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A Room for One's Own
(1993)
The hermeneutic turn in psychoanalysis may be less a move toward soft science than an attempt to address certain failures in the classical tradition. The latter has failed to convert Freud's many metaphors into anything like responsible science it has been unable to give up its fascination with Freud and move on to other thinkers and other points of view it has been unable to find an answer to the problem of secrecy and privileged access to clinical data under the heavy hand of theory, it has all but eliminated research from the psychoanalytic enterprise and finally, it has been unable to find a home for the Roshomon effect and the fact that almost everything worth looking at has at least two sides. Above all, psychoanalysis needs to recognize that our theory is often the projection of either our Zeitgeist or our personal history. Until we can make room for the problem of subjectivity in our theory-building, we will never be able to separate the singer from the song.
This paper considers, from a psychoanalytic point of view, work with urban poor patients. A previous attempt, from an ego psychological perspective, to adapt psychoanalytic theory and technique for work with such patients is reviewed. An attempt is then made to elaborate an object relations perspective, based largely on the work of Fairbairn. The two approaches are compared and contrasted, especially with respect to common problems that arise in work with this group of people, such as missed appointments, crises, and requests for >concrete< help. Finally, there is a review of how the structure and policies of the public clinics in which most poor patients are seen impact on analytically oriented work.
I present a case study in which the dramatic disappearance of the patient's chronic symptom of dyspareunia followed a critical episode in the treatment in which a core dynamic theme of defiance-punishment was enacted in the patient-therapist interaction. Symptomatic cure was not accompanied by the patient's explicit insight, but rather seemed to be a function of a complex process of test-passing and transference-countertransference enactments leading to the discorifirmation of a core unconscious pathogenic belief. Concepts of transference, transference cure, misalliance cure, and analysis of transference are discussed in the context of this case study.
Angst vor der Angst
(1993)
A challenge is offered to the characterization of psychoanalysis as suffering from potentially fatal epistemic flaws and needing to ground itself in the language of hermeneutics, neuropsychology, or infant observation in order to survive. Psychoanalytic truth is neither made up nor discovered. Psychoanalytic propositions are true in the important sense of being the most useful statements we can make right now about the nature and functioning of the human unconscious. Psychoanalytic theories evolve through rational critical discourse just as theories evolve in all fields of science and scholarship.
This presentation examines psychoanalysis from the standpoint of fictionalism. Fictionalism maintains that all aspects of human experience are creations of imagination, that mind-made realities constitute for human beings their sole realms of existence, and that it is only about these realms that anything at all can be known. No other knowable realities exist. Fictionalism is an aesthetic orientation that considers these imaginative constructs artistic renderings that are aesthetically formed and experienced, and that must be comprehended and evaluated aesthetically. Furthermore, it regards these artistic constructs as works of fictions – invented textual realities woven by the perpetual interplay of multitudinous signifiers into ever-changing psychical configurations. From a fictionalist's perspective, >truth< becomes, paradoxically, a manifestation of fiction. The term fiction intends not only to underscore the radical divergence of fictionalism's philosophical perspective from realism's but to emphasize its reinterpretation of the materialities realism posits as also inventions of imagination. Fictionalism does not, however, simply reverse the hierarchy and valuation of the real/fiction dichotomy but modifies the very understanding of this dichotomy's conceptualization and, by reinscribing realism as itself a form of fiction, even diminishes some of the antagonism inherent in this age-old rivalry. Rooted deep in psychoanalytic tradition, realism's role has been complex, inconsistent, contradictory, and often embarrassingly naive. Fictionalism contests the many postulates of realism that psychoanalysis has incorporated so fundamentally into its theory and technique. Focusing primarily on transference, I argue not only that this phenomenon has been misconstrued within a realist framework but that most of the other features of psychoanalysis have been as well because psychoanalysis is basically a fictional enterprise.
Art, War, and Fascism
(1993)
This paper argues that some forms of sadomasochistic fantasy and enactments can represent a developmental and therapeutic advance for some patients. Playful fantasies of dominance and submission, when enacted, function to reassure the patient that the other can survive the full expression and power of his or her sexual desire. Sadomasochistic scenarios can mitigate guilt and worry and free the patient for an experience of sexual ruthlessness. The apparent differences in the manifest roles of the man and woman in this situation are belied in a paradoxical way by underlying commonalities. A woman can use her consensually scripted domination as a reassurance that the man can withstand the full force of her excitement, and the man can experience his partner's excitement in submission as a condition of safety for the consolidation of his phallic strength. Two clinical examples illustrate these paradoxes and the affirmative dimension of certain kinds of sadomasochistic play. The suggestion is made that blanket critiques of sadomasochism as either perversion or misogyny are misguided and potentially repressive.
Auf den Phallus kommt es an
(1993)
This study explored the role of authoritarianism in presidential decision-making regarding the use of force. Harry Truman's decision to fight in Korea, John Kennedy's decision to increase American military advisers in Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson's decision to increase American forces in Vietnam, Richard Nixon's decision to invade Cambodia, Ronald Reagan's decision to invade Grenada, and George Bush's decision to attack Iraq were studied using the Revised Authoritarianism Questionnaire (RAQ), designed for the study on the basis of earlier field studies using the F-Scale (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and R. N. Sanford, 1950) and the RWA scale (Altemeyer, 1988). The RAQ was used to do a content analysis of writings about the six presidents' decisions to use force in order to determine the degree of authoritarianism in the decision making process. – Theoretical literature on authoritarianism including Wilhelm Reich, Erich FROMM, Max Horkheimer, Abraham Maslow and others was reviewed. Field studies of authoritarianism: the F-Scale (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and R. N. Sanford, 1950), the Authoritarian-Equalitarian Scale (F. Sanford, 1950), and the RWA scale (Altemeyer, 1988) were also reviewed. Precis of writings about the decisions were taken from the writings of the presidents, their aides and advisers, and other sources with first-hand information. Balance was sought among supporters and opponents of each president in the precis. The RAQ is a twelve item scale which assesses directly the factors of authoritarianism. It is scored using a five-point Likert scale. Using the RAQ an overall authoritarianism rating as well as ratings on each of the scale items was obtained for each president studied.
In this paper I reverse the more commonly posed question, how does the analyst's gender affect transference? Instead, I examine the implications of the analyst's view of the organization of transference in the analytic situation for understanding gender-salient transference formation. I suggest that the analyst's viewpoint on the organization of transference is focal in his or her conception of gender-linked transference themes. I demonstrate that even in the context of a shared theoretical outlook, variations in a one-person psychology perspective on transference entail contradictory findings. I discuss a reformulation of transference, utilizing the contribution of self psychology. It demonstrates a combined one-person, two-person psychology view applied to the organization of a two-dimensional transference. Gender-specific, object-related, and selfobject facets of the transference are codetermined by the patient's psychology and the current ongoing analyst-patient interaction. I contrast conceptualizations of gender-salient transference from within a continuum of a one-person psychology and from a combined one and two-person psychology view. I propose that a combined one- and two-person psychology view on the organization of a two-dimensional transference guides a more encompassing understanding of patients’ transference experience of analysts’ gender. In a clinical vignette I illustrate the application and clinical utility of this perspective.
Beyond the inevitability of countertransference feelings is the question of countertransference enactments. From a two-person, participant-observer or observing-participant perspective, enactments are inevitable. The analyst becomes influenced by the patient (and influences the patient as well) and enmeshed in the patient's internalized interpersonal configurations. Analysis works not by avoiding such action but by analyzing from within the interactional system. Analysts who are different from one another become engaged in different ways, since the person of the analyst is a significant variable. This article, using case examples, explores two analyst-related variables, age and family configuration, to expand the examination of countertransference enactments and some effects on the analytic process.
Bericht einer Selbstanalyse
(1993)