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La necrocultura
(2020)
Review Fromm, E.: Wissenschaft vom Leben. Ein Lesebuch (2020a, German): Erschaffen, denken, lieben
(2020)
By integrating data from general psychology and perinatal clinical psychology with neuroscience and psychoanalysis, the author discusses the relations between memory and consciousness, the aim being a unitary definition of the concept of unconscious. Nobody has a brain that can be the same as any other person's: the biology of memory lies in neural networks that have been constructed in the brain of that specific person by their experience. From the fetal stage, each brain progressively learns its own individual functions during its relational neuropsychic development. The author underlines how the continuous emotional biological work of the brain, together with a person's entire relational life, produces the construction of the whole functional and individual mindbrain. The whole construction is memory and this is unconscious; indeed it may be the true unconscious. From the continuous silent work of the mindbrain of a person, some forms of conscious level may emerge in his individual's subjectivity: some functioning of mindbrain makes what an individual person can consciously remember. The unconscious is only what appears in some form in an analyst's consciousness, at some specific moment in his relationship with a patient, and which the analyst translates into some form of his verbal interpretation.
There are shared humanistic tendencies in Erich Fromm’s views and the ideas of Eastern Orthodoxy. The comparative method of this paper focuses on similarities between Fromm’s humanistic psychoanalysis and Orthodox Christianity, while noting differences between them. In his works Fromm mentioned religious approaches, but he mostly referred to Protestantism (as a development from teachings of Martin Luther and John Calvin) and more rarely to Catholicism. Both streams have differences with Eastern Orthodoxy which is traditional for Russia. The individualism common to the western protestant model is contrasted with the community spirit, which is common to Russian culture and to the view of life of Russian Orthodoxy in particular. First, Fromm wrote about overcoming negative modes of life (such as estrangement or alienation) inherent to the first model, through adopting the second model. Second, humanistic views should be marked in ideas of Erich Fromm and Eastern Orthodoxy. The ideas of Erich Fromm and Eastern Orthodoxy are both based on a perception of a human being as a distinct whole personality, who should perceive as basic the values of self-development, love, creative self-realization, freedom, and responsibility. Also, free and whole personality cannot be formed without being a part of community of other persons, which is a very important point for both.
In the light of Philipp Sarasin's work in Darwin und Foucault: Genealogie und Geschichte im Zeitalter der Biologie, the article delineates a genealogically articulated naturally produced culture and a cultured nature and discusses the genealogical implications of a carnal, becoming self in a world that could rightly be justified >as an aesthetical phenomenon.< The article demonstrates the historicity and processual materiality as a conceptual platform for a combination of the notions of experienced carnality and a socially constructed body, demonstrating such a historically embedded carnal body as a binding agent for the >social constructivist< and >biologist< approaches in sciences. Thus, the article builds a framework for the articulation of senseful, processual materiality on the backdrop of a nature-culture continuum via genealogy, suggesting the necessity for change of tone in the communication of human and life sciences via the understanding of a culturally endowed biology.
Wonach sehnt sich der Mensch im Jahr 2020? – Er vernimmt den Ruf nach mehr Menschlichkeit und läuft einem ökologischen Umgang mit der Natur hinterher. Die atomisierte Gesellschaft und die Ausbeutung der Natur fordern eine existentielle Antwort des Menschen auf sein Dasein: Kann der Mensch beide Ansprüche integrieren? Wir nehmen an, dass der ethische Anspruch auf Menschlichkeit und der Anspruch auf Nachhaltigkeit in ihrer elementaren Form gleichermaßen gelten: Sind Menschlichkeit und
Nachhaltigkeit dann miteinander vereinbar? Auf der einen Seite fordert die humanistische Ethik nach Erich Fromm, die für das Prinzip der Menschlichkeit steht, die Entfaltung des menschlichen Potentials; auf der anderen Seite fordert die Ethik der Permakultur nach Bill Mollison, die das Prinzip der Nachhaltigkeit abbildet, die Entfaltung des Ökosystems Erde. Kommt es also zum Prinzipienkonflikt zwischen Humanismus und Holismus? Das ethische Prinzip der Menschlichkeit und das ethische Prinzip der Nachhaltigkeit stehen sich also gegenüber. Die analytische Frage ist, wie menschlich die holistische Ethik nach den Kriterien der humanistischen Ethik ist und vice versa, wie nachhaltig die humanistische Ethik nach den Kriterien der holistischen Ethik ist. Die Analyse zeigt, dass Nachhaltigkeit im Menschen angelegt ist. Wenn der Mensch mit sich, seinen Mitmenschen und der Welt produktiv in Beziehung tritt, dann handelt er nachhaltig. Ökologische Nachhaltigkeit entspringt also der Quelle der Menschlichkeit und liegt nicht
außerhalb des Menschen. Der biophile Mensch dreht sich um eine biozentrischen Achse, ist sich seines Menschseins bewusst und setzt sich als menschliche Natur mit der Natur in Beziehung. Konflikte zwischen Leben und Leben sind unvermeidbar, aber der produktiv orientierte Mensch wird einen reifen Umgang damit finden. Eine Schlussfolgerung daraus ist, dass ein >biophiler Regionalismus< eine alternative Wirtschaftsform darstellen kann, die sowohl die Forderung einer menschlichen Ökonomie als auch
die Forderung einer nachhaltigen Ökonomie einlösen kann. Im Kontext der aktuellen Debatte im Wirtschaftskontext bedarf es keiner >Green Economy<, sondern einer >Human Economy<: Denn nur ein Wirtschaften aus Menschlichkeit entspricht wahrer Nachhaltigkeit.
Review C. Kirchoff et al., Psychoanalytisch denken. Sozial- und kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven
(2020)
Dankesworte
(2020)
This paper investigates hopes and fears connected with work as an analytic psychotherapist, in a sample of trainees attending the Italian Training School for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (SPP). Candidates were asked to complete a questionnaire with open-ended questions. In the first analysis, we found trainees to be interested in learning an effective therapeutic method to treat patients. Their wish was for a serious, demanding, but nonjudgmental training, which could support the development of both a thoughtful way of using their thinking process and a rigorous clinical method, while respecting their individuality and personality. We asked our candidates whether theoretical concepts and issues related to the analytic method effectively helped them transform difficulties in perspectives. Theoretical tendencies and authors considered to be useful in modern clinical areas such as Internet addiction disorders, Hikikomori (severe social and relational retirement in adolescence), children's school problems, and problems connected with dimensions of parenthood (e.g. LGBT parenting) were explored. A sense of inadequacy when first dealing with difficult clinical situations, and fears about the realistic difficulties of psychotherapy as a trade, today, in Italy, were found. Considerations on the psychoanalytic educational program and on the importance of workgroups were proposed.
In the present time of increasing global stress and threats from outside reality, there arise >new fears< of destruction, of annihilation, and of loss of existence. As a consequence, psychoanalysis is faced with new challenges. It is expanding its range to face the fears that arise from these global threats. This requires special attention to analysts’ personal transference and their resistance against it to enable them to be used as a container for the fears of their patients.
The author summarizes the problems inherent in nomological approaches examining the efficacy of psychoanalysis as a form of treatment. He argues that nomologically oriented research operates with assumptions lacking empirical foundation and, moreover, that studies of this type merely give the impression of the effectiveness of psychoanalytic therapies while overlooking the specificity of the psychoanalytic method. He suggests that research into psychoanalytic treatments should not be subjected to a nomological conception of science, and that structural analysis of treatment courses should be examined and systematized within the frame of psychoanalytic treatment theory relative to their outcome. Given this approach, and provided that the theory of treatment is based on conceptual common ground, such studies would enable a prognostic conclusion that psychoanalytic treatments are successful, providing that the sequences generalized in the treatment theory do actually take place in treatments that take patients’ individuality into account.
The author proposes viewing mania as a form of defense against the state of depression resulting from >narcissistic overidentification with the depressive object< (i.e., the object in relation to which the depressive state developed), rather than as a periodic rebellion against such an internalized object. An account of the analytic psychotherapy of a clinical case of bipolar depression serves to illustrate this point of view, linked to the author’s specific conception of the dynamics of depression.
Keine Furcht mehr vor der Freiheit. Ein radikaler Humanist: Zum 120. Geburtstag von Erich Fromm
(2020)
In this paper, we will analyze the dynamic and relational drivers behind the choice to embark on a therapy via Skype. The fear of relationships could be the origin of this choice. Can Skype be a means by which the patient’s difficulties manifest themselves? We suggest that this is possible, and we will use the case of Matilde to show it. Matilde uses relationships to see herself, as she is unable to do this alone. She tries to find herself through others and the virtual world. She prefers to skip a session because the therapist’s webcam is not working rather than having the session without them seeing each other. Can we speculate that Matilde feels lost when she is in contact with herself without an other’s mediation? What are her fears? In this case, has Skype helped or slowed down the process? How would her borderline emptiness manifest itself in a traditional session? And what does it mean to live in the virtual world for a patient who tries to find herself through others? We will try to answer all of these questions, thinking about the functionality that technology has for some patients, for the therapist, and for the therapeutic process.
This article explores the >lack of meaning< in contemporary society as a consequence of Western dualist thought paradigms and ontologies, via Gilles Deleuze’s concept of >reactivenihilism< following the colloquial murder of God. The article then explores processual and new materialist approaches in the understanding of the lived and carnal self, arguing for immanent and senseful materiality as an ethical platform for religious, environmental, and societal solidarity for tomorrow. For the theoretical justification of the processual approach in understanding the enfleshed self, the article employs John Dupré’s processual approach in the philosophy of biology, as well as Astrida Neimani’s critical posthumanism, and contextualizes these considerations with Erich Fromm’s ethical distinction of being and having.
The authors present their design for a clinical teaching exercise to study transformation in psychoanalysis. They chose a completed analysis from which to select the sessions retrospectively so that the clinical review exercise would not influence ongoing analytic process. The co-authors selected three tranches of clinical material, a few years apart, to be presented by the analyst. They studied the material with colleagues in the impressionistic manner of traditional clinical review, and then subjected it to more systematic examination, using a modified application of the Three-Level Model (3-LM) for assessing change. Their prediction was that the use of the 3-LM model could amplify the clinical impressions of the individual analyst and provide a way of being more specific about the changes, if any, that had occurred, and arrive at which theories best explained those changes.
The authors describe a simple recurrent writing task called the >Two Page Paper Exercise,< designed to enhance candidates’ learning of analytic theory and technique. They set this task in the context of other analytic institutes’ writing programs and show that this exercise is unique. Their educational philosophy is that, as candidates confront multiple perspectives in contemporary psychoanalysis, this writing task develops their ability to conceptualize, reflect on their learning, integrate affect and cognition, and express their ideas to others in written form and in discussion with peers. The candidate group develops cohesion that reduces writing anxiety. As individuals they develop a writing habit that supports the eventual duty to develop the field of psychoanalysis through publishing. The authors present raw data from candidates’ writing for readers to make their own assessment of the usefulness of the task as a measure of candidates’ integration of learning, development of analytic sensibility and synthetic capacity, and communication of experience and ideas to others.
Sull’approccio psicoanalitico-sociale di Erich Fromm. Excursus su alcuni lavori inediti in italiano
(2020)
This paper discusses a philosophical approach to dream interpretation based on the daseinsanalytic concept of Alice Holzhey, a concept that uses psychoanalytic thinking in the light of existential philosophy. Based on this concept, I consider the generally acknowledged finding that moods play a highly important role for our dreaming in an existential-philosophical view. Martin Heidegger claims that moods confront us with our own being, especially the fundamental >philosophical< mood that he calls Angst. Angst refers to the uncanny experience of being confronted with unfathomable conditions of the human existence. It is a consternating experience beyond every understanding. Assuming that in dreams, as in moods, we are concerned with issues of emotional significance concerning our own being, I claim Angst to be the essential factor for our dreaming. Usually, however, it remains hidden in some other mood, for example in the mood of fear. What makes dreams interesting, puzzling, amazing or terrifying, is their hinting at Angst. With three examples I hope to make clear my thesis that all dreams focus on certain fundamental issues concerning a person’s own existence, meaning issues determined by Angst.
The author addresses contemporary clinical practice, where we encounter individuals, seemingly incapable of getting in touch with their own existential dimension, who communicate their detachment, at times even total, from their feelings and fears, wilfully committed as they are to avoid experiencing the inevitable angst that may accompany them through life. This dissociation from the angst-producing emotion is revealed to the clinician through either detachment or a simple action. This feeling that generates both detachment and its opposite, perhaps a hypomanic reaction, proves to be >absent,< and is not perceived by the patient. In this way, angst can be avoided and indeed seems >absent,< but what is experienced is the complete range of raw emotions connected to it, such as fear, terror, panic, detachment, apathy, and anhedonia. The author sets out to clarify the terms >fear,< >anxiety,< and >angst< as they have been historically used in philosophy, psychoanalysis, psychiatry, and psychology. Ultimately, she explains her reason for her choice of the word >angst< instead of >anxiety< in her distinct and explicit handling of this subject matter.
In the present historical context, migratory flows have acquired a particular political and social relevance by showing a deep imbalance in the globalized world. Those who migrate to wealthy countries due to wars or extreme poverty do not have an identity that can be homogenized; they are aliens, strangers carrying destabilizing life experiences. The meeting between the new idea-content represented by the Stranger and the receiving group-container can therefore have catastrophic consequences. The author’s reflection aims to focus on the significance of the figure of the Stranger and on the condition that might support an integration process, starting from an analogy between the collective dynamics of the social environment and the individual psychical ones as experienced in the psychoanalytic setting.
In this study we collocate adolescence within a broader and more present-day scenario than has been the case in psychological and psychoanalytic literature in recent years. Our analysis of this evolutionary passage and its malaise includes contextual and other aspects that condition its real development. We consider the features of contemporary Western society and naturally place them within an increasingly planetary vision of the subject, given that the culture pervading the Western world, although complex, appears to be sufficiently uniform with some specific aspects. We propose a contemporary interpretation of the developmental process of the second decade of life and the forms of malaise it can produce. In this respect, two adolescent conditions are emblematic: self-closure and anorexiform eating disorders. These conditions express paradigmatically some characteristics of subjective adolescent malaise.
Psychotherapists currently find themselves considering the extent to which sociopolitical and economic issues in a globalized world can affect the evolutionary nature of the psychic organizations sustaining the individual. It seems we are mostly witnessing a weakening of the psychic structures that contain and maintain a sufficient and constant level of integration and unity of sense within the individual–world relationship. Patients frequently come into analysis with invalidating states of anxiety, panic attacks, and the explosion of sudden psychotic crises, accompanied by experiences of depersonalization and derealization. What I would like to examine in depth relates to the influence of the trans-subjective in us as psychotherapists, committed to dealing with psychic disorders that involve us as persons emotionally and intellectually present in our times, with a sense of awareness and responsibility. The quality of the treatment depends, among other things, on the effective elaboration of fullness and emptiness that one generates in the resonance emerging from the process of transference and countertransference. The word, the presence, and the absence, physically and mentally, of the psychoanalyst and the patient are recognized as those activators of potential transformation which are an appropriate form of medicine at an analyst’s disposal during the process of changing a pathogenic state.
Supervisors who wish to meet their supervisees’ needs to grow as clinicians will encounter two paradoxical knowledge-related needs of supervisees. On one pole of this paradox is their need to assimilate new knowledge into their existing clinical knowledge; on the other pole is their need for acknowledgement, validation, and formulation of their unique experiential and unarticulated knowledge. Meeting this need helps the supervisees to balance regressive states and painful gaps between their own and their supervisors’ knowledge, which might put the supervisory relationship at risk.