Review of Psychoanalysis at the margins.

Reviews the book, Psychoanalysis at the margins by Paul E. Stepansky (see record 2009-22624-000). For more than two decades, there have been conferences and publications about psychoanalysis’ being in a crisis. None of these calls has led to a radical reorganization or reorientation of psychoanalysis. The result has been that psychoanalysis has become marginal: if in the 1960s a large percentage of professorships in psychiatry were held by psychoanalysts, now there are practically none. There are hardly any graduate programs in clinical psychology that are psychoanalytically oriented, and there are very few professorships in psychology that are in the hands of psychoanalysts. And while there are still many psychoanalytic institutes that succeed in attracting candidates, there are almost no patients left that come for classical psychoanalysis. Stepansky’s book is a major achievement and should be read by anybody concerned with the future of psychoanalysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Kinetics of serologic cross-reactions between Ehrlichia canis and the Ehrlichia phagocytophila genogroups in experimental E. canis infection in dogs

The serological cross-reactions between the Ehrlichia canis and Ehrlichia phagocytophila genogroups, and the kinetics of development of antibodies in dogs to the E. phagocytophila group after artificial infection with the Israeli strain of E. canis was investigated. Results of this study indicate that the development of antibodies to the E. phagocytophila genogroup in dogs after infection with E. canis is a time dependent event probably conditional on the continued propagation of the rickettsia in the host. After spontaneous clinical recovery, and at the beginning of the subclinical phase, no antibodies to E. phagocytophila were yet detectable. The first evidence of IgG antibodies to E. phagocytophila were found in two of the six dogs, 55 days after artificial infection with E. canis, while another two dogs became seropositive to E. phagocytophila 22 days later. All surviving dogs were seropositive to E. phagocytophila by 150 days PI. It is suggested that the appearance of E. phagocytophila antibodies following treatment of acute E. canis infection may be used to judge treatment failure and/or persistence of infection.     

MMPI characteristics of alcoholics: A review.

Empirical research concerning the usefulness of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) in the identification of personality characteristics of alcoholics is reviewed. Scales, profile configurations, and item analyses are discussed. No single personality type is characteristic of all alcoholics. Although six cluster types occur with consistency, none of these types is unique to alcoholics. A focus on individual differences in future research and treatment planning is suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nobrow: Identity Formation in a Fatherless Generation.

Generation X, the cohort born between 1964 and 1978, often confronts the clinician with new dilemmas, which the author presents in a detailed case study of his work with Ben, a young man who exemplifies many traits of this generation. The author argues that it is not fruitful to classify Gen-Xers' modes of experience as expressing some early type of pathology; rather, they reflect the social and cultural experience of Generation X. This is characterized by a shift from vertical to horizontal orientation: The connection to the past has less psychic reality for the members of this cohort. Instead they live in a cultural universe defined by the media, the new economy, and the refusal to accept the differences between high and low culture. The impact of this cultural discontinuity on the process of identity formation for Gen-Xers is examined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The historicity of psychoanalysis and global culture. Reply to Golland (2005).

In response to J. H. Golland's (2005; see record 2005-08806-009) comment, this reply emphasizes that the critiqued article's point is not clinical but about the process of identity formation in Generation X. It is argued that psychoanalysis deals with human experience, which is essentially historical. It can therefore well be that, given the rapid historical changes, central psychoanalytic notions, both theoretical and clinical, need to be reassessed if psychoanalysis is to face the challenge of rapid historical developments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Of Potholes and Bends: A Meditation on Psychoanalysis and Motorcycle Riding.

Psychoanalysis has recently turned attention to the importance of the patient's developing a sense of the future. Yet many patients cannot envisage a rich and worthwhile future, because their attention is focused on the dangers, real or imagined. This scenario is analogous to difficulties motorcyclists have in detaching their gaze from sources of danger and developing depth of vision. The author relates some experiences he has had in being coached in motorcycle riding and demonstrates their relevance to psychoanalytic processes. It is shown that both in motorcycling and in life, it is important to keep focus of vision on one's long-term goals while being aware of dangers in peripheral vision. The development of harmonious movement is shown to be a function of a combination of maternal care and paternal guidance in life as in riding motorcycles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The pluralist revolution: From the one true meaning to an infinity of constructed ones.

Argues that the truth of psychotherapy is not historical, disclosing a real fit between subjective recall and past events, but narrative (D. Spence, 1982). The story of clients' lives, which develops in therapy, is not the real history of the individual, but one possible narrative. Life narrative is inextricably linked to self-concept. Cure in psychoanalysis is not due to the uncovering of the past, but to the replacement of an inchoate life narrative by a congruent one, and the transformation of the meanings that previously blocked the person's ongoing story with new ones. Psychotherapeutic approaches provide metanarratives for the re-creation of life narratives that help therapists mend their clients' self-defeating narratives. Although a therapist's belief in his/her metanarrative is crucial, a pluralist position holds that no metanarrative is uniquely true. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Freud's forgotten evolutionary project.

In the last decades psychoanalysis has tended to recast itself as a hermeneutic discipline geared at the retelling of human lives, and Freud is recast as a great writer in the humanist tradition rather than as the scientist as which he saw himself. Although this reconceptualization has good reasons, it tends to obscure the fact that Freud primarily saw himself as a theorist of human nature. One of Freud's deepest convictions was that psychopathology needs to be explained on the basis of evolutionary biology. This paper argues that this may have been one of Freud's greatest ideas. The reason it has been "repressed" by psychoanalysis is that Freud based it on Lamarckian principles. The current flourishing of evolutionary psychology and psychiatry may well turn Freud into one of the precursors of the psychology of the future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The self as perpetual experiment: Psychodynamic comments on some aspects of contemporary urban culture.

The author examines the interaction between a dominant trend in contemporary urban culture and the dynamics of the search for identity and exemplifies it through the therapeutic work with a young woman who sought to find a personal voice and style within urban space. Sociologists and philosophers have argued that contemporary urban culture, in a Nietzschean way, views the self as the locus of perpetual experimentation. The self is to be created like a work of art, ranging from the shaping of the body to the conscious creation of one's lifestyle. The search for authorship over one's life has become an integral part of culture, and helping patients in this search requires clinicians to develop a new vocabulary. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Paring down life to the essentials: An epicurean psychodynamics of midlife changes.

This article presents a psychodynamic hypothesis about a certain type of productive midlife change often to be observed in creative individuals. This model is called paring down life to the essentials and is connected to the Epicurean tradition. It is exemplified by analyzing the autobiographical narrative of Charles Handy, a leading business philosopher, who at midlife left his previous employment to dedicate himself to writing about the search for meaning in a capitalist world. The psychodynamic interpretation of this process dialectically bridges between Elliot Jacques seminal interpretation of the resolution of the midlife crisis as acceptance of mortality and Ernest Becker’s theory that the denial of death is one of the deepest human motivations—a hypothesis strongly corroborated by empirical research. Focusing life on a heightened process of creation at midlife is shown to reflect both death acceptance and denial of death. It is argued that this model for midlife change could be of importance in contemporary consumerist culture. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)