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An etymology of a biophilia is Latin and is also mentioned with the instinct of the preservation of race as defined in Japanese-English dictionaries, in American dictionaries it is defined as an appreciation for life. And also bio is life and philia is love in Greek. The preface of >The Revolution of Hope< as described by Erich Fromm who is an American philosopher is a reference for biophilia. He described >The love of life< which exists in most of us is a latent power that is mobilized and whose behavior can change and can bring about change when life is threatened by danger and is fully recognized.
This article examines utopian elements in Wilhelm Reich's writings in his American phase (1939-1957) in order to illustrate utopian sources of dynamic psychology. Although there are scholars who have used the term >psychological utopia< and applied it to individual thinkers (Reich, Marcuse, Fromm) and to specific psychological disciplines (psychoanalysis, behaviorism, cognitive psychology), the term itself has remained elusive and vague. Furthermore, there have been few attempts to systematically examine utopian elements in twentieth-century psychology in general and the basic assumptions of psychological utopianism in particular. While pointing out that Reich's orgonomic theories have no scientific merit, this article argues for the relevancy of his ideas for understanding the nature of utopianism in dynamic psychology. (© 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)
The evolution of dynamic psychology has been highly contradictory and uneven due in part to differences of emphasis and focus, and also due to philosophical and theoretical differences, which led to congruent and incongruent results between the respective schools. Now, especially with the new millennium, many are asking again whether in fact we should not go beyond the different schools towards a new sense of unity and purpose. Today there is a call for integration and a sense of common purpose, although how this is to be achieved is not clear. However, it has been argued that the introversion of a theory and the defence of its purity by its adherents will act as a brake on its growth and further development (John, 1998; Millar, 2000). The basis of any theory is always incomplete (Fromm, 1980) and consequently scientific progress must come as a result of open dialogue and debate for the benefit of all schools of psychology and psychotherapy. Classically, Adlerian psychology was founded upon a flexible and open-ended approach to the understanding of human nature. Orgler, for example, notes that Adler avoided offering a >rigid scheme< that could easily be copied by physicians and therapists (Orgler, 1973, p.167). And, regarding training, Orgler writes that >Adler demanded a thorough knowledge of other psychological schools, of philosophy and of pedagogy< (ibid, p.176).
The only way in our opinion to account for this striving for justice and truth is by the analysis of the whole history of man, socially and individually. We find then that for everybody who is powerless, justice and truth are the most important weapons in the fight for his freedom and growth (Fromm, 1942/2002, p. 248).
Reviews the unique contributions of Harry Stack Sullivan and Erich Fromm in synthesizing a psychoanalytic outlook with concern for political, economic, and social issues. Discusses some of the reasons why succeeding generations of interpersonal psychoanalysts have lost touch with these issues. Concludes with suggestions about how contemporary psychoanalysis might expand its vision to include the study of race, gender, and class issues.
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.
Historicity, Humility, and the Analytic Exercise Reply to Commentaries by Drs. Palombo and Horner
(2002)
Two central questions raised by Spezzano's commentary have to do with the extent to which we seek objectivity in psychoanalytic theory and practice, and the extent to which one or another set of methods (e.g., clinical observation) is adequate or optimal for generating that knowledge. A discipline and treatment devoted to understanding subjectivity is nevertheless devoted to objective knowledge about a patient's subjectivity, defenses, and so forth and requires valid theories to guide exploration, inference, and intervention. Seeking objective knowledge does not require a naïve empiricism ignorant of the limits of objectivity. We would do well to use multiple methods to learn about how the mind works and what leads to therapeutic change.
Much contemporary analytic writing is focused on the intersubjective >space< between analyst and analysand. This article focuses on a different area of analytic subjectivity and intersubjectivity – on the implicit rules that guide psychoanalytic thought and discourse, which have not received the kind of critical scrutiny as our explicit theories. The paper describes five problematic aspects of this implicit grammar and corresponding ways of refining it: articulating conceptual multiplicity where we often use unitary constructs (such as the unconscious or the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis) specifying mechanisms rather than causally ambiguous descriptions (such as two unconsciouses talking to one another) and conditional rather than blanket statements avoiding using terms in overdetermined ways that lead to theoretical imprecision and confusion of theory and metaphor exercising greater caution in the use of developmental constructs and analogies, particularly from infancy and rethinking the nature and presentation of evidence in psychoanalytic discourse.
Self psychology: Today
(2002)
In this commentary it is appreciated that in his approach Safran avoids some of the common pitfalls of brief therapy discourses, namely, the extremes of therapeutic grandiosity and therapeutic nihilism. Instead, seeking to maintain a >middle way,< he strives to balance the pragmatic and instrumental aims of time-limited psychotherapy with an appreciation of the existential and human dimensions of the therapeutic encounter. Safran also works to extend the full implications of relational theory to the theory and practice of brief psychotherapy. In this effect he relies on the contributions of constructivism, interpersonal psychoanalytic theory, and relational clinical theory. In this commentary some tensions and even contradictions are remarked upon between certain aspects of Safran's approach and the fundamental assumptions of relational theory. A tension is noted between the instrumental aims of brief therapy and Safran's goal of radical openness to patients. The importance of therapist decentering is acknowledged, along with paradoxes in the use of the concept of metacommunication. Finally, a question is raised as to the compatibility of empirically oriented approaches to psychotherapy research with the philosophical assumptions of a two-person psychology.
In discussing the complexities and dialectical tensions inherent in the relational point of view, this commentary seeks to alert the reader to the simplifying dichotomies that can lead theory and clinical practice to be hostage to ideology. In exploring those dichotomies and their problematic implications for our work, emphasis is placed particularly on the nature of what constitutes evidence for our formulations and conclusions the different blind spots that different epistemological positions are designed to alert us to or, at least partially, to overcome the ways in which our efforts to transcend those blind spots often themselves create new blind spots the relation between insight and new relational experience the ambiguities associated with the (highly important but at times conceptually perilous) distinction between the one-person and the two-person models and the tensions between the need to hear patients in a fashion that is affirming and accepting and the equally important need to hear their fervent wish to change what they also want to have accepted. Many of these tensions and complexities are examined in the context of a critique of Bion's claim that analysts should be >without memory or desire.<
A discussion of the apocalyptic dimensions of the World Trade Center disaster, this paper considers some first-hand reports of the towers burning and collapsing, as well as the author's own experience that day watching events unfold and discussing these horrors with his patients. Several conceptual ideas are developed, including the varied ways people experienced the disaster in terms of >zones of sadness< the organic nature of the way the disaster unfolded the language of the victims in terms of underlying rhetorical structures of response and psycho-historical considerations that suggest, in part, why the disaster was such a collective trauma.
The discussions by Pizer and Brandchaft are so different in tone and focus that I answer them separately. Pizer invites dialogue about the relationship between identification and dissociation, which I pursue further with him. I then briefly consider his therapeutic model, which emphasizes the negotiation of paradox, in the light of the identificatory divisions in self-experience that my model highlights. Finally, I address his concern that I bypassed the >crunch< of the repeated relationship in the case example of Jonathan. I argue that the stance I ultimately adopted was my way of bridging the paradoxes presented by Jonathan. Brandchaft couched his discussion as a dismissive attack, prompting me to defend myself while trying to engage in a dialogue about substantive issues. I respond to his criticisms regarding my epistemological position, my use of the concepts of identification and projective identification, and the process and outcome of my treatment of Jonathan. The bottom line is that the differences between our perspectives are not, as Brandchaft contends, those between an objectivist, causally >unidirectional< model and an intersubjective one, but rather those between two versions of intersubjectivity.
This paper addresses the postmodern critique of unified-self theories that argues that the self is not unified but multiple, not a static entity but in constant flux, not a separate center of initiative but intersubjectively constituted. The author proposes that there are two kinds of division in self-experience: the dissociative divisions of multiple-self theory, and a division, akin to the divisions between Freud's structural agencies, between what are here termed the >intersubjective self< and >primary subjective experience.< In contrast to dissociated self-states, which occur in different moments in time, these two dimensions of self-experience occur simultaneously indeed, what is most important about them is their relationship. The author suggests that it is this intrapsychic relationship, as it occurs in a given psychological moment, that determines the qualities of self-experience that are emphasized in unified-self theories: such qualities as cohesiveness versus fragmentation authenticity vs. falseness vitality versus depletion optimal versus nonoptimal self-regulation and agency versus feeling one is at the mercy of others. Furthermore, a major organizer of the intersubjective self is early identifications, especially >identifications with the other's response to the self.< The implications of these concepts for therapeutic action are discussed and illustrated with an extended account of an analytic case.
Language and the Nonverbal as a Unity: Discussion of >Where Is the Action in the >Talking Cure<?
(2002)
Some thoughts on self-disclosure and the danger-safety balance in the therapeutic relationship
(2002)
The letter to the September 11, 2001 terrorists is analyzed in an effort to understand the state of mind of a religious suicide-killer. The letter has a solemn, serene, even joyful tone that is infused with love of God and a strong desire to please Him. The author suggests that incessant incantation of prayers and religious sayings while focusing attention on God led to a depersonalized, trancelike state of mind that enabled the terrorists to function competently while dwelling in a euphoric state. On a psychodynamic level, the theme of father–son love is used to explain the ecstatic willingness of the terrorists to do what they saw as God's will and to follow transformations from (self) hate to love (of God), and from anxiety and discontent to the a narrowly focused fear of God. Homoerotic bonding and longing, coupled with repudiation of >femininity,< are explained as an inability to >kill< the primal murderous father, as the mythological Primal Horde. Freud's description of sons' (group members') hypnotic love for their father leader (which, that when not reciprocated, turns into masochistic submission), seems pertinent for the understanding of the sons' >return< to an archaic, cruel father imago. >Regression< to the father is compared with classical maternal regression.
This paper is a response to an essay by Drew Westen. The author agrees with many of Westen's arguments about problems in the psychoanalytic literature and adds that the psychoanalytic literature has always been a problem for psychoanalysis. If we think of psychoanalysis as an ongoing experiment, then its >trials< are all the analytic sessions that have been conducted. Our >literature< has never systematically drawn on those. Westen critically scrutinizes certain habits that, in his view, haunt our literature, but that we do not explicitly note or disown as conceptual contrivances we mean to get rid of, while they are often misguiding clinical thinking and practice. I suggest that a fascinating question riding below the waves of Westen's paper is why patients and analysts accept this situation. I suggest that we all treat psychoanalysis as wisdom, art, relationship, skill, and something other than the application of established scientific findings because we recognize and accept it as that kind of human activity. It is unclear if patients care whether or not their analysts are scientists, but it is clear that analysts are not optimistic about sifting the research literature and finding clear clues to more effective clinical thinking, work, or writing.
Despite the recent interest in erotic countertransference and self-disclosure, little has been written about these phenomena when both analyst and patient are the same gender. Since homoerotic feelings can surface in any treatment, regardless of the participants' sexual orientation, this may well be a phobic avoidance that restricts many treatments, as well as our profession. I propose that the analyst's awareness of homoerotic feelings in the countertransference – including struggling with ways to express them – ultimately can create an atmosphere of safety. I offer an extended case example of one man with whom I colluded to ignore frightening aspects of his sexual fantasies. It was only by using my erotic countertransference, especially at a charged and pivotal moment, that I was able to help the patient begin to integrate split-off aspects of his sexuality.
In this article I. Reply to commentaries on my paper, >Brief Relational Psychoanalytic Treatment.< The discussants have raised a number of thoughtful and discerning questions that provide me with an opportunity to clarify some of the major points in my original article and to elaborate on certain issues in greater depth. Some of the key questions addressed in my. Reply are: (1) How is the tension between the emphasis on openness and receptivity and the time-limited nature of treatment negotiated in Brief Relational Psychoanalytic Treatment? (2) To what extent does an emphasis on openness and receptivity interfere with the process of establishing a productive focus? (3) How does one resolve the tension between the desire for change and the need for acceptance? (4) What are the therapeutic implications of regarding the mind as embodied and what roles do emotion and bodily felt experience play in the change process? In addition, I take up the question of whether or not adhering to a constructivist epistemology is incompatible with conducting and valuing psychotherapy research.
In this article I describe an approach to brief psychoanalytic treatment that is consistent with many of the key principles of the relational tradition. In this approach the treatment process is conceptualized as an ongoing cycle of therapeutic enactment, disembedding, and understanding, enactment and disembedding. Particular emphasis is placed on the use of countertransference disclosure for purposes of facilitating the collaborative exploration of relational scenarios that are being unwittingly enacted between patient and therapist. The influence of the brief time frame on the treatment process is explored and differences between the current approach and other approaches to brief psychoanalytic treatment are examined. A case is presented to illustrate the approach, and a number of questions are explored regarding the nature of change in short-versus long-term treatments.
When both therapist and client share a traumatic event, there are multiple levels of vulnerability to traumatization for the therapist. Our personal vulnerability is not only a backdrop for our clinical work but also an acknowledged fact in many therapeutic relationships, a situation that changes the frame of the work. In addition to clinical challenges, shared trauma increases a therapist's vulnerability to vicarious traumatization VT is defined as the negative transformation of the therapist's inner experience as a result of his or her empathic engagement with and responsibility for a traumatized client. Emphasizing the importance of awareness, self-care, meaning, and community, the article summarizes important steps to anticipate, address, and transform the therapist's experience of vicarious traumatization.
Commentary on Bernard J. Paris: Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth: A Therapeutic Relationship
(2002)
Change – what prevents it, what nurtures it, and what maintains it – is a current that runs throughout the history of psychoanalytic theorizing. While knowledge, in the form of insight, remains an important antidote to repetition, awareness of the here-and-now process of the clinical experience has taken a new place in more recent theoretical understanding. In looking at these questions of change, this commentary offers some additional theories to those already expressed by Safran.
The author appreciates the careful reading and thoughtful reviews by Sue Elkind, Sam Gerson, and Howard Levine. Elkind's review particularly captures and articulates many of the key ideas in the book Building Bridges: The Negotiation of Paradox in Psychoanalysis and creatively applies concepts of negotiation, paradox, an inherently multiple >distributed self,< and metaphor in her own work consulting on treatment impasses. Gerson incisively focuses on the core idea of recognizing, accepting, and bridging differences and contradictions in personal, and national, perspectives he also articulates an understanding of the attempt of relational analytic writers to bridge the intrapsychic and the interpersonal with due recognition of each. The author replies extensively to Levine's comparison of Pizer's work with that of Semrad and other >classical< analysts and challenges Levine's premise that a relational perspective, grounded as it is in a two-person contextual psychology, ignores or devalues interpretation, insight, free association, and autonomous mental functioning. Quoting from clinical material in his book, Pizer presents the outcome of a >relational< analysis in terms of the patient's increased access to internal >potential space,< unconscious experience, curiosity, and reflectiveness about the mental life of self and other, and an increased ability to value personal experience in relationship and in solitude.
In this discussion of Stern's rich and thoughtful contribution to the dialogue between unified- and multiple-self theories, I refer to his earlier conceptualization of repeated and needed relationships. I thus highlight how his current model strikes me as shifting his emphasis toward identificatory factors, both in development and in clinical process, and away from the working through, or negotiation of, repetitions of relational configurations. Through Stern's clinical examples, I engage dialogue about how his construct of an >intersubjective self< relates to the qualities of multiplicity he accounts for in his theory. And I consider the implications for clinical technique of favoring identificatory influences over the analyst's living through the experience of transference repetitions with the patient and thereby introducing ameliorating responses from within, rather than from a stance more external to, embeddedness in transference–countertransference repetitions.