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Traumatic social violence provokes adaptive transubjective phenomena of banalization, familiarity and obviousness, which can be understood as a 'defence through ambiguity' that leads to an 'adaptation to whatsoever'. In a state of ambiguity there is numbing of critical thinking and of the alarm mechanisms. During the psychoanalytic process with survivors of social violence (torture, etc.) we can find a secret refusal of the external alienating situation in the intrapsychic representation of an 'object to be saved', an object of concern. In this paper, Ferenczi's concept of 'identification with the aggressor' (introjection of the culpability of the abuser on the child's subjectivity) is compared with this clinical experience. We try to understand and challenge through comprehension and insight the subjective consequences of traumatic social violence, in the three spaces of subjectivity (intra-, inter-, trans-) considering psychic dynamics in relation to reality contexts.
This paper proposes that psychoanalytic psychotherapy can be a helpful form of treatment for certain autistic children. Some of the misconceptions surrounding this kind of treatment are discussed. The literature identifying a particular sub-group of autistic children is then reviewed and the characteristics of this group, and the relationship of their difficulties to early trauma, are described. Using clinical material from work with a child who probably fell within this sub-group, and who had very marked autistic features, the paper illustrates the importance of the therapist taking an active role in the therapy and how this helped the child to emerge from his withdrawn state. Particular emphasis is placed on the importance of introducing themes of aggression, and of this being done in a playful way. The impact of trauma on children's development, with particular reference to the acquisition of language, is considered. The role of sibling rivalry as a factor is emphasised.
This paper suggests that the interplay between transference and countertransference is considered to be a valuable channel of communication. The author puts an emphasis on the containing function of the analyst. The patient strives for an experience of an object (analyst) that tolerates and copes with the patient's projections. There are some moments when analysts feel themselves to be invaded, controlled or abused by their patient's products. As Bion has postulated, this situation takes the form of a sojourn in the analyst's psyche. Clinical vignettes are given to provide support for the ways in which the analyst contains and elaborates the projections of the patients in his or her own mind and the therapeutic role that these processes have.
The existence of man is distinguished by its split state: man stands in the middle of life yet still has an awareness of his own death. He has to compensate whatever is missing in him naturally at the societal level, created as culture, and at the individual level through creativity. Rank investigated the human 'creative drive', the anthropological aspiration to express oneself in creative works, and to overcome the fear of death with its help. Freud admired poets and artists, whose achievements he could not psychoanalytically access, but he considered science superior to the harmless and na ve arts. There are two anthropological radicals: premature birth and the consciousness of death. Freud's massive fear of death made it difficult for him to acknowledge the problem of death appropriately. In Rank's concept, the development of human creativity contributes towards the fear of death being alleviated so that the knowledge of death can be integrated into life; creativity belongs to the fundamental opportunities of man that may enable him to find a way through neurosis. Failure is as much a part of life as is creativity: those who do not experience and accept life in its tragic dimension are denied creativity. Only a creative person who accepts his partial failure finds the strength to continue to be creative without his imperfect work leading to the ritual repetition of the same thing again and again, that is, getting stuck in recidivism.
Commentary: Gene-Environment Interplay in the Contept of Genetics, Epigenetics, and Gene Eppression
(2005)
Community practice on (and off) the couch. Response to commentary by Dr Mario Rendon, T55918-20.
(2005)
This paper aims to consider the signs of Judaism in Psychoanalysis, grounded in the way Freud practiced and demonstrated his Jewishness, in the context of the Viennese Diaspora, from his exile in London until the end of his life and conclusion of his work. Considering what the founder of psychoanalysis has recognized in Judaism as important to his affective and intellectual education, according to his own statements, it tries to demonstrate that the >roots< of errantry, nomadism and exile which single out the history of Jewish people, resound as an echo in the Freudian discovery. Our hypothesis is that what makes up the Jewishness of Freud himself, causing him to exile himself from the Jewish religious majority, as well as the identifications given by other people about his Jewish circumstance, was manifested together with the invention of Psychoanalysis, the major expression of his making up a Jewish devenir.
Following a thorough study of the Clinical Diary (1932), the author aims to put forward Sándor Ferenczi's theoretical discoveries, which allow him to settle a very advanced clinical consideration. The main parameters of this consideration foreshadow those that, in the following decades, were to be at the centre of some of the most significant developments in psychoanalysis, in particular those of M. Klein, W. R. Bion and D. W. Winnicott.
This paper reviews how the bond between the therapeutic relationship and transference is created, illustrates its technical management, and provides a basic methodology for the exploration of both transference and the therapeutic relationship. For this purpose, the current therapeutic relationship, the concept of affective dominance, the object relation triggered by transference, the past and present unconscious, and the relationship pattern (CCRT) applied to dreams will all be considered. The approach in this paper is based on an object relation conceptualization. Highlights of the theory underlying the technique will be illustrated in a succinct discussion of the clinical treatment of a borderline patient in psychoanalysis.
Risto Fried in Memoriam
(2005)
Mental pain is a common concern of psychoanalysts in their professional life. Combining her clinical experience with previous contributions by others, the author presents a personal overview of the patient-triggered mental pain of the analyst. Countertransference is considered to be the major source of the analyst's work-derived mental pain. This type of mental pain is not to be avoided or discarded by the analyst. Rather, the analyst will benefit from tolerating and even welcoming professional mental pain: in most cases, mental pain will bring with it rich clinical material that, upon interpretation, will help him or her to offer previously intolerable contents back to the patient in a transformed version that now becomes acceptable. The analyst's mental pain may emerge in his dreams; clinical examples of this phenomenon are presented. It is suggested that there is an increased chance of the analyst undergoing mental pain when treating patients suffering from severe psychopathology, and a clinical case is reported to illustrate this assertion. The author proposes that a lifelong effort is to be expected from analysts in terms of enhancing their threshold of tolerance to professional mental pain. In situations of mental pain, analysts must be particularly aware of the need to modulate their interpretations before transmitting them to the patient. The capacity of analysts to transform their mental pain (Ta, according to Bion) will depend on the plasticity of their container functions, the quality of their transformation abilities and, in particular, their threshold of tolerance to mental pain.
This article argues that we need to take seriously the centrality ofthe dead to fascist ideology. Organized around the fascist slogan ‘Long Live Death!’, the article examines a host of fascist claims and practices centered on the dead. These include Martin Heidegger’s suggestion that we can be with the dead, and a range of provocations, tropes and ceremonies which suggest that the dead are either still present or are about to be resurrected. Through a critique of other categories which have been used to grapple with this dimension of fascism— necrophilia (Fromm), suicide (Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari), survival (Theweleit)—the article argues that fascism is animated by ideas about resurrection and assumptions about immortality.
Editorial
(2005)
Psychoanalysis is questioned in the public debate and in the managed care system. The Swedish experience of negotiating with representatives of the public welfare system clarifies how important it is to have a wide network. The author argues that there is great risk that psychoanalysis will sink back into the private sphere if psychoanalysts cannot accept a third party to support the treatment situation. Were this to be our future, the choice of becoming a psychoanalyst would be more a choice of vocation than a choice of a profession. This line of thought related to the first medical revolution is the introduction of scientific medicine within a socio-economic context in which the main part of medical care is organized in a private setting. Sigmund Freud's consulting room was firmly situated within the private sphere. Although through his entire life he struggled to get psychoanalysis officially recognized, and thereby strived to place it within the public sphere, the original concept of psychoanalytical treatment was related to the family as a unit of production. Within this unit, Freud invented the analytical setting. The second medical revolution is the introduction of a general social security system of welfare including the main part of medical-health care. In Sweden, as in many Western welfare societies, psychoanalysis was included in public insurance systems. The third medical revolution is the introduction of methods for assessment and accountability, with the consequence that the main part of the medical health sector is organized by managed care methods. These methods question whether or not psychoanalysis should be included in public welfare systems.
Editorial
(2005)
We psychoanalysts – as split subjects – are not immune to charismatic leaders who preach violence against selected targets depicted as the cause of all evils. Freud, in Group psychology and the analysis of the ego, alerted us against such leaders, who can manipulate by transforming us into an uncritical mass. This would be the social equivalent of the perverse pact in repressive desublimation between the superego and the id at the expense of the ego: the latter is put to sleep, and the superego exhorts the id to do violence and regress. Socially, these perverse pacts often take place with the superego represented by charismatic leaders who foster identification with themselves, put the egos of their audiences to sleep through manipulation and thus address an amorphous mass that they can direct towards violence and destruction. An event in which such a phenomenon apparently occurred will be discussed to show how urgent it is to revisit psychoanalytic writings on these matters in order to withstand the temptation to be herded by manipulative leaders. This will certainly protect psychoanalysis and allow for its transmission. It is up to us to exercise the critical analysis that psychoanalytic tools equip us for so that we can detect such summons to perverse pacts and denounce them.
Summum jus, summa injuria
(2005)
Religious and national radicalism in Middle-Eastern countries: A psychoanalytical point of view
(2005)
This article explores the Adlerian concept of inferiority complexes that serve as a possible source of unconscious motivation for religious and national radicalism. The Middle-Eastern countries of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey serve as examples. Religious extremism and national radicalism are described as a result of the overcompensation of underlying inferiority complexes caused by belonging to ethnic and religious minorities.