Reuniting the psychic couple in analytic training and practice: A candidate's experience.

In the course of training at a comparative psychoanalytic institute, the author fixed upon a technical question: how to find optimal psychological distance from her patients. She struggled to integrate the diverse perspectives that the literature provided on this question. She also became aware of a conflictual phantasy of a polarizing internal mother and father that underlay her interest in the question. A dream about her work with a control patient eventually allowed her, with the aid of both supervisor and personal analyst, to work through the phantasy, and to bring her internal "psychic couple" into creative contact with one another. As a result, her capacity to analyze her patient increased. The author concludes that when supervisors and seminar leaders (in addition to the candidate's analyst) make themselves available to unconscious aspects of a candidate's learning process, institutes provide a more spacious container for psychoanalytic development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Wise Baby and the Wild Analyst.

Sandor Ferenczi was Freud's most brilliant disciple, reevaluated after his historical eclipse and later idealization. As a "wise baby," he demonstrated extraordinary clinical acuity as well as a propensity for wild analysis. Despite his confusion regarding conscious confabulation versus unconscious fantasy, he illuminated critical issues of reality-fantasy and objectivity-subjectivity in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. Ferenczi significantly contributed to present concepts of psychic trauma, countertransference, empathy, and the analyst as participant-observer. Ferenczi illuminated the relationship between perpetrator and victim of child sexual abuse but regarded the child as blissfully innocent. The Freud-Ferenczi relationship is important to the history of psychoanalysis and the evolution of psychoanalytic thought. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The second century of psychoanalysis.

Presents a theory of unconscious mental life and makes predictions for the 2nd century of psychoanalysis. The theory of unconscious mental life assumes that a person unconsciously performs many of the same kinds of functions that are performed consciously and holds that psychopathology is rooted in cognition. The psychoanalytic process following from this theory is discussed and a research study designed to determine why a patient persistently made unconscious transference demands on the analyst is described. The author predicts that in the next 100 yrs, analysts will become less constrained and psychoanalysis will shed its concern for purity, accommodate the various common-sense ways that one person helps another, have more contact with other fields, and benefit greatly from research in related fields and in analysis itself. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contemporary American psychoanalysis: A profession? Increasing the role of research in psychoanalysis.

The simmering crisis confronting American psychoanalysis today is, in part, a function of fundamental theoretical and clinical disagreements within psychoanalysis itself. Psychoanalytic training, which conveys the special knowledge of our profession, and its application to techniques of treatment have become fragmented and frayed; boundaries have lost definition and our qualification as a profession is vitiated. Our diminished status is reflected in reduced public support and our smaller share of the patient population. Debate seems unable to resolve these disagreements. Acknowledgment of this reduced status creates the need and the opportunity for an increased role for research in psychoanalysis and the development of an analytic research enterprise capable of exploring for empirical resolutions of basic questions and disputes. Such a concerted effort to define the psychoanalytic enterprise through empirically supported basic tenets is necessary to avoid further dissipation of the markers of our psychoanalytic identity, both as individuals and as a profession. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychoanalysis as the Idiosyncratic Science of the Individual Subject.

The author examines the scientific status of psychoanalysis from a new angle. Two questions guide the inquiry: what a science is and what psychoanalysis is the science of. If it is supposed to be a global science of mind, where mind is shared by and generalizable over the population of human individuals, its status as science is vulnerable to challenge. The challenge can be circumvented by reconceptualizing psychoanalysis as a set of local theories (metatheoretically linked) applicable to idiosyncratic cases. Every patient is a new world, whose laws it is the task of the analyst to establish and apply. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transference: Psychic reality and material reality.

This article explores the impact of material reality in the form of the analyst's unrecognized and enacted countertransference on a patient's psychic reality (PR) as it presents in the transference. PR refers to a patient's experience in the transference and to an organization of unconscious fantasies, encoded as compromise formations, that actively structures the present and can be inferred from the data of psychoanalysis. Clinical material is presented in support of the author's belief that PR plays the central role in the construction of the transference and that material reality can influence both the nature and form of the transference through the activation or inhibition of different sets of fantasies in the analyst and the patient. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Conscious and unconscious: Freud's dynamic distinction reconsidered.

Reviews the book, Conscious and unconscious: Freud's dynamic distinction reconsidered by Patricia S. Herzog (see record 1991-97475-000). Patricia Herzog's book is a critical examination of the way in which Freud presented the conscious/unconscious distinction. Herzog is a philosopher, and she provides the careful, analysis of Freudian concepts that good philosophers can, but which is unfortunately often missing from psychoanalysis. Her concerns are not empirical or therapeutic bur conceptual: the consistencies, inconsistencies, and interrelations in the family of Freud's theoretical concepts which has conscious and unconscious as key members. Herzog has provided a scholarly, close-to-the-text treatment of Freud's conscious/unconscious distinction, most surely a central aspect of the theory of psychopathology. But her presentation makes it hard work to grasp and integrate the points, and the reader is left to struggle alone to discover the links between her critique of Freud and themes in modern psychoanalytic or other psychological theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The centrality of the system Ucs in the theory of psychoanalysis: The nonrepressed unconscious.

After Freud discovered an unconscious system (Ucs) between 1894 and 1896, a window opened for him to formulate a comprehensive theory of the human psyche, which he called psychoanalysis. The Ucs was its foundation. The object relations theories, ego psychology, self-psychology, and their offshoots managed to erode that concept from the theory in different ways and tried to replace psychoanalysis. The reason is that Freud, for a long time, associated the unconscious with the repressed. It was possible by reviewing his work in the field of repression, defense, and the unconscious to uncover the nature of the system Ucs. It is not possible for a school of psychology within psychoanalysis to ignore the systemic unconscious and replace it with a dynamic unconscious and still claim that it is psychoanalytic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Significance of the unconscious plan for psychoanalytic theory.

Compares the assertions of J. Weiss et al (1986) regarding the role of the patient's unconscious plan in analytic treatment with other contemporary theories. According to Weiss et al, the analyst listens, albeit unconsciously, to the patient with respect for the patient's capacity to spell out his or her goals, the blocks to achieving these goals, and what the analyst needs to do and avoid doing for these goals to be accomplished. Differences and similarities of the plan model are discussed in reference to the ideas of R. Emde (see record 1991-13225-001), R. Schafer (1983), R. Stolorow et al (1987), and J. Bowlby (1988) concerning developmental psychoanalysis and the active patient; action language, excessive claiming, and beliefs; self psychology; and attachment models. The plan is offered as one solution to the theoretical, cultural, and clinical problems that currently afflict psychoanalysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beyond insight: An additional necessary step in redressing intrapsychic conflict.

It is axiomatic in psychoanalytic thinking that many forms of psychopathology are rooted in unconscious conflict over libidinal and aggressive impulses. The following treatment corollary of this proposition comprises the heart of this paper: If these unconscious conflicts are to be securely overcome in psychoanalytic treatment, beyond gaining insight, the analysand must become more accepting of the impulses that had been warded off--i.e., find modulated and regulated avenues of impulse expression. Both the presence of a nonjudgmental analyst and certain aspects of the psychoanalytic process foster such an outcome. Whereas for some analysands that is sufficient for achieving this goal, for others, specific interventions are necessary, ranging from particular kinds of interpretations to the use of parameters. These interventions are discussed with consideration given to both their potential yield and their dangers, and with suggestions made as to how the latter can be minimized. (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)     

The current status of psychoanalytic theory.

In recent years, metapsychology has been effectively destroyed by a series of critiques, here summarized. Clinical psychoanalysis, its heart, is a testable scientific theory and need not be trivialized by being reduced to a hermeneutics, but it has been exposed by Grünbaum and Rubinstein as seriously lacking in empirical verification. Its genetic hypotheses are extremely difficult to test; the clinical case study is useful only as a means of generating hypotheses. As Rubinstein has shown, however, the clinical theory can be systematized and stated in probabilistic propositions testable by statistical research. Its fundamental propositions can be tested only by nonpsychoanalytic data, however. Object relations and self psychology have had a large vogue but do not address the fundamental theoretical problems. Those threaten the survival of psychoanalysis, but are being complacently ignored. Some possible solutions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elliot Jurist interviews Peter Fonagy.

Presents an interview of Peter Fonagy, by Elliot Jurist. In it, they discuss the future of the field of psychoanalytic psychology, the place that psychoanalysis will have within health care systems, how psychotherapy research could contribute to psychoanalysis, and potential contributions to the field from neurobiological research and other areas of psychology. Other topics covered include the traditional distinction between psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, the importance for psychoanalysis to be familiar with developments in the CBT therapy tradition, how psychoanalytic education has changed over the last 10 years, and the issue of psychologist researchers who are critical of clinicians who are unresponsive to research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response to Joseph Masling's (2003) Critique of Stephen A. Mitchell.

Joseph Masling (2003; see record 2003-09630-001) criticized Stephen A. Mitchell (1997, see record 1997-36625-000; 2000) for (a) recommending that the analyst be more active and involved, thereby increasing the risk of sexual involvement with the patient, and (b) Mitchell's belief that empirical data have little to contribute to psychoanalysis. There are no data supporting the hypothesis that the analyst's activity increases the risk of sexual violation. The author hypothesizes that the risk of such sexual acting out is a function primarily of the unique, unresolved psychopathology of the individual analyst, rather than either the model of treatment used or the opportunity for such a violation. The author does agree that Mitchell's belief that empirical data have little to contribute to psychoanalysis is ill advised. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dissociation and the question of history: "What, precisely, are the facts?"

In the wake of interest in the issue of the knowability of history and the rise of clinical and theoretical interest in dissociation, contemporary psychoanalysis continues to struggle with the basic question of what exactly constitutes a "fact" in the psychoanalytic process. This article considers this difficulty in light of the interpenetration of these two issues--dissociation and the question of history. A brief review of the prevailing alternative viewpoints on dissociation reveals how the question of history--the traditional controversy between narrativist and positivist views--re-emerges from it. This is further born out through a rereading of S. Freud's (1918/1955) most famous case of clinical dissociation, the "Wolf-Man" case, in which, as R. May (1990) showed in his critical analysis, the knowability of history emerged as the central problem. An alternative epistemological point of view on the problem of history is then presented that sheds light on the nature of a "fact" in psychoanalysis. This view enables a relational research paradigm for the empirical investigation of the psychoanalytic process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attachment theory and research and the psychoanalytic process.

Attachment theory, along with relevant research, is reviewed in terms of its usefulness as a developmental theory for conceptualizing aspects of the psychoanalytic process. Because of its emphasis on the development of relationships through the process of dyadic interaction, attachment theory offers an alternative conceptualization for understanding the relationship aspects of the clinical psychoanalytic process. Manifestations of early attachment behavior can be understood as being recreated in the course of psychoanalysis and can contribute to a developmental understanding of the process. Because many psychiatric problems can be attributed to difficulties in the development of an attachment relationship, it is also possible that attachment theory may be helpful in providing further understanding of the etiology of deviations in development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The continuing presence of psychoanalysis: A reply to Robert F. Bornstein (2001).

R. F. Bornstein (2001) implies in "The Impending Death of Psychoanalysis" that he holds the only truth about psychoanalysis. However, his reasoning seems to be based on 2 inaccurate hypotheses or prejudices: (a) that there is a division between psychoanalysis and the rest of the world and science and psychology and (b) that the rest of the world is hostile to psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is imbedded in the same values as are evidenced in any humanistic-democratic society, and hostility expressed toward psychoanalysis comes from a variety of sources including disillusionment in the unconscious fantasy or wish that psychoanalysis can prevent the eventual death of the individual. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Shadow and substance: A relational perspective on clinical process.

Suggests that one aspect of human personality structure is usefully understood as a dynamic balance or dialectic between dissociation and conflict, and argues that psychoanalysis must continue to broaden its concepts of psychic structure, unconscious phenomena, and therapeutic action beyond the model provided by conflict theory. From a relational perspective, an analyst is not simply helping a patient change a unified though poorly adaptive self-representation to an equally unified more adaptive one, but is also negotiating with multiple self-representations, each in its own terms, and enabling the dissociative gaps among them to rebuild linkages through a perceptual process of meaning construction. The roles of enactment and interpretation are discussed in the context of trauma, dissociation, and the nature of reality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The work of culture: Symbolic transformation in psychoanalysis and anthropology.

Reviews the book, The work of culture: Symbolic transformation in psychoanalysis and anthropology by Gananath Obeyesekere (1990). The reviewer states that the book offers the most sophisticated demonstration yet of the relevance of Freudian psychoanalysis to cultural interpretation by a scholar whose sensitivity to cultural differences should reassure the reader that this will be no mere "reduction" of variable symbols and meanings to the invariant properties of the dynamic unconscious. The four parts of the book are expanded versions of the Lewis Henry Morgan lectures, which Obeyesekere delivered at the University of Rochester. Throughout the book, Obeyesekere explores what he calls "symbolic remove"--the process through which symbolic forms existing at the cultural level. are created and recreated through the minds of individuals. Symbols thus created are regressive because of their ontogenesis in individual development and unconscious processes, while also being progressive, in that the unconscious thought transforms the archaic motivations of early experience and looks forward to their realization in experience of the sacred. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)