Introduction.

The editor of this special issue on child analytic work briefly characterizes the focus of the included works. This special issue on child analytic work contains articles on child psychoanalysis, childhood play, the role of the parent in child work, and the analytic process. Two book reviews complete the picture. Child psychoanalysis richly rewards us and stimulates us toward continuous exploration, development, and understanding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The emotionally engaged analyst II: How emotions impact analytic process as illuminated by dynamic systems theory.

A dynamic systems theory of emotion is presented and used to reveal the complex emotional interactions that create the emotional experience of the patient and of the analyst and that constitute, shape, and direct the analytic process. Through the analysis of clinical vignettes, the dynamic emotional processes that engender intense relational moments, enactments, stalemates, and resistances between the patient and the analyst, as well as sequences of disruption, repairs, and mutative change, are illustrated. The flow of emotional energy that vitalizes the analytic interaction and influences the meanings attributed to the patient-analyst interaction is delineated and related to the analyst's emotional engagement of the patient and to the central position of this emotional relationship in facilitating therapeutic change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender and transference: Conversations with female analysts.

The possible influence of analysts' gender on the transference has received attention in recent psychoanalytic writing. Interviews with 17 senior female analysts about their views on this question are summarized. Most felt that analysts' gender does affect the transference, especially in the sequence of material's emergence, and should be taken into consideration in referrals. Possible influences on the "maternal" and "paternal" transferences, the erotic and "eroticized" transferences, and the oedipal transference were also discussed. Gender-related biases or countertransferences were suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Saying goodbye: A casebook of termination in child and adolescent analysis and therapy.

Reviews the book, Saying goodbye: A casebook of termination in child and adolescent analysis and therapy edited by Anita G. Schmukler (see record 1991-98015-000). Anita Schmukler's new book is comprised of 10 clinical and 6 theoretical papers. Schmukler and her colleagues set themselves the task of exploring and illustrating the theoretical and technical issues involved in ending child analyses. The primary theoretical question under review is, of course, the selection of criteria for terminability. The theoretical articles in this book try to tease out with some specificity the changes in the child and in the sessions themselves that indicate termination is on the horizon. Several articles outline criteria for termination, as indicated both in symptomatic improvement in the outside world and in the evolution of the transference neurosis in the analyst's office. The life and times of children and analysts at work around termination are richly illustrated. All practicing child analysts will recognize the pains and pleasures inherent in their line of work. And all will feel helped by the clarity of conceptualization offered as they think through with their own child patients and their parents the question of when it is time to say goodbye. However, the most important criterion for terminability, the child's expanded capacity to integrate disparate parts of himself or herself and metabolize his or her own experience, is inadequately explored. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interview with Lewis Aron.

Presents an interview that was conducted by Jeremy Safran with Lewis Aron on the topic of psychoanalysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interview with Faye Abdellah.

The first woman Deputy Surgeon General in the US discusses ways to disseminate available information on health issues, specifically focusing on the elderly. Research in basic and applied areas and ethical guidelines in medical and psychological studies are also discussed. (0 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

If I knew then what I know now: Theme and variations.

This paper gives recognition to the immense expansion in psychoanalytic thinking of recent decades. However, the implication (of the title of the panel of which this paper was a part) that advances in knowledge readily translate into advances in technique is seriously challenged, though in a playful format. The format pursues 4 variations on the title theme: 1) I could not know then what I know now; 2) If I knew then what I know now, I would not have been able to use it; 3) I did know then what I know now; and 4) If I knew now what I knew then... (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interview with Representative Cecil Heftel.

Heftel discusses (a) reasons for spiraling health care costs; (b) why cost-saving alternatives such as nonphysician practitioners (e.g., psychologists) have been excluded from Medicare coverage; (c) the Heftel and Inouye bill providing Medicare coverage of psychologists' services in health maintenance organizations; (d) the need to increase in general Medicare coverage of mental services for the elderly; (e) the high incidence of mental illness in the elderly; (f) lower usage of mental health services among the elderly compared to younger groups; (g) mental health services in Hawaii; (h) the issue of psychologists as independent practitioners within Medicare; (i) involvement of psychologists in political advocacy; and (j) use of media by behavioral sciences to promote their concerns. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The ambiguity of the psychoanalytic situation and its relation to the analyst's reverie.

This article is about ambiguity in psychoanalysis, an ambiguity that is particularly striking in the psychoanalytic relationship between patient and analyst. The analyst is a professional in his consulting room, in his chair behind the patient, but he is at the same time a figure in the patient's realization of his inner world of objects. The analyst is a transference figure, but he is also a real person with his own inner private reverie and a subjective contribution to the analytic process. For some patients, the ambiguous analyst is an enormous challenge or threat. This article describes parts of the analytic process with one such patient, a man with an early history of severe trauma who at the start of his treatment completely denied this ambiguity and felt every reminder of his analyst being anything else but professional as a threat to his sanity. The author tries to show how the improvement of the patient's tolerance for ambiguity depended on the work done in the analyst's private reverie, a quite demanding process for the analyst. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interview with: Donna Vidam, CPM. Interview by Ina May Gaskin

The application of Leininger's Theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality to the dialogue between students and faculty regarding nursing education and practice provides the theoretical framework for evaluating a transcultural nursing curriculum in a transcultural, transnational setting on the Texas-Mexico border. In evaluating the first semester of this cultural encounter between the nurse-patient-community system and baccalaureate nursing education, faculty and students at Texas A&M International University School of Nursing in Laredo identified some particular challenges and assessed the effectiveness of approaches to meeting these challenges within the context of Leininger's Culture Care Theory and its three modes of action: culture care preservation, accommodation, and repatterning.