Ethical considerations of the home office.

The home office has a long tradition in psychoanalysis, based somewhat on the mistaken belief that Freud actually practiced out of his living quarters. The reality is that he practiced out of a completely separate apartment across the hall. This article examines the analyst's motivations for having a home office, as well as the potential impact of having one on the analyst's patients and own family. The home office is considered as fertile ground for acting out by both analyst and patient, and the corresponding ethical issues are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response to Gargiulo (2007) and Mills (2007).

Replies to comments made by G. J. Garguilo (see record 2007-16468-013) and J. Mills (see record 2007-16468-014) on the current author's original article (see record 2007-00135-012). The author responds to her critics, who feel she was accusing them of being unethical and even immoral by having a home office. She clarifies that at no time did she use any of this language, nor was this her intent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Relational Perspective on Women and Power.

This article focuses on the fact that women and men have equal but different needs for power. Integrating a psychoanalytic relational approach with feminist theory and social psychology, the author explains gender differences and societal influences on the pursuit of power. Social psychology research indicates that women are more likely to pursue power in ways that help others, whereas men are more likely to pursue their own individual ambitions. However, both genders become more nurturing in their expressions of power as they age. The presence of siblings in early life and having children as adults are more likely to produce an individual who demonstrates prosocial power. Young women today appear to be less conflicted about pursuing power in the world than the previous generation, but they are still ambivalent when it comes to making their way in the world. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Enactment: When the patient's and analyst's pasts converge..

As the emphasis on analytic treatment as a relationship continues to grow, all aspects of mutuality are being examined. Although much has been said regarding the analyst's emotional responses to the patient, enactment has been seen as a re-creation of some past event in the patient's life. Perhaps because of the threatening nature of the concept, analysts have not paid attention to the potential for recreating their pasts, sometimes in symmetry with the patient, at other times as an act of countertransference dominance that disrupts the treatment and may traumatize the patient. This article focuses on enactment as an inevitable mutual event beginning with mutual projective identification, followed by mutual, unplanned behavior, and culminating in a mutual sense of puzzlement and a certain sense of being emotionally out of control. The dangers of enactment are discussed, as well as its therapeutic uses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Heinz Kohut: The making of a psychoanalyst.

Reviews the book, Heinz Kohut: The making of a psychoanalyst by Charles B. Strozier (see record 2001-00786-000). Strozier engages in a roller-coaster approach to the telling of Kohut's life. Just when you are feeling sorry for him because of what he had to endure, you are yanked back into idealizing him again. This book is mostly quite readable but bogs down when Strozier attempts to educate the reader about Kohut's theories. As the only record we have of Kohut's life, Strozier's book is invaluable and will be of interest to anyone concerned with psychoanalysis. But I hope that somewhere down the line there will be another biography that is not so intent on de-idealizing him and will provide a more integrated and insightful tale of this very complicated and compelling man. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)