silences and the coded language of dreams without associations. The importance of listening is stressed, including a >hearing with eyes,< in order to attune to presymbolic levels of the patient's psychic organization and to gather preverbal elements of her subjective expression. The analytic device is considered as a transformation system through which unconscious somatopsychic processes – sensorial, emotional and protomental states – acquire the quality of representability. In the final phase of the analysis, thanks to her acquired capacity to narrate, relive and work through what had been enacted in the relationship and what had been discarded, repeated and transformed in dreams, the patient succeeded in revealing and signifying her internal experience in the context of the transference. The author is confident that the introjection of the analytic experience and the elaboration of the separation from the analyst will further modify, in the post-analysis, the traumatic memory of the death of the patient's mother, which is repeated in the transference at the end of the analysis.
While exploring the transgenerational transmission of intrapsychic contents and processes, Faimberg coined the term alienating identification to convey the impact of the parents' intrusion into the child's psyche, and of the expulsion into it of rejected parts of themselves. In addition, Torok and Abraham use the term phantom to describe aspects of the presence of a split-off, traumatized part of the self of a person, usually related with unresolved mourning, in another person's mind. The existence of such processes constitutes a major problem for the subject's narcissism, that is, the way he invests himself, and for his relation to experience and reality. It also may be used as an omnipotent means of avoiding psychic pain, by identifying with his object's omnipotent way of rejecting painful reality. This paper will explore, with the use of clinical material, the defensive use of such phenomena on the part of the subject, as well as their impact on the analyst's mind, that is, on his countertransference, when he is working with carriers of alienating identifications and phantoms. Stress is put on the importance for the analyst of containing the uncanny experiences of being cut off from the patient's mind and of being controlled by something he ignores.
By 1900, Freud had formulated an original and operational method of psychoanalytic treatment and research: the technique of free association. In 1912–1915 and later writings, he recommended it as a fundamental procedure and process, called the fundamental rule, in psychoanalytic therapy. In recent years, free association as a method has been variously misrepresented, misunderstood, and denied by some schools of psychoanalysis. This paper reviews the history of free associations and argues for upholding the continuity and relevance of Freud's fundamental methodology and for a renewal of interest in reciprocal, i.e., interactive and interpersonal, free association.
The American Psychological Association's Presidential Task Force on Evidence-Based Practice articulates a decision-making process based on the integration of the best available research, clinical expertise, and patient characteristics. The treatment method, the individual psychotherapist, the treatment relationship, and the patient are all vital contributors to successful psychotherapy. Several studies have shown that the variation in treatment effect among psychotherapists using the same method is greater than the variation in treatment effect among different methods. This outcome pleads for a comprehensive psychotherapist-related >g-factor< of psychotherapy. In terms of decision-making for health-care institutions and clinical practices, it would seem wise not to separate the psychotherapist, the patient, or the relationship from the method as there seem to be extensive effects relative to the interaction among these parameters. Parallel to a growing knowledge of evidence-based methods, there is still a decisive lack of scientific knowledge about these interactions.
In contrast to the management of erotic boundaries, the institutional and clinical management of transactions across narcissistic boundaries can have far-reaching implications for how and in what ways power is wielded within our organizations. This is especially true in regard to analysts who are, or are perceived to be, in leadership positions within their psychoanalytic groups, organizations, and institutes. This paper illustrates some of the difficulties in the management of narcissistic boundaries by exploring Freud's narcissistic investment in defining the field of psychoanalysis and determining the directions of its development, his attitudes towards dissent – for example, Jung, Adler, Ferenczi, etc. – and his clinical behavior with certain analysands. The institutional consequences of Freud's failure to successfully negotiate narcissistic boundaries – and our reluctance to recognize this aspect of his leadership – have become intertwined with defenses against the epistemic anxiety that follows from the inevitably subjective nature of the analytic enterprise. Together, they have tended toward the creation of a culture of rigidity and control within organized psychoanalysis. This is a legacy – the sins of our fathers – with which our field continues to struggle.
The relations between psychoanalysis and neuroscience have undergone considerable changes during the last two decades. From the cool distance that was maintained on both sides, a new neuroscientific basis has emerged for a dialogue between psychoanalysis and neuroscience. A crucial question then arises about the identity of psychoanalysis in this dialogue. What will be the effects of the growing impact of neuroscientific discoveries on psychoanalysis? Freud regarded psychoanalysis and the natural sciences as having a similar epistemological foundation determined by their relation to unknown aspects of reality. The author proposes that this viewpoint creates equal ground for psychoanalysis and neuroscience in their evolving mutual relationships. In the clinical realm, however, psychoanalysis cannot work without clinical, developmental, and metapsychological premises, which render clinical ontological autonomy to psychoanalysis in its relationship with the other sciences. This fact also needs to be taken into account when brain imaging techniques are applied to outcome research of psychotherapy.
This paper tries to follow the historical development of the ideas related to the term >primary identification.< It is shown that Freud's thinking regarding primary identification was developed around the phenomenon of mass suggestion, which was explained using the concept of identification with the leader, >primary identification,< and Einfühlung. However, two false translations from Freud's German to English led to severe confusion in the subsequent literature. The most important one was that >Einfühlung< was translated as >empathy.< It is shown that Freud meant by Einfühlung something like affect contagion that was considered to be an inborn capacity to activate motoric patterns by just looking at the behavior of other human beings. This idea is a conceptual forerunner of mirror neurons. The activation of these is a prerequisite for empathy, but without separation between the self and the other, the attribution to which the feeling belongs is impossible. Kernberg, following Klein, uses the term >introjection< for the process of very early internalisations. We are proposing to discriminate interjections from identifications following Piaget's description of assimilation versus accommodation.
Terorizmyt:Obyasnitelnata prespektiva na Erih From (Terrorism: Erich Form's Explanatory Perspective)
(2010)
Symbols psychoanalysis, depth psychology, mythology and religion from a multiplicity of perspectives – there are many guidelines for their interpretation and integration in clinical practice. The present study, based on a Jungian analytic model, incorporated the snake mother as an imaginary symbol in a patient with generalised anxiety disorder and her treatment within a clinical case study. From an integrative symbolism approach, snakes are considered mysterious, with the ability to express the primary instinctual powers and psychic energy that take root beyond the ego strength and archetypal images. Here, with respect to the patient's main complaint and her underlying core conflict according to Jungian therapy and Persian mythology, it was indicated that the snake mother symbolism, an imagery object from childhood to adolescence, originated from both the personal and the collective unconsciousness. The way in which the symbolism of the snake mother came to work in the therapeutic process was similar to a that of dream and symbolism approach. The snake mother operated as an alternative animus in the shape of a caregiving mother, and supported the patient against her father's misbehavior during her early childhood. It could represent the shadow, the reconsolidation of the anima/animus for patient, and a projection of negative thoughts and actions from animal instincts.
This paper clarifies the dual-layered nature of the >demon lover complex,< with its background of both pre-Oedipal trauma and Oedipal-level desire. It draws on an object relations understanding of the unconscious and dissociated addiction to an internal demon object that has derivations in the personalities of the actual parents, and in the internalization of these parents. The dramatic case of early trauma compounded by adult date rape trauma serves to illustrate how a >developmental mourning process< in treatment can resolve such trauma. It also illustrates how reparation with the mother that partially heals pre-Oedipal trauma cannot immunize anyone against Oedipal-level attractions to a >demon lover< father, as represented in a displacement, resulting in victimized behavior, and in an aborted surrender to heterosexual desire. However, this victimization can be resolved, as seen in the clinical illustration, when the psychoanalyst has an understanding of the mourning process in developmental terms, working with a natural interaction between mourning and transference evolutions in treatment. The case also demonstrates the transitional object role of the psychoanalyst who is involved with the healing of pre-Oedipal trauma through mourning.
Does globalization affect our dreaming? This would be the case if dreams, in an increasingly globalized world, showed a decrease in characteristic cultural traits. I maintain however that the specific culture of the dreamer is not relevant in dreams in the first place. Any effect globalization may have on us is therefore not essential to the subject matter of dreaming. Following Martin Heidegger's philosophical analysis of human existence, dreams are found to deal with emotionally relevant issues of our existence with which we have difficulties to come to terms. Matters of normality which are felt to be matters of course are not a topic in dreams. Consequently, normal cultural features only become a topic for dreaming in some form of negation of their normal function. An impressive dream-report, centering on a denied handshake, serves as an illustration. In conclusion, it is stated that dreams are concerned with those very individual responses to general human issues which do not comply with the collectively accepted so-called >normal< responses of the specific culture. Our cultural identity is only of very marginal interest in dreams. Dreams spring from and point to the psychoanalytic identity of the dreamer.
The Israeli film, Ushpizin (2004), has met with local and international critical acclaim. Despite its ultra-Judaic content, it remains popular with a wide audience. The story of an impoverished Hasidic couple who achieve their dreams as a result of Divine intervention (or a random directorial plot twist) captures the emotions of its viewers, irrespective of their religious leanings. The tale revolves around Jewish, Hassidic, and Kabbalistic symbols of Sukkoth (the Feast of Tabernacles), the Biblically inspired fall harvest festival. The unique rituals of the holiday, especially the custom of hosting ushpizin (honored guests), are used to subtly, yet powerfully, convey feelings accompanying personal and historical generativity and development. Kabbalistic and psychoanalytic ideas, remarkably similar despite the longstanding tensions between the two doctrines, coincide to explicate a central theme of forgiveness and reparation. These approaches together yield a more cogent understanding of the film's characters, plot, message, and, ultimately, universal appeal.
In 1995 a seminal paper by Howard Shevrin classified four conceptions of psychoanalysis: first as a human enterprise such as governing and teaching second as a science sui generis that does not require any additional empirical research third as a clinical science that focuses on psychotherapy research and fourth as a science tout court that is of course expected to validate its basic assumptions on the mind. Fifteen years later, Shevrin's classification has remained illuminating. All kinds of research are welcomed in psychoanalysis, but it is also true that, in the current debate on research in psychoanalysis, the interest in testing its assumptions on the mind is no longer a topic. But it is precisely this which is crucial in a time when the sciences of the cognitive field, such as neurobiology and the cognitive sciences, seem to be tentatively cooperating with psychoanalysis in a few studies, but overwhelmingly absorbing many psychoanalytic assumptions without mentioning psychoanalysis. In order to exist and survive as a science in the long run within universities, academies of sciences, and other scientific research institutions, the psychoanalytic community has to face the challenge and prepare itself not only for prospective dialogue, but also for confrontation.
It is widely known that Freud gives Oedipus a central place in both his psychoanalytic theory and praxis. Freud introduces the Oedipus myth as the crucial key for understanding the tragedy of human life. One of the most problematic issues innate to the human condition is aggression. This paper argues: (1) that Freud's insights into human aggression can at the very least be viewed as one-sided and problematic; and (2) that the heuristic potential of the Oedipus myth is, correspondingly, limited. It considers how the Hungarian psychiatrist and analyst, Lipót Szondi, tries to bridge this gap using the myth of Cain and Abel. The aim of this paper is to explore how Szondi's interpretation of this myth offers a much more subtle approach to human aggression. Szondi's alternative and distinctive look at aggressive phenomena offers an exciting and fruitful addition to Freud's interpretation as exclusively referring to sadism and/or the death instinct. This contribution wants to highlight Szondi's amendment to Freud's Oedipus and aims to show that psychoanalysis can benefit from taking into account the mythical figures of Cain and Abel.
Since 1999, the author has been working as a psychoanalyst in Munich, Germany, in the context of the German National Health Service, which covers psychoanalytic psychotherapy of up to 300 sessions with a frequency of up to three times a week. He has mostly been working with Italian patients in their common mother language. In other words, globalisation has made it possible to help patients heal the wounds of their old Italian self, develop a new German self, integrate them with each other, and thus allow foreign patients to become >citizens of the world.< After presenting the context of his clinical work, including the German Kassensystem and the characteristics of the Italian patients he works with, the author provides the reader with a review of the literature on migration and identity from a psychoanalytic point of view. Sociology and literature also offer an important key to the understanding of his patients. At this point in the paper, the author presents three patients, their history, the background of their migration to Germany, and the work he did with them. This allows him to come to the conclusion that psychoanalysis can help patients actualise the potentialities intrinsic in globalisation, in order to move towards a richer and more sophisticated identity.
Theodore J. Jacobs is training and supervising analyst at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and the New York University Psychoanalytic Institute. He is also clinical professor of psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the New York University School of Medicine. Furthermore, Dr Jacobs is on the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Quarterly (Editorial Board and Board of Directors), Psychoanalytic Inquiry, International Journal of Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, and Journal of Clinical Psychoanalysis. He has written over 50 papers and book reviews on a variety of psychoanalytic topics, as well as two books: The use of the self: Countertransference and communication in the analytic situation (Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1991) and On beginning an analysis (co-edited with Arnold Rothstein; Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1998).
The philosopher Seneca once said that we spend our whole lives preparing to die. Far from a morbid statement, I see this as expressing the truth that all human beings spend their whole lives overcoming their narcissism. We have to make a significant enough investment in the lives of others, and in ongoing life, so that the loss of our own, personal lives is bearable to us. How can we help our patients overcome their excessive narcissism? The analyst must be a person who has, to some degree, overcome some part of his or her own narcissistic issues. This means that he or she values human life more than pride. Our ability to make the meaning of the patient's life a priority is a key part of the treatment. In how he or she behaves, the analyst must embody the principle that the quality of a life is more important than the appearance of success or failure.
>Who?, where?, what?, in which way?, to whom?< – besides being the questions Paula Heimann suggested that any analyst should ask him- or herself while exploring the patient's communications, these are also the main issues the authors addressed through the results of their survey on the present state of the relationship between psychoanalysis and universities in Europe. This is a pilot study that tries to chart a map of European psychoanalysts (for the moment including only members of the International Psychoanalytic Society) working at various levels in universities. The aim is to set up a network between them for starting a debate on shared problems, hopes, and anxieties relating to the future of psychoanalysis in academia.
Editorial
(2010)
The gaze is originally experienced as a disembodied force. This experience is discussed here from a psychopathological prospective and from a developmental perspective. In certain states of regression, when the boundaries between the self and the others are fading away, the gaze is again experienced as a disembodied force that radiates from the eyes and can dangerously penetrate into the mind. The body and its extensions are usually used as a shelter. The body performs this sheltering function in a natural and silent way, and only when this function is lacking do we become aware of it. Shame then signals the failure of the ordinary sheltering function performed by the body. If the external body is not sufficiently cathected, its sheltering function is also decreased, to the point that the body is experienced as transparent, and the most intimate feelings and thoughts become dangerously available to others. In primitive societies, this situation is reflected in the universal belief in the >evil eye,< the most common defense against the evil eye having been a representation of an erect penis. In ancient Rome, the phallus-shaped amulet used to ward off the evil eye was called the >fascinum<: this magic phallus was supposed to neutralize the attack by fascinating the disembodied gaze, that is, by binding it (from the latin verb fascio, fasciare, to bind). The construction of mastered visibility is an organizer of the ego structure. The fascination of the mythical Narcissus for his own mirror image illustrates a central moment of the dialectical construction of the self: the effort to bind the disembodied gaze that is threatening the self, by giving a body to it and by fixing it to an image. Narcissism is thus the effort to bind an almighty free-floating gaze.
The paper presents a clinical model of different subtypes of pathological mourning and the intrapsychic and intersubjective conditions that initiate and maintain them. Specific psychotherapeutic interventions for each subtype are proposed, taking into account that an intervention that would produce change for a certain subtype will reinforce pathology for another one.
Most people who recognize his name are aware that Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) was considered to be one of Freud's most brilliant students and an important contributor to psychoanalytic theory. But it is also widely known that this innovative thinker, who is still read with interest over 50 years after his death, died in a federal penitentiary in the USA. The case against Wilhelm Reich, brought by the Food and Drug Administration, has been admirably detailed in Wilhelm Reich vs. the U.S.A. by Jerome Greenfield. Less well known are two other intertwined investigations of Reich, the first by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which led to his imprisonment for nearly a month after the USA declared war on Germany in 1941; and the second by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, in an attempt to remove his naturalized citizenship and deport him. This paper examines in detail these two assaults on Reich, placing them within the historical context of a lifetime of marginalization and denunciation by authorities, from the Communist Party in Germany to the International Psychoanalytic Association to academic biologists in Norway to right-wing Christian moralists in the USA and finally to agencies of the US government.