Showing papers in "International Forum of Psychoanalysis in 1998"
TL;DR: The Hungarian psychoanalytic movement was strong and deeply integrated into the cultural life of Budapest by the end of World War I as discussed by the authors, but it lost its growing eminence as a center of European psychoanalysis because of political-social changes in Hungary in the year 1918?1920.
Abstract: By the end of World War I the Hungarian Psychoanalytic movement was strong and deeply integrated into the cultural life of Budapest. The paper discusses how Budapest lost its growing eminence as a center of European psychoanalysis because of the political-social changes in Hungary in the year 1918?1920. The author examines the two waves of Hungarian emigration between the world wars, the first in the early twenties to the Weimar Republic, and then in the thirties, to the United States and Australia. These moves of important Hungarian psychoanalysts, account both for the destruction of the Budapest School and at the same time for its influence in other countries. The author highlights the outstanding role of the American Psychoanalytic Association in setting up the ?Emergency Committee on Relief and Immigration? and thereby saving the lifes of many European colleagues. America was open to European psychoanalysis and in return immigrants facilitated the development of modern psychotherapy and psychoanalysis...
24 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a contemporary extension of this idea is offered in the clinical and theoretical distinction between judicious vs. conspicuous self-disclosure, based on the confusion of Tongues model.
Abstract: One of Sandor Ferenczi's greatest contributions to clinical theory and method is his pioneering concept of analyst self-disclosure. First introduced in his famous paper ?The elasticity of psycho-analytic technique? (1928), analyst self-disclosure changed the nature of clinical interaction between analyst and analysand, from the Freudian model of a surgeon to the responsiveness of an empathic mother. Ferenczi's clinical work with the so-called ?difficult cases? (narcissistic, borderline and psychotic disorders) moved him to discover the ethos of activity within an empathic method. Analyst self-disclosure is one of those responsive measures he developed to address the deficits in communication and interpersonal functioning in trauma survivors. An outline is presented of the ?Confusion of Tongues? which is the model from which self-disclosure is derived. A contemporary extension of this idea is offered in the clinical and theoretical distinction between judicious vs. conspicuous self-disclosure.
22 citations
TL;DR: The idea of pathogenic fantasy was introduced by Ferenczi as discussed by the authors, who came to the conclusion that pathogenic fantasies were more frequent than real traumas and that most of the neuroses have a real trauma at their root.
Abstract: Freud abandoned his belief that all the traumas reported by his hysterical patients were true. He came to the conclusion that pathogenic fantasy was more frequent that real trauma. Ferenczi was the first one to return to the idea that most of the neuroses have a real trauma at their root. His pupil and follower, Michael Balint developed this idea and proposed new ways of describing the mechanism of trauma and and some of the therapeutic consequences. Since then much further research has been done about the problems of pathogenic trauma. The ideas of Maria Torok & Nicolas Abraham as well as some of Leonard Shengold's theories are described in this paper.
22 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on three out-of-print books written by Severn, which until now have been overlooked in discussions of the patient Ferenczi called RN? in the Clinical Diary.
Abstract: This paper attempts to reassess Elizabeth Severn's place in the history of psychoanalysis. It does so by focusing on her three out of print books, which until now have been overlooked in discussions of the patient Ferenczi called ?RN? in the Clinical Diary. Her first two books, written in 1913 and 1917, provide the reader with valuable glimpses into what was the pre-analytic mind and person of Elizabeth Severn before she began what would be a ground breaking eight year analysis with Ferenczi. A key to understanding Elizabeth Severn, her writings, as well as many of our traumatized patients lies in a what Ferenczi and Severn called ?Orpha?. The paper suggests that an appreciation of this obscure phenomenon is critical in the treatment of trauma. After investigating her first two books in light of Orpha, the paper will compare and contrast them with her last book, The Discovery of Self, written toward the end of her analysis, and published shortly after Ferenczi's death in 1933. The tone, texture and conten...
19 citations
TL;DR: The most important theoretical shifts present in each of Ferenczi's contributions, from Freud's initial formulation in 1910 to the?Clinical Diary? are discussed in this paper.
Abstract: On the basis of a historical survey of Ferenczi's contributions to the concept of countertransference, the author highlights the most important theoretical shifts present in each of his contributions, from Freud's initial formulation in 1910 to the ?Clinical Diary?. Besides pointing to some key concepts and characteristics in Ferenczi's thinking, such as ?the control of the countertransference?, ?The transference-countertransference interaction?, ?the analyst's narcissism?, and in particular the view of countertransference as a useful therapeutic tool in itself rather than as an obstacle for the cure. The author discusses Ferenczi's significant influence on some later analysts, especially on Heimann, Winnicott, Racker and Searles who stood out precisely for, among other reasons, their contributions to the question of countertransference.
14 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the question of Ferenczi's insanity in the context of the third wave of dissension in the psychoanalytic movement and found that Jones's claim was not a one-man fabrication, but r...
Abstract: In The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, Volume III, Ernest Jones explained the third wave of dissension as an effect of the progressive mental deterioration of two members of the Committee, who had governed the psychoanalytic movement: Rank and Ferenczi. While in relation to Rank, Jones made a partial recant, in relation to Ferenczi, he did not modify his assertions. Erich Fromm collected various testimonies by witnesses of Ferenczi's last years, all contrasting Jones's assertions, and challenged Jones's manner of writing history. However, since Fromm was himself a dissident, and his witnesses were pupils, relatives or friends of Ferenczi's, they were discarded as ?partisans.? The present study aims at reconsidering the question on the basis of many documents, among which the 1958 report of Lajos Levy (Ferenczi's physician) to Anna Freud. The consulted documents do not support Jones's allegation of Ferenczi's insanity. At the same time, they show that Jones's allegation was not a one-man fabrication, but r...
12 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the 1923-24 conflict that resulted in the separation of Rank from the movement and showed the first signs of uneasiness against the mainstream of psychoanalysis in Ferenczi's approach.
Abstract: The history of psychoanalysis can be characterized by conflicts that besides their personal content meant a closure and an opening in the development of the theorecial and practical (self )understanding of the discipline. The 1923-24 conflict that resulted in the separation of Rank from the movement and showed the first signs of uneasiness against the mainstream of psychoanalysis in Ferenczi's approach is relatively less known. However, its theoretical, or more general: discoursive impact on psychoanalysis was enormous.The debate took place among the top leaders of the movement, Rank and Ferenczi on one side, Jones, Abraham, Sachs on the other. In the center of the discussion there were two books, The Trauma of Birth by Rank and the The Development of Psychoanalysis by Ferenczi and Rank. With the help of documents I try to show that Freud first supported his Vienna-Budapest friends, later changed over to the other camp. As a general effect, I suggest that this debate resulted in the withdrawal from the ea...
9 citations
TL;DR: The author clarifies the difference between projective identification and partial identification with the suffering of the patient, the latter demonstrating the strong side of the therapist, who exerts a positive influence, converting schizophrenic symbiosis into therapeutic symbiosis.
Abstract: Therapeutic transformation of the otherwise splitting symbiosis, transformation of the self-object into the transitional subject and progressive psychopathology as a preliminary stage to dualisation, communication and rehabilitation are described against the background of the author's 50 years of experience of working with schizophrenic patients. In addition to good social and existential healing, the author stresses the value of the individual sessions for both therapist and patient. The author clarifies the difference between projective identification and partial identification with the suffering of the patient, the latter demonstrating the strong side of the therapist, who exerts a positive influence, converting schizophrenic symbiosis into therapeutic symbiosis.
8 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, Erich Fromm's theories on the pre-oedipal attachment to the mother, maternal love and biophilia/necrophilia are presented, and applied to two detailed clinical cases.
Abstract: Fixation to the mother is frequently found in clinical practice. In order to better understand this phenomenon, Erich Fromm's theories on the pre-oedipal attachment to the mother, maternal love and biophilia/necrophilia are presented. The myth of Demeter is introduced as seen by both Bachofen, with his theory of matriarchy, and Kerenyi. These tools are then applied to two detailed clinical cases. Even if general theories are used, each case clearly remains unique in terms of understanding and psychoanalytic treatment. If one of the limits of matriarchy is that of not encouraging the process of individuation in children, the resulting fixation to the mother is not, however, malignant. Malignant forms tend to develop when the mother is hostile and cold towards her children, who are almost magnetically attracted to her in a necrophilic way. The myth and the two clinical cases also have in common a male figure who is immature or inadequate.
7 citations
TL;DR: In this article, countertransference dreams may serve as indicators and help deal with difficult crisis in the psychoanalytic process, where the transferential field defines the difficulties which the analyst has to deal with.
Abstract: This paper proposes that countertransference dreams may serve as indicators and help deal with difficult crisis in the psychoanalytic process. The transferential field defines the difficulties which the analyst has to deal with. The analyst is always involved in this field. A fragment of a clinical case of the author, in which a countertransference dream had an important role, is used as an example.
6 citations
TL;DR: In Freud's perspective, severe clinical phenomena related to repetition-compulsion depend on death instinct, while according to Ferenczi they depend on severe early traumas provoked by human actions as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In Freud's perspective the severe clinical phenomena related to repetition-compulsion depend on death instinct, while according to Ferenczi they depend on severe early traumas provoked by human actions. Concepts and ideas stemming from Ferenczi's posthumous notes seem to be especially relevant for understanding how trauma may result in devastating effects. If a traumatic assault occurs at an early developmental period, which might be described as a ?mimetic period?, causing a displeasure that exceeds the capacity of tolerance of the ego, the ego tries to manage it by a mimetic reproduction of the aggressor's desires. This mimetic reaction leaves an imprint in the subject, which Ferenczi calls ?alien transplant?. In line with the idea of an intrusive potential of the environment, Ferenczi also suggests, following Descartes, that the ?passions? of the soul are created as a reaction to the suffering inflicted from outside. If we compare Freud's ideas with those of Ferenczi, we find that Ferenczi's concept of...
TL;DR: Frieda Fromm-Reichmann became famous with her intensive psychotherapy of psychotic patients which she developed in Chestnut Lodge where she worked, after having left Nazi Germany, from 1935 until her death in 1957.
Abstract: Frieda Fromm-Reichmann became famous with her intensive psychotherapy of psychotic patients which she developed in Chestnut Lodge where she worked, after having left Nazi Germany, from 1935 until her death in 1957. The paper outlines her life and work in Germany. Studying medicine in Konigsberg (East Prussia), she wrote her dissertation about pupillary changes in schizophrenia and worked during World War 1 under the famous neurologist Kurt Goldstein with brain injured soldiers. They both differentiated between somatic and psychic factors in neurologic patients and published articles about neurotraumatology including aphasia. Between 1920 and 1923, she worked in the psychotherapeutic sanatorium Weisser Hirsch in Dresden under J.H. Schultz where she treated neurotic and psychotic patients. In these years, she started her training analysis and her psychoanalytic teaching and publishing. From 1924 to 1933 she led a kosher psychoanalytic sanatorium in Heidelberg, co-founded the Frankfurt Psychoanalytic Society...
TL;DR: In this article, a model for interpreting inspired by the existential hermeneutics of Martin Heidegger is presented, which is then applied to the clinical reality of the psychoanalytical situation.
Abstract: Addressing the issues of intersubjectivity and hermenutics and their relevance for psychoanalysis, the author presents a model for interpreting inspired by the existential hermeneutics of Martin Heidegger. This analysis is then applied to the clinical reality of the psychoanalytical situation. The author discusses the matrix of transference, the analytical dialogue as a form of reflection, the functions of hope and faith, and lastly, truth as faithfulness in the hermeneutic context.
TL;DR: Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist (1907-1954) who painted almost 200 pictures, among them 55 self-portraits as discussed by the authors, which were inspired by her life as a woman.
Abstract: Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist (1907-1954). Altogether she painted almost 200 pictures, among them 55 self-portraits. Frida contracted polio at the age of six and her right leg was shrivelled. She began to paint at the age of 18 while recovering from a serious traffic accident, as a result of which she could never give birth to a living child. This was a painful and wounding experience for her. But Frida psychologically created an inner space, enlivening her womanhood, and remained artistically creative. She underwent over 30 operations and was bed-ridden for long periods of her life. Frida's pictures derive from her life as a woman. She created something new out of her archaic Mexican heritage. Space, time, the body, are entwined in many ways in Frida's life and art. It is in space and time that her life of the body expands its significance. The body imprisoned Frida in the imaginary, where there are no bonds and limits. The object of Frida's intense study was her own self. She painted self-portraits t...
TL;DR: Ferenczi's work, nourished by his own experience of shame and injury in relation to his analyst Freud, can be seen to link notions of trauma, regression and shame as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Sandor Ferenczi's work, nourished by his own experience of shame and injury in relation to his analyst Freud, can be seen to link notions of trauma, regression and shame. This paper may be divided into three loosely connected sections. The first concerns the concept of regression. The second, the debate over the place of gratification and abstinence in controlling the depth of regression and in working through the shame which regression necessarily generates, and the third, the relation between trauma, regression and shame in the work of Ferenczi, together with the shame/narcissistic injury over his rift with Freud and the subsequent allegation by Jones and others of paranoid delusions and psychotic disturbance.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reconstruct the evolution of Freud's self-analysis and show how it actually evolved out of a whole series of experiences and relationships, and how it became a professional enterprise once his patients forced Freud, with the help of Wilhelm Fliess, to systematically look into himself.
Abstract: On the basis of the assumption that the understanding of Freud's work can gain much from illuminating his own psychological development, the author tries to reconstruct the evolution of his self-analysis. Against the common view of placing it in the context of his relationship with Fliess, the author shows how it actually evolved out of a whole series of experiences and relationships. Freud's self-analysis was initially nourished by his study of the Greek and Latin classics; it acquired the necessary interpersonal dimension through his relationship with Emil Fluss and Eduard Silberstein; it gained a cathartic and thus therapeutic quality through his relationship with Martha; and it eventually became a professional enterprise once his patients forced Freud, with the help of Wilhelm Fliess, to systematically look into himself.
TL;DR: The Oedipus myth and the Odyssey portray divergent father-son relationships and their effects on the following generation as mentioned in this paper, where the conflict between the generations is to be solved by murder.
Abstract: Classical psychoanalysis (Freud) and self-psychology (Kohut) proceed on the assumption that there are different relationship patterns and solutions to conflicts between the generations. The Oedipus myth and the Odyssey portray divergent father-son relationships and their effects on the following generation. In the story of Oedipus, where Freud sees represented the central human conflict, Laius is prepared to kill his son Oedipus for the sake of his own survival. Here the conflict between the generations is to be solved by murder. In the Odyssey, Kohut finds a father-son relationship that shows the alternative model of understanding which is used by self-psychology. Odysseus protects his son Telemachus while putting his own life at stake. There is no wish to murder. On the contrary, the good father-son relationship fosters intrafamilial affiliation and sustains intergenerational continuity. The effects of these different conflict solution patterns either weaken (Laius-Oedipus) or strengthen (Odysseus-Telem...
TL;DR: In this article, the psychoanalytic treatment of a patient who suffered from traumatic memories was described, where the therapist's interventions seem to have no impact at these moments, because there is a self other than the patient's that is present at a scene which belongs to a past that never ceases to recur.
Abstract: Patients traumatized by events beyond the limits of human experiential endurability often reveal a shattered self with no continuous personal core. These events seem to have occurred without a witness, possibly because their inhumanity caused the subject to disappear while the events were taking place. Such patients suffer from their sudden emergence of dissociated sets of memories which seem to have registered the entire circumstances of the trauma in a frozen state. The therapist's interventions seem to have no impact at these moments. This may be so because there is a self other than the patient's that is present at a scene which belongs to a past that never ceases to recur. These reenactments of past traumatic events reveal a self condemned to disbelief whenever testifying to an inhuman situation devoid of any subjectivity. Vignettes from the psychoanalytic treatment of a patient who suffered from traumatic ?memories? will illustrate the points above. The testimonies of homeless children and of Holoca...
TL;DR: A psychoanalytically oriented treatment of a middle-aged male schizophrenic patient is described, which lasted for ten years, with a follow-up period of four years, where a positive transference with idealization developed.
Abstract: A psychoanalytically oriented treatment of a middle-aged male schizophrenic patient is described. The therapy lasted for ten years, with a follow-up period of four years. The frequency of sessions was once a week throughout. The patient had been chronically psychotic for five years hearing voices accusing him of masturbation. From the beginning a positive transference with idealization developed. Mutual trust and a sense of communion was an important feature of the therapeutic relationship. Humour played an important part even during the most difficult periods of the patient's psychosis. He came regularly to sessions and was able to finish his studies soon after starting in therapy. The psychosis continued for many years. The pivotal point occurred after six year's of therapy when the patient dared to travel abroad alone and realised that the voices, speaking to him in Finnish, must be hallucinations, as he was surrounded by foreigners who did not know his native language. The economic recession forced th...
TL;DR: The need for safety in countertransference is often ignored in analysis as mentioned in this paper, and yet it helps analysts understand themselves, their patients, and the interactive process that trigg them.
Abstract: Fear in the countertransference, and its consequent need for safety, is often ignored in analysis. Yet it helps analysts understand themselves, their patients and the interactive process that trigg...
TL;DR: Fromm (1900-1980), a man of the twentieth century, lived professionally as a psychologist-psycho-analyst-social activist from the World War I and Weimar Republic years in Frankfurt, Heidelberg and Berlin, Germany; through the early cold war-Communist witch-hunt years in New York City, through the sixties in Mexico City as Director of the Department of Psychoanalysis at the University of Mexico School of Medicine; and the last decade of his life in Switzerland where he taught visiting psychoanalysts and thoughtfully spoke to the freedom of the then
Abstract: Erich Fromm (1900-1980), a man of the twentieth century, lived professionally as a psychologist-psychoanalyst-social activist from the World War I and Weimar Republic years in Frankfurt, Heidelberg and Berlin, Germany; through the World War II and early cold war-Communist witch-hunt years in New York City; through the sixties in Mexico City as Director of the Department of Psychoanalysis at the University of Mexico School of Medicine; and the last decade of his life in Switzerland where he taught visiting psychoanalysts and thoughtfully spoke to the freedom of the then West German peoples. He practiced, taught and wrote about psychoanalysis most of these years, developing several social character types interfacing with the culture of the country and the times, all the while trying to differentiate health from pathology in the individual patient and in the society in which he lived. His second major area of thought lay in the conceptual arenas of psychoanalysis-psychology-sociology-political and economic t...
TL;DR: In this paper, the author discusses Ferenczi's theory of femininity in terms both of its orientation to Freud's constructivist view on the same subject and its intimate connections with his own phylogenetic speculations.
Abstract: The author discusses Ferenczi's theory of femininity in terms both of its orientation to Freud's constructivist view on the same subject and its intimate connections with his own phylogenetic speculations. She underlines the significance of Ferenczi's assumptions about the universality of the ?trend of maternal regression? and its determining role in genital sexual union. Due to the absence of a ?real? penis in women, Ferenczi postulates that female development is marked by a whole series of regressive moves and renunciations, from urethrality to anality (i.e. from activity to passivity), the ?abandonment? of the clitoris in favour of the vagina, and a regressive secondary-narcisstic cathexis of the entire body. The author criticizes Ferenczi's reduction of woman to the ?mother? function and relates this view to recent femininity theories emanating from the French school of psychoanalysis, which follow him in this respect. There is a brief discussion of the author's own approach to establishing a theory o...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the important contribution of the Hungarian psychoanalyst concerning the contemporary matter of the complex relations between biology and psychoanalysis: Ferenczi considered in fact that the unconscious was an occult phenomenon allowing an intersubjective thought-transference and was desperately searching for the material evidence of traumatic scenes and life events, reducing the psychical reality to body-writing.
Abstract: Attentively reading Ferenczi's works and his scientific and ?auto-analytic? correspondence with Sigmund Freud, the author insists on the important contribution of the Hungarian psychoanalyst concerning the contemporary matter of the complex relations between biology and psychoanalysis: Ferenczi considered in fact that the unconscious was an occult phenomenon allowing an intersubjective thought-transference and was desperately searching for the material evidence of traumatic scenes and life events, reducing the psychical reality to body-writing. Freud was contrarily and prudently convinced that the unconscious processes were dependent on the materiality of the registration of the signifier, constituted by corporeal traces, but which had to be understood more in relation to language and speech phenomena than the reality of fallacious sensations.