Refine
Language
- Arabic (3)
- German (66)
- English (122)
- Finnish (1)
- Serbocroatic (2)
- Indonesian (4)
- Italian (1)
- Korean (2)
- Turkish (1)
- Polish (3)
- Portuguese (9)
- Russian (1)
- Spanish (3)
- Chinese (81)
Document Type
- Articles (235)
- Dissertations (38)
- Reviews (9)
- Books (6)
- Forewords (4)
- Collections (3)
- eBook (1)
- event Report (1)
- Interviews (1)
- Journals (1)
Year of publication
- 2019 (299) (remove)
Erich Fromm was one of the first psychoanalytic thinkers who was genuinely interested in Asian philosophies. In the first part of this article, I will show Fromm’s imago of Buddhism as a radical, nontheistic, and ethical philosophy >without God.< I will argue that Fromm made an important difference between the phenomenal ego and being that proves crucial for his understanding of psychoanalysis and his critique of modern society. I will also explore Fromm’s synthesis of Buddhist philosophy and psychoanalysis, and show the similarities and differences between them.
多丽丝•莱辛是文学史上第十一位获得诺贝尔文学奖的女作家,被誉为继伍尔芙之后最伟大的女性作家。《又来了,爱情》是莱辛的一部晚年力作。小说分别讲述了殖民地时期黑人奴隶的私生子朱莉与贵族子弟以及年迈的现代白种女人萨拉与年轻男子的爱情故事。两位女性博学多才,坚强独立,却因为种族歧视、道德偏见和等级观念等社会问题而被剥夺了爱的权利。莱辛借此抨击了当时社会存在的不公平现象,呼吁以爱为纽带缔结人与人之间真正的平等。弗洛姆的人性异化理论包括权威主义、数量化和抽象化的价值观、以及爱的能动性的缺乏三个方面。匿名权威伪装成普遍常识和公众舆论,使个人服从社会舆论和道德良知,消除了人的创造性,剥夺了人的自由,危害了人的全面发展。资本主义经济色迅速发展,其重要特点就是数量化和抽象化。人们生活的中心就是对金钱、权力、荣誉的无止境的追求,从而丧失了人的意义。现代社会人际关系冷漠无情,相互排挤,缺乏能动性的爱,无论是夫妻之情还是同胞之爱都缺乏真情实意。本文从权威主义对人性的压迫、数量化和抽象化的价值观对人性的扭曲,以及爱的能动性的缺失导致的人性冷漠三个角度出发,对《又来了,爱情》一书中不同历史时期不同人物在异化的社会中所产生的异化现象进行解读。本文通过对《又来了,爱情》中异化现象的分析,旨在探寻导致资本主义社会人性异化的原因,以及男女主人公是如何通过发挥自身潜能减轻甚至消除异化的,警示我们只有发挥理性认识和创造性思维、选择强调存在的生活方式、培养创造性的爱和人道主义良心,才能保持个人人格的健康发展,创建一个和谐稳定的社会。
理查德•耶茨(1926-1992)是一位美国小说家。他被誉为>焦虑时代的伟大作家<。同时, 他又是二十世纪中叶美国主流生活的忠实记录者。小说《十一种孤独》是美国作家理查德•耶茨的第一部短篇小说集, 刚一出版便引起巨大反响, 并受到各大媒体的好评, 更被誉为是>纽约的《都柏林人》<。本文以弗洛姆新精神分析为理论依据, 选取了《十一种孤独》中具有典型特征的四个故事, 通过对小说人物的分析并发现人的不同处境、人们之间的相互需要、不同的社会性格等都是产生孤独的原因, 从而为今后对孤独主题的研究提供理论依据和研究思路。弗洛姆的新精神分析理论是由精神分析理论发展而来的, 主要包括人的处境, 人的需要和社会性格等几个方面。其中人的处境主要包括人的软弱性和矛盾性, 人的需要主要包括人的同一性和关联性, 社会性格主要包括不健康的社会性格取向和混合社会性格取向。本文以弗洛姆的新精神分析三个方面为视角结合孤独主题, 通过对小说中孤儿文森特, 士兵瑞斯, 哈利夫妇等人物的心里解读, 找到他们孤独的根源, 并提供一些解决孤独的办法。本文包括六章:第一章简要介绍了作家及其作品, 阐述了文本的国内外研究现状和本文的创新点。第二章简要介绍了理论框架, 新精神分析的产生和弗洛姆新精神分析理论的内容。同时还强调弗洛姆的新精神分析理论不同于以往的精神分析理论, 他更强调普通人的感受, 更重视人和社会的关系研究。第三章从人的处境与孤独的关系出发, 分析了人在生物学意义上的软弱性和人存在的矛盾性, 形象地向读者展示了人的处境虽然不同, 但是由内而外透露出的孤独却又不尽相同, 并给出读者一些解决孤独的意见。第四章讨论了人的需要对孤独的影响。在社会这样的大环境下, 每个人虽然是一个个体, 但是又应该和外界保持着良好的关系, 学会给予别人真正需要的, 也勇敢地追求自己需要的, 并提供给读者一些如何面对孤独的意见。第五章介绍了社会性格和孤独的关系, 同时强调了不健康的性格取向导致的孤独, 呼吁读者养成良好的社会性格。第六章对全文进行了较为深刻的总结概述。论文分析仍有不足, 但希望该论文能为作品相关的研究提供新的思路和方向。
Terrorism is a worldwide phenomenon, as the >Global terrorism index< reveals. The aim of terrorism is to take command over our feelings and our imagination to compel us to change our ways of life and release a clash between civilizations. In my discussion, I will concentrate on identity, an individual’s feeling of being unique, having a coherent self while at the same time being part of a large group. My intention is to link the concept of identity to affects and thinking and the loss of reality-testing when the group is dominated by schizo-paranoid anxiety. Two lines of thought stand out in my discussion of terrorism – the power of identity and the search for meaning – both of which are affected by globalization, the rise of a network society, and disenchantment with the world.
裘帕•拉希莉于2000年获普利策奖,是当代美国文坛最具潜力的作家之一。她的小说以描绘美国普通移民的生活而著称,贯穿其中的主题尤为引人深思。《低地》是移民故事的典型代表,拉希莉在此对现代人们的生存境况进行了崭新探索。本文以艾里希•弗罗姆的异化理论为理论基础,从社会异化、人际关系异化和自我疏远三方面考察《低地》中的人物在自我追寻时遭遇的困境。在《低地》中,人物的自我追寻首先受到来自社会异化的阻挠。在资本主义的社会背景下,小说中的人物必须像祈祷者崇拜上帝一样向国家和社会规范屈服,被迫将主导权转交他人手中,也因此丧失了自我追寻的能力。除此之外,来自人际关系中的异化同样影响着人物的自我追寻。在不同的人际关系中,他们需要扮演不同角色,而这些角色又往往不能与梦想中的自我吻合。因此在遵从内心意愿和服从社会规约的两难选择中,人物迷失了自我,失去追寻真我的方向。最后,人物在与内心诉求和外在要求的角力中变得无力,导致对自我及外部世界的漠然,无法成就梦想中的自我,自我追寻因而陷入困境,遥遥无期。拉希莉细致描绘出人物在社会异化、人际关系异化和自我疏远的影响下自我追寻所遭遇的困境,充分体现拉希莉对人类的生存窘境及真我建构中的艰难处境的深刻洞悉,对于当下人们的自我建构与道路选择提供重要导引。
This chapter takes to task Elisabeth Roudinesco’s biography, Freud in His Time and Others, for innumerable factual errors and, even worse, for the assumption that she is presenting the objective truth about Freud. Three traditions of Freud biography are delineated: the hagiographic, of which Roudinesco’s is the latest example, the Freud-bashing, and the revisionist, which sees Freud as having created something incontestably great but also as having been tragically flawed as a human being. Roudinesco’s errors range from the trivial, to the mildly compromising, to the inexcusable and disqualifying. With respect to Jung, Roudinesco is shown to rely on Deirdre Bair’s biography, which is itself unreliable, instead of on her own reading of the primary sources. Roudinesco’s true colors are displayed above all in her treatment of Freud’s sexuality, as when she asserts that he has been >accused< of masturbation, claims that an affair with his sister-in-law >doubtless never happened,< and alleges that Freud had a >horror of adultery.< The all-too-human Freud was very different from the lifeless icon worshiped by Roudinesco.
This chapter tackles the perennial critical conundrum of Iago’s motivation. Agreeing with Coleridge’s assessment of his >motiveless malignity,< it argues that all attempts to explain Iago’s character in terms of individual psychology prove inadequate and that he can be more satisfactorily understood by employing Fromm’s concept of >social character.< Iago is the prototype of early modern capitalist man who exhibits the >pathology of normalcy< and exemplifies three of Fromm’s four >unproductive orientations<—exploitative, hoarding, and marketing. Iago’s lack of a sense of self leads him to destroy rather than to create, and thus manifests the impulse for negative transcendence, or what Fromm terms necrophilia. As necrophilia is the most malignant form of the anal character, this analysis accounts for the pervasiveness of anal imagery in Othello, including in the speeches of the otherwise feeble Clown. Iago, neither devil nor human, is at once a product of his age and the quintessence of all those, from Caligula to Hitler, for whom madness is a way of life because they seek to transcend through destruction the limits of human existence.
This chapter employs Caroline Polmear’s contemporary reinterpretation of Michael Balint’s concept of the basic fault as a lens through which to read Othello and Macbeth. In Polmear’s view, borderline pathology arises due to a traumatic rupture in the primal bond between mother and child, and it can take the form of either ocnophilia (clinging to people) or philobatism (clinging to spaces). It is proposed that Othello and Macbeth are representations of these complementary character-types. Othello cannot tolerate any separation from Desdemona, while Macbeth retreats into schizoid isolation. The handkerchief, the loss of which is tantamount to the loss of Desdemona’s love, was received by Othello from his mother at the time of her death, while in Macbeth the rupture of the mother-child bond is figured both in Macduff’s having been >untimely ripped< from his mother’s womb and by Lady Macbeth’s description of killing the baby that was nursing at her breast. Two clinical examples—one of an actual patient, the other of Philip Roth—are offered to illustrate the reciprocal interplay of literature and psychoanalysis. It is argued that the traditional notion of >applied psychoanalysis< should be replaced by what might be called, following Shoshana Felman, >implied psychoanalysis,< or what Fromm has called >literary psychoanalysis.<
Groddeck’s Lessons
(2019)
This chapter examines both >Groddeck’s teaching,< in the sense of the enduing value of his contributions to psychoanalysis, as well as >Groddeck’s lessons,< that is, what we can learn from his blind spots. The question of who is a psychoanalyst stands at the center of Groddeck’s relationship to Freud, and in accepting Groddeck’s assertion that transference and resistance are the >hubs of treatment,< Freud offers his most expansive definition of a psychoanalyst. Groddeck’s genius is most fully displayed in The Book of the It, the epistolary form of which casts him at once in the roles of analyst and patient. From Groddeck’s biography, it is clear that he was an extremely traumatized individual, as is further attested by his analysis in Letter 25 of his penchant for the number 26,783. But Groddeck does not recognize that he has been traumatized, and his one-sided theory that the It is >responsible for everything< reflects his inability to give due weight to environmental factors. Despite his astonishing candor, Groddeck never discusses his divorce from his first wife or the tragic story of his daughter Barbara, wounds that must have too painful for him to expose to the gaze of the reading public.
The conflict between Freud and Ferenczi during Ferenczi’s final period centers as much on their differences in technique as on Ferenczi’s revival of Freud’s pre-1897 trauma theory. Severn is the first patient since the 1890s whose childhood sexual trauma was the focus of her analysis, just as she was the first since Anna O. whose trauma-based dissociation was integral to her treatment. The corollary of the revival of trauma theory is a model of the mind based not on repression but dissociation. Ferenczi belongs to a tradition of analysts including Breuer, Fairbairn, and Sullivan who worked with a dissociation model. The fountainhead of this tradition is Janet, but though Ferenczi read and quoted from Janet, no references to Janet are found in Ferenczi’s work after 1924, when he began to move away from Freud. It is necessary to integrate scholarship on Ferenczi with the vast body of work on dissociation. Ferenczi is situated between Freud and Severn. Reversing the traditional verdicts, Ferenczi’s relationship to Freud is viewed as an enactment, whereas his relationship with Severn constitutes an authentic dialogue.
This chapter presents the discovery that Elizabeth Severn’s 1933 book, The Discovery of the Self, contains disguised case histories of both herself and Ferenczi, and thereby constitutes a companion volume to Ferenczi’s Clinical Diary. From having been known primarily as >R.N.,< the most important patient in the Diary, Severn emerges as a subject and original contributor to psychoanalysis in her own right. Severn’s reception of Ferenczi’s legacy is compared to that of two of his other American patients, Izette de Forest and Clara Thompson, the latter of whom envied Severn for her closeness to Ferenczi. Multiple correspondences between the accounts of Ferenczi and Severn of their mutual analysis, as well as of their histories, are set forth. The significance of Strindberg’s play, The Father, for Ferenczi’s transference to Severn is examined. Ferenczi and Severn are shown to have been two deeply traumatized individuals who healed themselves by finding their spiritual counterparts in each other.
This chapter employs Fromm’s concept of the >magic helper< to analyze the symbiotic nature of the Freud-Ferenczi relationship. Because both sadists and masochists, according to Fromm, are unable to tolerate genuine freedom, the sadist is dependent on the masochist, no less than the masochist is dependent on the sadist. As Clara Thompson, who was in analysis with both Ferenczi and Fromm, recognized, Ferenczi suffered from his need to be loved and accepted by Freud, and unconsciously resented him for that reason. Fromm’s contrast between the >original self< and the >pseudo self< parallels Winnicott’s antithesis between the True Self and the False Self, as well as Horney’s antinomy between the >real self< and >phony self.< Marcuse’s critique of Fromm is based on an adherence to Freud’s outmoded drive theory. Whereas Freud plays the role of what Daniel Shaw calls the >traumatizing narcissist< in his relationship with Ferenczi, Ferenczi, until his emancipation in his final years, exhibits the deformations resulting from what Bernard Brandchaft calls >pathological accommodation.<
This chapter provides a comprehensive overview and rehabilitation of Erich Fromm’s importance as a psychoanalyst. Fromm is lauded for having been an unsurpassed analyst of psychoanalytic politics and the incarnation of what it means to be an independent psychoanalyst, who was unjustly attacked both by orthodox analysts and by his erstwhile colleagues in the Frankfurt School. His 1935 essay, >The Social Determinants of Psychoanalytic Therapy,< in which the influence of Ferenczi and Groddeck is directly acknowledged, and his 1959 book, Sigmund Freud’s Mission, are hailed as summits of his achievement, while The Greatness and Limitations of Freud’s Thought shows him in decline. Three weak points in Fromm’s thought are identified: (1) his tendency to flatten out an individual level of analysis into a purely social level; (2) his penchant for shifting the blame for the problems in psychoanalysis away from Freud onto his followers; and (3) his assumption that motherly love is unconditional. Fromm’s defense of radical humanism is compared with that of Orwell, and it is shown to be grounded not only in philosophy but above all in natural science in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness.
This chapter offers a proto-Frommian reading of Paradise Lost. The opening section reviews the debate between >theological< and >Romantic< critics of Milton’s poem—C. S. Lewis and Stanley Fish, on the one hand, and A. J. A. Waldock and William Empson, on the other. Although Waldock pointed to the structural contradictions in the epic, and Empson argued that God was >put on trial< in the narrative, the neo-Christians have gotten the upper hand because the neo-Romantics have been unable to provide an overarching framework to account for their observations. The middle section furnishes such a framework by synthesizing Kenneth Burke’s >logological< analysis of the Fall as inevitable from a narrative perspective with Bernard Paris’s insight that God is the supreme narcissist in the poem. The final section compares Milton’s God and Freud as patriarchs who impose a double bind on their followers and are motivated by a compulsive need for fame.
Introduction >One Man Cannot Be the Same as Many<: Glimpsing New Paradigms through Old Keyholes
(2019)
The introduction sets the stage for the ensuing chapters by meditating on the key phrases in the title, which are indebted to and inspired by the work of Donnel Stern as well as Philip Bromberg. Fromm is praised for his espousal of a humanistic psychoanalysis as well as his critique of authoritarianism, and his concept of >literary psychoanalysis< is introduced. Freud’s interpretation of Oedipus Rex is shown to be important as much for its >unformulated< assumption of a >hidden reality< theory of the mind as for his extrapolation of the idea of the Oedipus complex. The humanism of Fromm is contrasted with Sullivan’s claim that personal individuality is an >illusion<; Stern and Bromberg are critiqued for decoupling trauma from dissociation and for positing that these are normal conditions of the mind. It is argued that a forensic stance is warranted in hermeneutic endeavors and that it is possible to reconcile objectivist and constructivist epistemologies.
In Formulated Experiences, Peter L. Rudnytsky continues his quest for a >re-vision< of psychoanalysis by coupling his revival of the unjustly neglected figure of Erich Fromm with his latest groundbreaking research on Ferenczi and Groddeck. Committed at once to a humanistic and to a literary psychoanalysis, Rudnytsky explores the subjective roots of creativity and critiques the authoritarianism that has been a tragic aspect of Freud’s legacy.Through his clinically informed interpretations he brings out both >hidden realities< and >emergent meanings< of the texts and authors he examines, including Shakespeare’s Othello and Macbeth, as well as Milton’s Paradise Lost. A preeminent scholar of the history and theory of psychoanalysis, Rudnytsky displays an interdisciplinary expertise that makes Formulated Experiences truly sui generis and unlike any existing book. Bridging the artificial divide between the academic and clinical worlds, his eloquent championing of the interpersonal and relational traditions will captivate contemporary psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, while his insightful close readings provide a model for psychoanalytic literary critics.
This paper presents a case of >trauma by omission< as a product of the attachment process. The absence of intimate and specific recognition and response by the caretaker of a child can create, by their omission, a >freeze< version of the fight/flight/freeze trauma response. The frozen moments, then dissociated, can become confusion and paralysis at the cusp of adulthood. This state is illustrated in the case below of a 23-year-old Chinese woman being treated by a 29-year-old Chinese male psychoanalytic fellow. The role of cultural context in >omission< is highlighted regarding development and treatment, which is taking place in a Communist society with a recent violent history of extinguishing individuality, modifying how attachment and individuation are expressed. A relational/interpersonal treatment orientation is applied and advocated at this intersection of individual and social realities. This paper contributes to attachment theory by raising awareness of how its many forms and outcomes may or may not be deemed healthy and functional.
Vorwort
(2019)
Oedipus goes to the opera: Psychoanalytic inquiry in Enescu’s >Œdipe< and Stravinsky’s >Oedipus Rex<
(2019)
Psychoanalytic inquiry into operas based on the life of Oedipus may provide further knowledge on the Oedipus complex. Therefore, we chose to analyze Enescu’s >Œdipe< and Stravinsky’s >Oedipus Rex<. Two distinct methodologies were used in our study. The first explored the concept of free association through musical themes in the operas. The second involved the comparative study of the Oedipus myth in order to provide a deeper understanding of Oedipus’s character. We observed that Oedipus displayed symptoms of his complex through the traits of aggressiveness and arrogance. Moreover, we noticed that Oedipus was compelled by the necessity of finding out who his real parents were and by unconsciously accomplishing the prophecy. Oedipus assumed the responsibility to free the Thebans from plague. Yet, it was too late, for the feared part of the prophecy was already accomplished. He provided a wrong answer to the Sphinx and then received the most severe punishment, one that would have ostracism as its outcome. It was, however, not too late for Oedipus to finally discover who his real parents were. Nevertheless, afraid of losing his place as King of Thebes, he investigated the plague’s causes. This resulted in his aggression as he resisted discovering >where babies come from.<
自由问题既是一个重要的现实生活问题,又是一个重要的哲学问题。自人类拥有意识的那一刻起,对于自由的追求就从没有间断过。经过不断的努力,近代西方国家通过资产阶级革命推翻了封建统治纷纷建立起了资本主义民主制度,人们获得了空前的自由。但是,对于这来之不易的自由,人们并没有很好的享受反而走向的自由的反面。一些人如饥似渴的贡献出自己所拥有自由,加入法西斯、希特勒等极权组织,引发了一系列的战争和社会危机。对于这种逃避自由的现象,西方马克思主义的主要代表之一弗洛姆对其进行了深刻的研究和分析,总结出消极自由并不能够带给人们完整的自由,只有积极自由才是人们真正的自由。弗洛姆的积极自由思想主要继承了马克思的历史唯物主义思想和弗洛伊德的精神分析思学说,他吸收了弗洛伊德的无意识理论、性格学说和自由观以及马克思的异化和自由思想,同时他的也深受犹太教的救世情怀和弥赛亚思想的影响。但是弗洛姆更倾向于马克思的思想,他认为马克思的历史唯物主义揭示了资本主义社会中的种种矛盾,并对其进行了深刻的分析与批判,而弗洛伊德仅仅把人的本质需要说成的性欲的需要,他的思想深度和广度都不及马克思,带有着无法克服的局限性。虽然弗洛姆的积极自由思想很大程度上继承了马克思的思想,但他与马克思的自由思想有着很大的差异,无论是对人的本质的认识,还是关于人的异化思想,或是他们对所追求的积极自由的看法以及实现路径都有着很大的不同。他的积极自由与思想在一定程度上弥补了马克思自由观的不足,具有重要的研究价值。弗洛姆的自由思想不仅具有着无法取代的理论意义,对于解决处于转型时期的中国所遇到的问题也具有着重要的借鉴意义。当前,科技的快速发展给我们的生活带来了极大的变化,高水平的生活质量、便捷的生活方式、舒适的生活环境,但是,人们的精神状况却并没有我们所预想的那样良好,人们的精神空虚,迷茫,幸福感下降,人与人之间冷漠、疏离。因此研究弗洛姆的积极自由思想对于分析并解决我国当前的自由困境具有重要的意义。本文由四大部分组成。第一部分主要是介绍弗洛姆的个人经历,从弗洛姆思想形成的社会历史背景和主要理论来源出发,来分析弗洛姆所处的社会时代背景和个人生活经历对他的思想形成的影响;第二部分是弗洛姆积极自由思想的基本内容。通过对近代积极自由思想内涵的确立以及弗洛姆对近代自由思想的批判来引出弗洛姆的积极自由思想以及积极自由的实现。第三部分是将弗洛姆与马克思的积极自由思想进行比较。通过马克思与弗洛姆关于人的看法,关于异化的理解,关于积极自由的认识的不同分析出弗洛姆积极自由思想的可取之处与局限性。第四部分是弗洛姆积极自由思想的当代价值。弗洛姆的积极自由思想具有重要的理论价值与实践价值,对于我国社会主义现代化建设、对于解决当代中国人与社会发展存在的问题具有着十分重要的借鉴意义。但是弗洛姆的自由思想也存在着一些不足之处,需要引以为戒。
Nowadays, violence appears in various forms in Brazil. From an agricultural country, Brazil became rapidly industrialized, which resulted in large rural exodus and explosion of population density in major cities. Brazil faces today a great social and economic disparity, added to endemic corruption of government, nepotism and lack of social planning. The roots of such violence can be found in our archaic heritage that has been forming Brazilian identity since its early days. The interest of former colonizers was to extract wealth, without regarding the establishment of a nation. This exploitation has been always done by force and violence, with the slave labor of native Indians and imported black people. As a state Brazil was exposed to the primal father’s law, and to the absence of a symbolic father, who could have provided his people with a more stable identity, only given by the paternal law. Is it possible to reframe archaic heritage, rebuilding the missing father image without resorting to a false savior of the fatherland? Is it possible to construct a more equitable society that could propitiate true conditions of citizenship in order to make every citizen, to the extent possible, the protagonist of his own history?
The following essay is a modified version of an invited presentation given in Florence, Italy in May 2017. It builds on and extends some of the previous psychoanalytic and multidisciplinary studies of Dante’s >Divine Comedy< as a >psychoanalysis of the Middle Ages< that greatly contributed to the incipient changes of the cultural episteme. The paper will explore and elaborate the continued relevance of Dantian proto-psychoanalytic insight into the complex role of regression, destruction, transgression, and conflict in generating growth, expansion, and creativity, and the ways in which ethics and erotics intertwine in a complex path towards unity, within the context of his multivocal presubjective, intrasubjective, and intersubjective inquiry leading to psychic reorganization. The liminal nature of Dante’s poetry, extending the symbolic and representational range in a way unprecedented in the vernacular literature of his time, vivifying and representing what is traditionally thought of as beyond representation, will also be considered in terms of its relevance to the contemporary psychoanalytic discourse.
Part I of this paper discussed various dynamic aspects of hate in the individual developmental and clinical context. Part II, also an expansion of the author’s discussion of Harold Blum’s presentation on >Hate and its vicissitudes< in Prague in 2017, examines the theme of hate as a multidimensional dynamic group phenomenon. The paper uses various theoretical perspectives to focus on group unconscious processes and the group-specific dynamic of regression leading to an activation of primitive ego operations, unleashing destructive aggression as well as creative mobilization. Also considered are the implications in terms of destruction, adaptation, and creativity, in relation to group unconscious dynamic processes and intergenerationally trasmitted trauma and posttraumatic developments.
The present paper is an expansion of the author’s discussion of Harold Blum’s seminal presentation >Hate and its vicissitudes< in Prague in 2017. It aims at an elaboration of various aspects of hate and hatred as a complex dynamic intrapsychic and relational affective-cognitive state, alloyed, in different ways, with aggression and love. In this context, various theoretical perspectives concerning the multifaceted relation between hate, love, and sexuality, and hate and destructive aggression, and transformations between them, including the first study of neurobiological correlates of hate, will be raised and explored. Implication on destruction as well as psychic structuring, adaptation and creativity are also considered. The clinical vignettes illustrates the relevance of multiple theoretical conceptualizations in contemporary psychoanalytic practice.
This paper presents a report on our psychoanalytic investigation of cultural folktales, myths, and fables, in which we study, primarily, the extent to which such narratives lurk behind contemporary representations of men and women. Our aim is to identify the multiple narrative structures that form the core plots and storylines of these tales. Following Roland Barthes’ work on mythologies, we want to decode the tales’ ideological components by deciphering the axiomatic assumptions these tales make about the nature of perceived social reality. This represents an attempt to study a mind that is derived from the text. More specifically, we study narratives whose storylines revolve around the struggle between men and women in order to identify the culture’s core concerns about and preoccupations with the relationship between the sexes. We believe that cultural myths or folktales are a royal road to a nation’s collective conscience, and include gendered patterns of defenses, obsessions, fears, and paranoia.
The author attempts to understand the kamikaze attacks during World War II as a phenomenon that crossed a border into the systemic use of suicide attacks. The author first presents two historical precursors before World War II: the Seinan (Southwest) War in 1877; and an event in 1932 known as the Three Suicide-Bombing Heroes. To examine the process leading to kamikaze, the author offers two examples: a scene in which a suicide attack was proposed to pilots; and a story of a general, Oenishi, who has been identified as a person responsible for the campaign. In the discussion, the author employs psychoanalytic arguments on chosen trauma and apocalyptic order to see kamikaze as sharing a common psychology with other warfare. He then focuses on the previous debate over the normality of suicide attackers and argues for the importance of finding a role for positive value in the psychological processes. He concludes that kamikaze was realized through multiple mechanisms and ended up crossing the border to unconventional attack. He closes the paper by suggesting we should make efforts to keep the positive feedback in response to suicide attacks under a certain threshold in order to avoid reinforcing the spiral.
In search of the Human: The trauma of modernity and the >instrumental reason< of the persecutors
(2019)
This article takes the clinical notion of trauma as a historiographic criterion for understanding modernity and its mythologies. If the rewriting of the term trauma – at the intersection of psychoanalysis and neurobiology, cultural anthropology and philosophy of the mind – is the hallmark of contemporaneity, it is quite acceptable to see the Shoah as a radical historical and epistemological watershed. Never before had such a highly productive bureaucratic-industrial system been designed and implemented for the devastation of the very idea of humanity. Auschwitz was, in the most radical ways, the liminal space between Human and Inhuman. It lay right at the cutting edge of the abyss that the executioner shares with his victim – the annihilation of humanity. This essay crosses a question that has always characterized the social construction of subjectivity: the perimeter of the Human, and the interrelationships between identity, alterity, and recognition.
The concept of resignation carries widely divergent meanings in the cultural contexts of Western and Eastern experiences. Whereas the Western perspective of resignation implies a negative, impoverished state of self-assertion, the Eastern perspective contains wider and more complex meanings, among which is that resignation is a virtue to be cultivated. Using the writings of the Nobel Prize winner in Literature Yasunari Kawabata, akirame, the Eastern, specifically Japanese, concept of resignation, will be examined for its multilayered psychological and cultural meanings. In addition, from Kawabata’s writing and biographical information, I demonstrate how the Western psychoanalytic concept of Oedipal conflict relates to and manifests in the Eastern psychology of resignation, bridging both Eastern and Western cultures to elucidate underlying, universal human conflicts.