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On Medial Identity
(2004)
An important change is taking place in the identity forming processes in human development, caused by the increasing medialisation of communication, through television, video and Internet. In this regard, the medial mode of communication seems to be more important than the overwhelming variety of the transmitted contents. It represents the prototype of a narcissistic relation structure by arousing needs but not answering them. The identification with this mode of communication creates what the author calls medial identity in this paper. It is described as an adaptation to noncontingent experiences. An interaction consists between the medialisation of the adult world and an estrangement in the identity forming developmental conditions in childhood, which gets more influential from generation to generation. The increasing usualness of the described phenomena indicates that a new normality is heralded here.
Psychoanalysis meeting the challenges of globalisation: Commentary on Cláudio Laks Eizirik's paper
(2009)
Identity and structure as signifiers of the unconscious are in flux as a result of the evaporation of the relations in the modern world. The author develops some hypotheses on the input of the changing identity in respect to the psychoanalytic encounter in therapy and to processes in institutions. He comes to the conclusion that the orientation to the individual dynamics, the therapy room and the therapeutic relationship, which is at present substantial for most analysts, will no longer be relevant. Whether we will be successful or not as psychoanalysts depends on whether we see the world growing together, share the responsibility for it and take up the burning questions of globalisation.
Reminding
(2007)
Since Freud's Dream Interpretation and his additional writings on the analysis of dreams, the technique of handling a dream report within the analytic session has remained nearly unchanged. It is characterised by dream-centred associations and their interpretation in regard to dream content and to transference. This approach constitutes an alien element within contemporary interactional psychoanalytic technique and tends to provoke resistances in the analytic dialogue. This article stresses the function of dream reporting during the session with respect to the interactional process. It is concluded that sufficient attention should be given to interactional analysis of dream reporting in accordance with the questions: Why does the patient at this point of the process tell a dream, and why does he tell this very dream instead of another?
The foundation of the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies (IFPS) in 1962 was – from the author's point of view – a reaction to the exclusive politics of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) in the postwar years. It was a political act of self-assertion, and only secondarily a science-related initiative. But meanwhile, the field of international psychoanalysis has changed fundamentally, and the former identity of the IFPS, which was defined from its differences from the IPA, has come under increasing pressure. Meeting this challenge, the question arises: what is the contribution of the Federation to psychoanalysis in the contemporary world? The author believes that the future lies in the exploration of identity-creating relations in all areas and periods of life. To deal with this huge challenge would be a shared task for the whole psychoanalytic community.