Reply to Stern.
(2002)
The relationship of Richard Quinney's critical criminology to Marxism is explored in this article. The originality of his version of critical criminology is discussed, from its origins in social constructionism, to his engagement with Marxism in the 1970s, to the importance in his later work of issues such as existentialism, Eastern thought, and Erich Fromm's socialist humanism. It is argued that Quinney's writings, despite several shifts of perspective, nonetheless exhibit some basic continuities and that an engagement with various forms of unorthodox, humanistic Marxism is one of these.
Is There Still Time?
(2002)
There has been much consideration in recent years of the nature of gender as socially constructed. During the same time there has also been much consideration of the nature of consciousness and of self-experience, and a calling into question of the experience of a unitary self versus multiple self-states. This paper offers case material of a patient who presents with traumatically induced multiple self-states. The author considers the way in which the gender of different self-states reflects both cultural and personal experience the way in which the patient's and the therapist's respective and mutual experience of their genders are intersubjectively experienced and the impact of an inadvertent touch in the course of treatment, in the light of both multiplicity and gender.
In. Replying to the commentaries by Adrienne Harris and Barbara Pizer, I further elaborate some of the ideas set forth in >Something Is Happening Here.< In particular, some considerations are offered with regard to work with trauma survivors from a body-centered energy therapy perspective. I also further consider some of the complexities of touch in a psychoanalytic treatment and the nature of >inadvertency.<
Gerard Chrzanowski was a prominent representative of psychoanalysis. However, he was not a friend of strict delimitations between the different psychoanalytic schools and the struggles between them. Having grown up in Poland, having lived a few years in Switzerland and the rest of his life in USA he had a multi-cultural background. He was with that well prepared to exert an integrative role between the different psychoanalytic movements and especially in the International Federation of Psychoanalysis, of which he was one of the founders and honourable members.
What kind of contributions can psychoanalysis make toward issues that concern violence and femininity, specifically the violence that women establish in the relations with the significant other and themselves? In this paper, the authors attempt to answer this question by dealing with concepts such as instinct, masochism and enjoyment. Additionally, they recognize the act of psychoanalytic listening as a genuine and valid manner of getting the unconscious to speak. This act of listening can be practiced either in the traditional psychoanalytic setting of private offices or in psychoanalysis applied to public institutions, for the principal tool is language as it permeates human relationships and proportions the structure of the unconscious mind.
This commentary considers Sander's contributions to our thinking about recognition, with particular emphasis on his idea of rhythmicity as a major organizing principle. The author suggests ways in which rhythmicity contributes to our apprehension of and participation in the third, that aspect of the intersubjective relationship which is cocreated and yet lawful. Both Sander's research and his contemporary reflections represent an important effort to unite our understanding of energy and information as complementary aspects of the same communication process.
Frankel's paper is related to issues in the study of multiple personality, as well as to the dilemmas of identification in psychoanalytic training. The main point raised in this discussion is that the generalization that all identification is related to fear is untenable and that a continuum should be recognized between identification with the other in a close relationship as a constructive building block of one's identity and a traumatic identification with the aggressor that results in alienation.
On the subject of countertransference we attempt to establish a line of continuity between Freud's own expression >blind spot< and Fromm's idea of >counterattitude<. It is pointed out that both expressed the idea of the analyst's unconscious as an >instrument< for understanding the patient's unconscious. It follows that the decision to openly use or not to use countertransference in analysis also depends on the concept we have of it and on its extent. The psy-choanalyst's real and illusory values and his convictions with regard to human nature influence the countertransference and the analytic relationship. Analytic listening itself may be distorted by it. We must be highly aware of this to avoid enclosing what the patient says in a theoretic scheme. What is needed, there-fore, is an open theoretic scheme, more oriented towards understanding than in-terpretation. Aspects of analytic communication and of the relationship between language, thought and insight are examined. A humanistic point of view is as-sumed in distinguishing between the transferral and the real plane, and the rea-sons behind the legitimacy of such a distinction are expounded.
On the subject of countertransference we attempt to establish a line of continuity between Freud's own expression >blind spot< and Fromm's idea of >counterattitude<. It is pointed out that both expressed the idea of the analyst's unconscious as an >instrument< for understanding the patient's unconscious. It follows that the decision to openly use or not to use countertransference in analysis also depends on the concept we have of it and on its extent. The psy-choanalyst's real and illusory values and his convictions with regard to human nature influence the countertransference and the analytic relationship. Analytic listening itself may be distorted by it. We must be highly aware of this to avoid enclosing what the patient says in a theoretic scheme. What is needed, there-fore, is an open theoretic scheme, more oriented towards understanding than in-terpretation. Aspects of analytic communication and of the relationship between language, thought and insight are examined. A humanistic point of view is as-sumed in distinguishing between the transferral and the real plane, and the rea-sons behind the legitimacy of such a distinction are expounded.
In Ferenczi's idea of identification with an aggressor we can distinguish two sides. One is what we might call an interactive tactic or a social strategy, which is used in upsetting or unbalanced relations of power in order to forestall lack of control, fear, and the like. This is the side that is explored in great detail by Jay Frankel. The other side consists in a intrapsychic change, which flows from severe trauma. The specific effects of the latter are described by Ferenczi as dissociation/fragmentation of the personality, sequestering of the trauma, emotional abandonment, and isolation. Elsewhere, Ferenczi refers to this as a form of psychic self-mutilation.
While the concepts of >wish< and >wish fulfillment< have indeed remained central since the start of classical psychoanalysis, they are only weakly anchored both in theory and practice. It has become common today for psychoanalysts to use the term >to wish< in the sense of >to want< or >to intend.< As a first step, it will be emphasized that >wish< should not be constructed along the lines of >intention.< An examination of the relationship of >wish< to >wish fulfillment< is then followed by an evaluation of its practical significance for psychoanalysis and for our understanding of mental life in a general sense. Turning to an example dream sequence, we will arrive at the psychoanalytic core of the issue: the assumption of hidden, non-obvious, non-recognizable wish fulfillment scenarios. At this point in the discussion, a method of access will be sketched out – the dramaturgical approach – that, although it makes use of the idea of free association, does so in a manner that diverges from Freud's original recommendation.
This article aims to reflect on the possible contributions of psychoanalysis in relation to severely disturbed patients by means of the presentation of a clinical case. Beginning with the family history, the evolutionary process of the symptoms and identification movements of the patient are analysed. The observation of the transference dynamics is emphasised, showing how the desire of the analyst and his privileged listening will allow the patient some level of possible subjective structure.
Commentary on Eric M. Plakun >Jihad, McWorld and Enactment in the Postmodern Mental Health World<
(2002)
The passing of the dominance of the doctrine of intrapsychic determinism has created a vacuum, leaving behind it a >crisis< in American psychoanalysis. A confusing array of relational concepts and models are emerging in attempts to fill the gap. It is my conviction that, in order to help determine what is transient and what may have enduring value, such attempts should be subject to the same scrupulous deconstructivist efforts as were formerly directed at the classical psychoanalytic model. With this in mind, some hidden assumptions that underlie the model offered in Steven Stern's paper are the focus of examination in my discussion.
The psychoanalyst's ethics at issue – referred to a paradigm of complexity in the postmodern age – is to affirm as a fundamental value the recognition of determinism of unconscious desire, which implies a renunciation to any exercise of power, even the power of influence that can guide and support. Intending through interpretation of the partial truth of desire to be accomplished as a process that subverts the subject's relation with its own history, psychoanalysis, as it undoes the imaginary fixations of the subject, cannot predict the >politics< of the unconscious desire. Nor can it confront the possibilities of decision and choice of a relative and finite freedom. Using the interpretative elaboration of an intersubjective field of values, the psychoanalytic practice reveals the limits of a knowledge restricted by the context where the interpretation takes place. It differentiates between deciphering and decoding by emphasizing the attribute of the uncognoscibility of the unconscious Thus it reveals the cryptogram, a cipher designed as an ambiguous puzzle that is not exhausted by interpretation as a symbolic act, and it refers to the unrepresentable and the inaccessibility of the real.
Gerard Chrzanowski 1913-2000
(2002)
Although an intersubjective analytic approach reflects postmodern concerns about the problems associated with authority and influence, it does not altogether escape them. Interpreting subjective states invokes a veiled analytic authority, and labeling them as dissociative creates a pathway for the influence of questionable assumptions about the origins of dissociation as a defense against trauma. Harris and Gold's paper can be used to illustrate these ideas.
Review: Steven H. Cooper: Objects of Hope: Exploring the Possibility and Limit in Psychoanalysis
(2002)
The analyst and the patient must feel enough hope to sustain their active effort. A significant aspect of the analyst's role is inspiring hope. This seems to require that the analyst take a life-affirming position that violates traditional notions of analytic neutrality. Yet, in facilitating the patient's full self-expression, we do not want to lose the benefits of neutrality. Fromm's work can inspire us to try to integrate an attitude of spirited hope with interpretations whose content neutrally encourages the patient to reveal his whole self.
This paper presents vignettes of a case from the city of Rio de Janeiro in which temporality appears as a fundamental issue. Severe difficulties in validating the past and integrating past, present and future reveal pertinent questions on time and the ideal function in the contemporary world. The author underlines the relevance of such questioning for the practice of psychoanalysis today.
According to Bion, group mentality is inspired by three basic assumptions (dependence, fightflight, pairing) dominating in turn. No conjunctions of basic assumptions seem to be possible. The author, however, formulates the hypothesis that such conjunctions may take place in weakly structured enlarged groups, midway between small groups and the institutional larger groups described by Freud and Bion as Church, Army and Aristocracy. A case study is here presented, wherein the group session appears to be dominated by a baFF+baP conjunction (i.e. a combination of fightflight and pairing emerging simultaneously). The in-depth analysis highlights the shared unconscious fantasy corresponding to this conjunction, i.e. the Weapon-Baby fantasy. Having split the parental couple into a good one and a bad one, the group expects the good couple to generate a Divine Baby capable of leading the war against the bad couple. The >good< pairing thus evoked, however, is nothing but a combined object, only capable of faecal offspring: a Stool Baby, which can only be used to be thrown against the Enemy. Similar fantasies can be found at the individual level in manicpersonality pseudo-creativity. At the social level, the same baFF+baP conjunction seems to apply as well to political movements such as Hitlerism.