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- 1999 (381) (remove)
Nowadays Freud bashing is not only à la mode, in certain circles it has become de rigueur. Once a name of respect, Freud has become a name of ridicule. But like any scientific method, body of knowledge, and therapeutic procedure, psychoanalysis should be subjected to critical scrutiny. The recent crop of hostile Freud critics may have filled a vacuum left for decades by a psychoanalytic establishment which, like the Church of yesteryear, shunned all forms of criticism intramural and extramural. A central guiding idea of this essay is the distinction between the psychoanalytic method and psychoanalytic doctrines, hypotheses, and theories. This distinction has been invariably confused by both Freud's adherents and Freud's attackers. Moreover, arguments ad rem have been conflated with arguments ad hominem. A socially responsible criticism must seek to be constructive and not merely destructive. It is the latter course that was taken by the various hostile critics that came to be labeled as Freud bashers. The time has come to take a stand against the more egregious attacks on Freud and the psychoanalytic method.
The pleasure of thought during the session is an intellectual feeling, that can take several forms at different moments during the analyst's thought process. The following should be distinguished: the disruption introduced by interpretative interference, which by underlining an unconscious element, upsets the conscious logical flow of the analysand's speech; finding the key-word or the overdetermined image which springs to the mind in the same way as a poet finds a rhyme; the resurgence of a memory, once evoked and subsequently forgotten again by the analysand, which imposes itself with quasi hallucinatory sharpness in the analyst's representative space; the experience of co-thought, either on one particular occasion related to a specific representation, or as a complement, accompanying the analysand's associative process.
The forming and early development of the Swedish Society for Holistic Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis is described. The influence of the personal background of those who formed the society, the general zeitgeist in which the society unfolded and the specific circumstances in the field of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in Sweden at the actual time is paid attention to. The significance of Dr. Harold Kelman as a supervisor and teacher during the forming years is underlined. The forming of the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies (IFPS) is mentioned as an important matrix for the growth of the society.
Freud published his >On Narcissism: An Introduction<' in 1914. The writing has many levels, including, among other things, Freud's criticism of his former colleagues, Adler and Jung. Psychoanalysts received the essay with reservations. Ernest Jones, among others, expressed his concerns in his history of psychoanalysis. The aim of this study is to place Heinz Kohut's ideas about narcissism into the context of the history of ideas. Especially, the paper explores, at a theoretical level, the status of the castration complex both in self psychology and Freud's essay as well as seeks reasons why the discussion on narcissism should be continued.
Masochistic fantasy staging can be seen as a creation of the ego in order to compensate for a psychic structural deficit that stems from being deprived of sufficient empathetic mirroring in early childhood. It consists in the inability to establish an internal empathetic object as a stable psychic structure. Using case-studies vignettes, it is shown how as a result struggle for empathy can become the central live theme and coincide with ?perverse? masochistic fantasies. After a short review of the most important traditional attempts to interpret masochism, the author delineates the communicative meaning of masochistic fantasies, which are composed of the complementary roles of the sufferer, the tormentor and the spectator. By this means the patient creates an inner scene which is apt to serve as a mirror for the experience of psychic pain and to represent the preverbal childhood trauma in a symbolic way. During analysis, this inner scene is shifted to the therapeutic relationship where different roles are kept ready for the analyst: the sadistic adversary; the unobtrusive witness of psychic pain and the role of an answering, reacting object. The relevance of these roles in therapy is examined. It is also shown how by somatisation of psychic pain the struggle toward empathy can be transferred to the stage of somatic medicine with the risk of provoking there a reaction referring solely to the body of the patient.
They Shall Wear Fringes
(1999)
This paper attempts to reassess Elizabeth Severn's place in the history of psychoanalysis. It does so by focusing on her three out of print books, which until now have been overlooked in discussions of the patient Ferenczi called ?RN? in the Clinical Diary. Her first two books, written in 1913 and 1917, provide the reader with valuable glimpses into what was the pre-analytic mind and person of Elizabeth Severn before she began what would be a ground breaking eight year analysis with Ferenczi. A key to understanding Elizabeth Severn, her writings, as well as many of our traumatized patients lies in a what Ferenczi and Severn called ?Orpha?. The paper suggests that an appreciation of this obscure phenomenon is critical in the treatment of trauma. After investigating her first two books in light of Orpha, the paper will compare and contrast them with her last book, The Discovery of Self, written toward the end of her analysis, and published shortly after Ferenczi's death in 1933. The tone, texture and content of this third book is strikingly different from her first two books, suggesting a depth of healing in Severn not previously reported in the literature.
Vom Gewaltkult zur Gütekraft
(1999)
Vorwort,
(1999)
The development of the concept of transference led to an early differentiation into varying methods and objects of transference analysis, referred to in this paper as ?work on transference? and ?work in transference?. Work on transference applies to the objectifiable aspect of transference as expressed in the stereotyped, recurrent behaviour of the patient outside as well as within the analytical setting, in the present and the past. Work in transference accepts the patient's current conception of the relationship, taking it further as a conflictfilled and sometimes stressful dialogue. Work on transference often includes genetical reconstructions and makes it possible for the patient to gain rational insights into the constant features of his experience and behaviour. Its main benefit takes the form of enhanced perception. Work in transference is aimed at change: it allows the patient to work through the internalized conflicts in relationships during discussion with the analyst, and, in his way to attain new conceptions for action and new object representations.