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The distinction between the having mode and the being mode seems to be the basis of E. FROMM's clinical approach, which finds its main application in the center-to-center relatedness between analyst and patient. Analysts can understand a patient because they experience what the patient experiences. The dialog is based on reciprocally communicated emotional and conceptual responses and reactions; both identities come into play. The psychoanalytic session can save itself from the having mode by addressing the patient's living memory, which represents the past relived in the present, according to the being mode. Case material from a psychoanalytic session with a 31-yarr-old woman is included. (German and Spanish abstracts.)
Biancoli presents a case study illustrating an application of E. FROMM's theoretical concepts to clinical work. The case ...is of a young woman torn between an unstable, aggressive, and impulsive attitude and a desire to form lasting and loving relationships; the case history takes us through the difficult steps that gradually lead the patient to a better understanding of the origin of this conflict and the transferential testing of the analyst. Biancoli points out that FROMM saw the role of ...psychoanalysis as articulating >real possibilities< or progressive change. This discovery of alternatives in the consulting room requires from analyst and analysand alike a realistic assessment of internal or external contraints--inherent in any specific situation--and a willingness to forgo illusory or unrealistic plans for change. A commentary by Ana Maria Barroso follows this chapter.
Groddeck is not a fully recognised part of the history of psychoanalysis. Several reasons induce us to rediscover his work. He is the analyst of man's compulsion to symbolise, even if in doing so he remains an expression of late Romanticism with some aspects of irrationalism. He opens a way of understanding the relationship between psyche and body through the original concept of the It. His psychotherapeutic practice offers themes of reflection to present-day psychoanalytic research. Many psychoanalysts refused Groddeck's unconventional and provocative activity and his declarations against science. Other psychoanalysts had friendly relations with him, particularly Ferenczi, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann and Fromm. They learnt deeply from his example of creative and independent thought and love of truth.
Presents a case study of a 30-yr-old man treated for narcissistic personality disorder and attempts to show how further contributions to an alternative approach to psychoanalysis can come from E. FROMM. FROMMian themes are all present in the case in varying degrees. It is suggested that the 2 main features of this case (narcissism and homosexuality) were the outcome of a pathological symbiosis with both parents. Eight themes, drawn both from FROMM's published works and from his unpublished writings, are stressed, including benign vs malignant aggression, having vs being, homosexual and incestuous symbiosis, and secret family narcissism.
Erich Fromm, la psicoanalisi, gli psicoanalisti, Published on the website www.erich-fromm.it.
(2001)
On the subject of countertransference we attempt to establish a line of continuity between Freud's own expression >blind spot< and Fromm's idea of >counterattitude<. It is pointed out that both expressed the idea of the analyst's unconscious as an >instrument< for understanding the patient's unconscious. It follows that the decision to openly use or not to use countertransference in analysis also depends on the concept we have of it and on its extent. The psy-choanalyst's real and illusory values and his convictions with regard to human nature influence the countertransference and the analytic relationship. Analytic listening itself may be distorted by it. We must be highly aware of this to avoid enclosing what the patient says in a theoretic scheme. What is needed, there-fore, is an open theoretic scheme, more oriented towards understanding than in-terpretation. Aspects of analytic communication and of the relationship between language, thought and insight are examined. A humanistic point of view is as-sumed in distinguishing between the transferral and the real plane, and the rea-sons behind the legitimacy of such a distinction are expounded.
On the subject of countertransference we attempt to establish a line of continuity between Freud's own expression >blind spot< and Fromm's idea of >counterattitude<. It is pointed out that both expressed the idea of the analyst's unconscious as an >instrument< for understanding the patient's unconscious. It follows that the decision to openly use or not to use countertransference in analysis also depends on the concept we have of it and on its extent. The psy-choanalyst's real and illusory values and his convictions with regard to human nature influence the countertransference and the analytic relationship. Analytic listening itself may be distorted by it. We must be highly aware of this to avoid enclosing what the patient says in a theoretic scheme. What is needed, there-fore, is an open theoretic scheme, more oriented towards understanding than in-terpretation. Aspects of analytic communication and of the relationship between language, thought and insight are examined. A humanistic point of view is as-sumed in distinguishing between the transferral and the real plane, and the rea-sons behind the legitimacy of such a distinction are expounded.