Showing papers in "International Forum of Psychoanalysis in 2001"
TL;DR: In this paper, the author offers a rebuttal of a number of Grunbaum's critical contentions about the legitimacy of psychoanalysis as a method, a theory of disorder, and a healing profession.
Abstract: Already in the first decade of the 19th century and of its existence psychoanalysis has been under attack. Freud the psychoanalyst, the moralist, and the healer, and his new message to mankind, were under fire both ad rem and ad hominem: people attacked both the message and the messenger. In the recent decades, one of the most powerful challengers of Freud's legacy is Pittsburgh philosophy professor Adolf Grunbaum. This paper is the author's answer to Grunbaum's challenges, as presented at the 1998 IFPS Congress in Madrid. The author offers a rebuttal of a number of Grunbaum's critical contentions about the legitimacy of psychoanalysis as a method, a theory of disorder, and a healing profession and analyzes the flaws in Grunbaum's arguments.
14 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that empirical support is gradual rather than categorical, and that the randomized clinical trial (RCT), which is commonly heralded as the appropriate method of support, confounds patient suitability factors with treatment.
Abstract: The article discusses the application of the ideas of evidence-based medicine or empirically supported treatment to the field of psychoanalysis. The author argues that empirical support is gradual rather than categorical, and that the randomized clinical trial (RCT), which is commonly heralded as the appropriate method of support, confounds patient suitability factors with treatment 'as such'. As a consequence of the exclusive reliance on the RCT, empirical validation of psychological treatments has generally favoured cognitive-behavioural treatments, although there is ample evidence - albeit non-RCT - for the beneficial effects of short-term and long-term psychoanalytic treatment. The author argues for a suitability matching approach to empirical validation, where each treatment is tested, as powerfully as feasible, on samples based on selfselection (patient's choice, clinical assignment, suitability judgments etc.). The paper concludes by referring to two recent studies, indicating that there is reason ...
13 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the nominations of Sigmund Freud and the evaluations of his work by what is perhaps the most science centered of medical institutions, the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, and placed these in the context of the reception of Freud's work by Swedish psychiatrists.
Abstract: In the 100-year-old history of the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology, there are several fields whose practitioners have not received the prize Among the unlucky candidates for the Nobel Prize, Sigmund Freud (18561939) is probably the most prominent and best known He is also the one proposed for the prize during the longest period of time, almost a quarter of a century, or more precisely, between 1915 and 1938 In this article I will examine the nominations of Freud and the evaluations of his work by what is perhaps the most science centered of medical institutions, the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine I will place these in the context of the reception of Freud's work by Swedish psychiatrists Here the influence of the most prominent psychiatrist at the time, Bror Gadelius, deserves special attention
10 citations
TL;DR: This paper analyzed the use of language in psychoanalytic writing from the point of view of truth and evidence, and found that while Joseph seems to aim at literal, representative descriptions, Eigen writes in a poetic, allegorical way.
Abstract: Questions regarding truth and evidence in psychoanalytic writing are discussed. Excerpts from recent texts by Betty Joseph and Michael Eigen are analyzed from the point of view of their use of language. While Joseph seems to aim at literal, representative descriptions, Eigen writes in a poetic, allegorical way. Some characteristics of allegorical writing are further outlined with reference to Schleiermacher's distinction between grammatical and musical aspects of language.
8 citations
TL;DR: A critical analysis of psychoanalytic theory and therapy can be found in this paper, where an account of the distinction between the dynamic and cognitive species of unconscious is followed by a critique of Freudian and post-Freudian psychoanalysis.
Abstract: At the end of the first century of psychoanalytic theory and therapy, this paper takes critical stock of its past performance as a theory of human nature, and as a therapy. An account of the distinction between the dynamic and cognitive species of unconscious is followed by a critique of Freudian and post-Freudian psychoanalysis, as well as by an unfavorable verdict on the reconstruction of psychoanalysis by the ?hermeneutic? philosophers. Concluding remarks assess the future prospects of psychoanalysis in the 21st century.
8 citations
TL;DR: The epistemic ambiguities that psychoanalysis has generated through both a sometimes unstructured information and a historically outmoded'scientist' model have erroneously been taken as valid and scientific.
Abstract: The first part of the article describes the epistemic ambiguities that psychoanalysis has generated through both a sometimes unstructured information. Accordingly, a historically out-moded 'scientist' model has erroneously been taken as valid and scientific. The second part illustrates the extent to which predominant psychoanalytical currents now share common ground with epistemology and the cognate sciences, breaking out of the epistemic solipsism which for too long led psycholanalysis to believe it could be self-referential. This critical examination of old and new ground is thus an analysis of the referents on which psychoanalysis has based its theoretical postulates. It is desirable that this analysis be extended to include the whole discipline of psychoanalytical research, thereby becoming a mental given for the psychoanalyst, not least on account of the enormous benefit of epistemic reflexion on the adoption of the instruments of knowledge. Over the last few years this development has allowed psycho...
7 citations
TL;DR: The papers in this volume represent a variety of approaches to the task of giving current psychoanalytic practice the institutional and intellectual framework necessary to place it within the ranks of a modern profession.
Abstract: The papers in this volume represent a variety of approaches to the task of giving current psychoanalytic practice the institutional and intellectual framework necessary to place it within the ranks of a modern profession. To re ect on these contributions I think it may rst be useful to see them in the wider context of the changing relation between professions and society, particularly the medical professions.
7 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a case in conference space, where they find themselves in the middle of two developmental trajectories: the historical development of psychoanalysis, and the personal development of the analyst.
Abstract: Presenting our case in conference space, we find ourselves in the middle of two developmental trajectories: the historical development of psychoanalysis, and the personal development of the analyst. While in clinical space psychoanalysis had some success in developing a working method, and the clinic became a 'psychoanalytic-space', in 'conference-space' there is a mixture of mainly medical-philosophical-religious practices; 'conference-space' is not a 'psychoanalytic-space'. In very general terms, the developmental trajectory of the analyst tells the story of dialogical difficulties within the external world, which are taken into the clinic for further development, and then a reconstituted dialogue is brought back to the external world, in hope of 'using' it in a kind of intermediate-transitional-psychoanalytic space. Many times, however, the analyst finds himself in a 'disaster area', the result of a collision between the two unsynchronized/untuned developmental trajectories: the developmental-historica...
7 citations
TL;DR: The psychoanalyst's ethics at issue is to affirm as a fundamental value the recognition of determinism of unconscious desire, which implies a renunciation to any exercise of power, even the power of influence that can guide and support.
Abstract: The psychoanalyst's ethics at issue - referred to a paradigm of complexity in the postmodern age - is to affirm as a fundamental value the recognition of determinism of unconscious desire, which implies a renunciation to any exercise of power, even the power of influence that can guide and support. Intending through interpretation of the partial truth of desire to be accomplished as a process that subverts the subject's relation with its own history, psychoanalysis, as it undoes the imaginary fixations of the subject, cannot predict the ?politics? of the unconscious desire. Nor can it confront the possibilities of decision and choice of a relative and finite freedom. Using the interpretative elaboration of an intersubjective field of values, the psychoanalytic practice reveals the limits of a knowledge restricted by the context where the interpretation takes place. It differentiates between deciphering and decoding by emphasizing the attribute of the uncognoscibility of the unconscious Thus it reveals the...
6 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a semi-structured interview-guide regarding crucial psycho-dynamic aspects relevant to these experiences was created and interviews were conducted with four former patients to assess coping style.
Abstract: To improve the initial decision about recommended treatment strategies for patients who have experienced political persecution and torture we needed an instrument that could help us observe patients? coping styles. In order to assess coping style the Integration/Sealing-over Global Scale was adapted for man-made traumatic experiences. A semi-structured interview-guide regarding crucial psycho-dynamic aspects relevant to these experiences was created. In order to try out the interview-guide, interviews were conducted with four former patients. Whether psychoanalytical psychotherapy can influence the patient?s coping style is also discussed.
4 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the correspondence of experiences between the adopted child and the infertile adoptive parents with the motivational system theory constructed by Joseph Lichtenberg, based on psychoanalytical knowledge as well as on infant research.
Abstract: The adopted child has experiences of loss, changes of goals for attachment, and of being biologically separate in the family, which are similar to the experiences of adoptive parents who are infertile. In this paper, the correspondence of experiences between the adopted child and the infertile adoptive parents will be examined with the motivational system theory constructed by Joseph Lichtenberg. This theory is based on psychoanalytical knowledge as well as on infant research. It comprises five motivational systems, all existing from the beginning of life, which promote the fulfilment and regulation of: 1. the need for psychic regulation of physiological requirements, 2. the need for attachment and later affiliation, 3. the need for exploration and assertion, 4. the need to react aversively through antagonism or withdrawal (or both) and 5. the need for sensual enjoyment and (later) sexual excitement. In regard to these basic needs, infertile parents have certain experiences that correspond to and correlat...
TL;DR: The clinical material of this article describes the psycho-social stages that patient and family go through during the process and also how understanding hope could be a universal clinical strategy that creates a therapeutic bond, offering the patient and the analyst the alternative of meaningful experiences.
Abstract: This article describes the experience of dying, shared in the therapeutic process by the psychoanalyst and patients suffering from incurable or terminal illness. Chronic illnesses and the possibility of death places the patient and the family in a disturbing and stressful situation, that requires not only continued medical care but also sensible listening to the patients? needs, to prevent harmful and unnecessary interventions. When disease is in an advanced stage, and death is inevitable, high technology medicine must be avoided and the intimacy of the person must be the highest and most important issue in the relation. The clinical material of this article describes the psycho-social stages that patient and family go through during the process and also how understanding hope could be a universal clinical strategy that creates a therapeutic bond, offering the patient and the analyst the alternative of meaningful experiences.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present DU as a rupture in the represented, as the unsymbolizable cause, called by Lacan "object (a)" and by Freud "das Unheimliche" in the model dream.
Abstract: “Mystics alone believe that ultimate reality is not inaccessible, and in the end Bion’s sympathies are with the mystics.” (1: 213). Bion saw himself as the prophet of psychoanalysis for the year 2000 (1). His alter-ego Roland encounters DU. Roland manages to identify him/ her/it only through negations: (s)he/it is not a devil, nor a nightmare, nor a ghost. In his science ction Bion exceeds the limits of scienti c writing and gives DU a voice. DU demands that (s)he/it be not expelled as (s)he/it has the right to exist without being forever dependent on a thinker. (S)he/it explains: “I am the future of the Past, the shape of things to come . . . I am only one of your thoughts”. The following paper aims to present DU as a rupture in the represented, as the unsymbolizable cause–object of desire called by Lacan “object (a)” and by Freud “das Unheimliche”. Freud differentiated “Verwerfung” from projection in the case of the wolf-man, stating that “what was abolished internally returns from without”. This something, which never got an access to the symbolic universe of the subject, Bejahung, because of primordial denial (foreclosure), was later called the Real by Lacan. The Real is the domain, which subsists outside symbolization. Despite that, the Real insists; it “always returns to the same place”. The Real demands symbolization. But the Real is unsymbolizable. It is a (topological non-Euclidean placeless) place, a pure active topos, for symbolization to take place in. So, the Real has to be faced rst. The Real is encountered in the form of object (a), (originally neurone a, the thing in Freud’s “project”; (2: 328), and later yet in the form of The Uncanny (das Unheimliche). With ‘the uncanny’ Freud refers to a certain kind of frightening feeling which is born when we meet something with which it is impossible to form any kind of (cognitive) relationship. Although Freud thought that this was due to (primary) repression and its return, this kind of frightening thing ultimately belongs to a universe outside our symbolizing capacities. In this kind of experience we are dimly aware of the existence of something that escapes Plato’s safe and clear-cut dichotomous polarities, such as ghosts or zombies (neither living nor dead). This something challenges Plato’s truth and ‘logic of presence’ and has a close af nity with Derrida’s unconceptualizable différance (4: 138–171). Such an “object” is unobjectivizable. It does not reciprocate nor can it be made into a mirror. So, in confrontation with it, the ego nds itself in a void and experiences falling forever or ‘terror without a name’. Freud had met this Thing before, the deep unconscious or the unconscious as such, as André Green calls it. In Studien über Hysterie Freud writes: “Or are we to suppose that we are really dealing with thoughts which never came about, which merely had a possibility of existing”, (4: 129). Unsubjectivized knowledge is radically unforgettable, because only a representation can be forgotten. Again and again Freud returned to the repressed unconscious and made interpretations of its contents. He was about to become the master of the unconscious until, in an innocent situation, he came across the stranger again. Freud states that it is possible that there is an unveiled dream in the model dream, “father, don’t you see I’m burning?” Freud’s statement contradicts his own view of dreams as over-determined, because over-determination means that there is too much sense in a dream to be directly represented. Freud nally arrives at “the navel of the dream”, the completely incomprehensible nucleus of the dream (4: 107– 1 In a three-volum e literary work that Bion published under the title A Memoir of the Future, he chose the German term DU, the secondperson-singular , to “represent” an unsymbolized trauma, he suffered in the World War One. An unbound stimulus stays in tempus praesens and outside diacronic time. It precedes the mind (pre-sens ) and is rather an imprint in the body. In this sense Bion considers himself psychicall y dead. “I died at the English Farm and since I have worked in purgatory. ” “I? Oh yes, I died – on August 8 1918” (1:33, 258). It seems that in Bion’s terminology “DU” is an original state of a sense impression, an undigested fact, a beta element or a thing-initself, which alpha function has not been able to transform into an alpha element. Alpha function protects the psyche from what is virtually a psychotic state, since alpha elements are ‘food for thought’ (1:152)
TL;DR: In psychotherapy, Freud developed this theory into the model of unconscious ideas and into the technique of "interpreting the contents" as discussed by the authors, which offered rational ground for psychotherapy: if a symptom was provoked by an idea, it was possible to undo it by finding and erasing this very idea.
Abstract: When Freud began his professional career, psychotherapy was already an established practice, standing upon the theory of ideogenesis, according to which certain motor symptoms were caused by ideas . This theory offered the rational ground for psychotherapy: if a symptom was provoked by an idea, it was possible to undo it by finding and erasing this very idea. Freud developed this theory into the model of unconscious ideas and into the technique of "interpreting the contents". Whereas the later discoveries of resistance, transference, and character structure, should have promoted a break with the ideogenetic model, Freud never gave up the erroneous assumption that behind an action there was an idea, which had to be captured if one wanted to stop the action. This assumption was questioned again and again during the interminable controversy over the relative importance of remembering and experiencing: by Ferenczi and Rank in the Twenties, Alexander in the Fifties, and Gill in the Eighties, when they tried to...
TL;DR: In the 1990 monograph Sandor Ferenczi: Reconsidering Active Intervention as discussed by the authors, one of six exegetical chapters was titled "Teratoma", using Fereczi's own word for malformations of (psychic) development.
Abstract: In Martin Stanton's 1990 monograph Sandor Ferenczi: Reconsidering Active Intervention , one of six exegetical chapters was titled "Teratoma", using Ferenczi's own word for malformations of (psychic) development. Since then, there has been a tendency in the larger Ferenczi literature to use "teratoma" as a metaphor, leading to the creation of many odd readings and contexts for this very specific, medical, anatomic term. When Stanton becomes expansive in viewing the teratoma as a "transitional object" which "negotiates a relationship between the growth of ideal-ego ideas in oneself and the outside 'influence' of inner systems of thought" (p. 176), he is entering the play-space that opened between Ferenczi and Groddeck during the 20s as Ferenczi's relationship with Freud became increasingly constricted. What this misses is that Ferenczi was a physician, as was Groddeck. For all their fanciful explorations of mind and body relatedness, for both Ferenczi and Groddeck there would be a shared background of certa...
TL;DR: In this article, a model for peer review among psychoanalytical colleagues as a qualitative study and a base for both quality assurance and a learning process has been presented, which has its place in any formulation of 'evidence' for psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
Abstract: During these times, when society wants "evidence" that treatments are effective, ethical and cost effective, quality assurance and evidence-based medicine have become catchwords. The powers that be place their hopes on them when they find that they have to prioritize forms of treatment. There are different attempts to define these concepts and there are different approaches, most of them based on quantitative studies. This article describes a different approach. It also discusses how you can use the model for peer review among psychoanalytical colleagues as a qualitative study and a base for both quality assurance and a learning process. It also has its place in any formulation of 'evidence' for psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
TL;DR: In this paper, the author examined the hypothesis that there is a direct synergetic relation of unconscious processes between mother and her grown-up son, which has been maintained for a long time although the son is already grown up.
Abstract: This paper deals with the unconscious symbiosis between a woman and her grown up son, which has been maintained for a long time although the son is already grown up. The son had been diagnosed as schizophrenic for quite some time. The mother attends group psychotherapy together with patients with different diagnoses. The son underwent intense inpatient psychotherapy but subsequently refused treatment in an ambulant therapy. Nevertheless he improved and took responsibility for his own life (profession, partnership) in the same measure as his mother used the group psychotherapy for herself, learned to experience her own suffering and initiated her own separation process. The author presents material from the mother?s group psychotherapeutic process as well as the development of her dreams with additional dream reports and statements from her son with regard to specific interview questions. The author examines the hypothesis that there is a direct synergetic relation of unconscious processes between mother a...
TL;DR: The financing, organization and practice of medicine will be changed considerably over the next 5-10 years, and the concept "evidence" must be seen in a broad perspective that encompasses, among other things, the increasing multidisciplinary nature of modern medicine.
Abstract: The health service systems of the Western world are transforming rapidly. These systems are under pressure from an increase of new biomedical possibilities for intervention in the processes of the human body, from the rising expectations of the public, and from demographic developments that are leading to an increase in the number of elderly people in the Western world. Parallel to these changes on the macro level there are major changes on the micro level, that is, there is a search for methods to manage the basic way that the health system functions. In short, the financing, organization and practice of medicine will be changed considerably over the next 5-10 years. In the search for a harmonious development in this field the concept "evidence" must be seen in a broad perspective that encompasses, among other things, the increasing multidisciplinary nature of modern medicine.
TL;DR: Metapsychology is an organized and consistent set of concepts, capable of explaining and coordinating the analytical experience as discussed by the authors, which is the basis of modern epistemology and psychoanalysis.
Abstract: The paradigmatic theory of modern epistemology holds psychoanalysis in its scientific statute. Even if there is no explicit epistemology in the Freudian writings, it is undeniable that the genesis of psychoanalysis has a rigorous dialetic between theorization and clinical observation. Metapsychology is an organized and consistent set of concepts, capable of explaining and coordinating the analytical experience. It is through metapsychology that clinical work encounters the possibility of universalization, while metapsychology finds the possibility of fulfillment in clinical work. Clinical experience also confirms the interrelation between psychopathology and culture. Modern times have brought about new versions for psychopathological symptoms, which, in turn, have special effects on the narcisistic personalities and the manifestations of anxiety, giving place to different neurotic configurations.
TL;DR: In psychoanalytical institutions, Freud and Melanie Klein's controversies had a reality of their own as mentioned in this paper, which was quickly forgotten and trapped in various conflicts, as those existing between Jones and...
Abstract: As we work through our theories, we rejoice in discovering the logic of concepts and their articulation in clinical experience. Such joy hides other movements, in which the only stakes are demands for love, sexual curiosity and the satisfaction of hate, transferred from infancy to others worlds, idealised or despised. When we participate in our psychoanalytical institutions, we feel pride or even vanity to be participating in the great historical movement of psychoanalysis. This conceals the working of transference in our institutional life; transference which is crudely sexual at its origins, and implies maternal, paternal or fraternal objects. This is its constraining power. We should be fully aware of this, as Strachey or Balint have already shown, in order to attenuate the violence of transference and stimulate our creativity. Anna Freud and Melanie Klein's controversies had a reality of their own. This reality was quickly forgotten and trapped in various conflicts, as those existing between Jones and...
TL;DR: For instance, the authors attempt to rehabilitate Edward Glover's historical reputation, based on unpublished interviews as well as recently found documentary material, by making one of the defining moments in the history of British psychoanalysis more plausible.
Abstract: I attempt to rehabilitate Edward Glover's historical reputation, based on unpublished interviews as well as recently found documentary material. This should make one of the defining moments in the history of British psychoanalysis more plausible. Glover was an eloquent heresy-hunter - against Jung, Rank, Klein, Alexander, and others - yet the polemical side of him represents only one aspect of his career. During the Controversial Discussions Glover was taking some of the burden for the way his leader Jones had run the British Society. In moving against Klein, Glover felt he was fulfilling Freud's own wishes, and that he was allied with the recently arrived Viennese contingent. After Glover's resignation in 1944, Jones split the opposition by appointing Anna Freud as Glover's successor as IPA Secretary. Subsequently Adrian Stephen and Donald Winnicott opposed Glover's even being allowed to speak at a psychoanalytic conference in Amsterdam; Anna Freud defended Glover's presence then. Glover's long struggle ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a clinical case to illustrate the consequences of a history of loss, beginning with the early death of the mother and the creation of a complex defensive system based on internal division and manifested through the existence of an alternate world.
Abstract: The author presents a clinical case to illustrate the consequences of a history of loss, beginning with the early death of the mother. The creation of a complex defensive system based on internal division and manifested through the existence of an alternate world is analyzed. The author stresses the importance for the patient of re-experiencing the sense of emptiness within an analytical setting and learning to tolerate it thanks to dependence on the auxiliary self of the analyst. D. W. Winnicott?s suggestion of a relationship between the experience of emptiness and the fear of breakdown are also discussed.
TL;DR: For mothers, the act of giving birth also brings them close to death as well as other human experiences as mentioned in this paper, and it was this unconscious convergence that stirred the interest in reconsidering the subject of the loss of children and its effect on individual development.
Abstract: For mothers, the act of giving birth also brings them close to death as well as other human experiences. The mother represents the dual structure of life and death in the mind. It was this unconscious convergence that stirred the interest in reconsidering the subject of the loss of children and its effect on individual development. This article demonstrates what happens when death triumphs over life chronologically close to birth. The author presents a clinical report on a six-year-old girl, Dinah, who suffered the effects of the mother's mourning. She illustrates the therapeutic approach to mourning over time, at moments in which the shadow of pain is more clearly present. These are moments when the loss must be brought to consciousness, because of the unconscious effects it has on the survivors. Dinah's problems were not caused by the loss itself, but rather the fact that the loss occurred in a phase of her emotional development when she was only a baby an unable to react in a mature manner.
TL;DR: The authors examine a limited number of critical assessments regarding the scientific status of psychoanalysis with reference to intents and purposes, claims and disclaimers, contrasting views of what constitutes a science and the nature of scientific thinking and how these might apply to psychoanalysis epistemologically.
Abstract: This essay proposes to examine a limited number of critical assessments regarding the scientific status of psychoanalysis with reference to intents and purposes, claims and disclaimers, contrasting views of what constitutes a science and the nature of scientific thinking and how these might apply to psychoanalysis epistemologically It assumes a certain degree of familiarity with criticisms that have been leveled against psychoanalysis from those who insist on absolutist testing for what some call true science, particularly on the part of those who are not practitioners of the art It wonders about the concern with scientizing by those who actually practice it, or value it in some way or another It suggests an open minded approach without premature or even warranted closure on the subject of human beings and of ways of getting to know them, let alone understanding them and perhaps being of help to them
TL;DR: In this paper, the influence of those parental mental representations on a child, even after the mother?s death, specifically focusing on the consequences of the child?s unresolved bereavement.
Abstract: The way in which the parent?s conscious and unconscious fantasies are transmitted to the infant has been an intense object of study. The author discuses the influence of those parental mental representations on a child, even after the mother?s death, specifically focusing on the consequences of the child?s unresolved bereavement.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss several surveys that cover the practices of psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in the Stockholm region and compare these practices with other psychiatrists in both the private and the public sector.
Abstract: The authors discuss several surveys that cover the practices of psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in the Stockholm region. They compare these practices with other psychiatrists in both the private and the public sector. In addition, they discuss the results from an attempt towards continuous evaluation of psychoanalytical practices and their treatment standards including an evaluation of the development of individual psychoanalytical processes.
TL;DR: The 1996 San Francisco production of Nicholas Wright's play, "Mrs. Klein" as mentioned in this paper, starred Uta Hagen as Klein, Laila Robins as her daughter Melitta, and Amy Wright as Paula Heimann.
Abstract: The 1996 San Francisco production of Nicholas Wright’s play, “Mrs. Klein”, starred Uta Hagen as Klein, Laila Robins as her daughter Melitta, and Amy Wright as Paula Heimann. Psychoanalytically informed comments are offered. The play was best understood and enjoyed when viewed as a patient, who uses various defensive maneuvers to ward off deeper paranoid and depressive anxieties. In the beginning of the play, the audience is shown Klein’s humorously aggressive manner of assigning Paula the task of revising her book. In the paper by Pearl King entitled “Paula Heimann’s quest for her own identity as a psychoanalyst: an introductory memoir” (1989), we learn that in fact, “When Melanie Klein decided one morning to make use of some of her experiences of dealing with her mourning for her son’s death, and to write a paper, Paula offered to act as her secretary”. (1:3) At the very end of the play, Klein stif y and somewhat callously tells Paula of her fees and gives her a set of appointment times for an analysis. Expressing quite a different tone, King states that: “One day Melanie Klein interpreted to Paula that she thought she wished to have analysis with her, but Paula said she can’t pay for it. Melanie replied that she would reduce her fees” (1:3–4). In the play the analysis started immediately, at the insistence of Paula. However, King continues, “She (Klein) went on to say that she would not have a vacancy – for another year. They (Paula and Klein) continued their social relations together, going out to picnics with the Schmidebergs. (1:4). I believe these differences between the play and what actually took place are important markers to begin my comments, because they point to the confusion regarding ownership of desire, aggression, and loss. At rst I felt the play to be a super cial stacking of psychoanalytic stereotypes and caricatured terminology that left me with the sense of “there must be more to this”. With re ection, I began to see the play more as a display of defensive maneuvers on the part of each player and as a uni ed group. Theory was bantered about as a way for each party to avoid deeper and more painful affects. A pseudo-emphasis on the transference, where each party kept making random interpretations about each other’s intent, seemed to operate as a defense against the actual transference states that were occurring. In this manner, the entire psychoanalytic enterprise was used as a convenient decoy against more dif cult internal experiences of predatory and persecutory phantasies as well as libidinal urges. In other words, this play seemed rather boring, stilted, or super cial until examined from the analytic perspective. In fact, the essence of the play is an ongoing, highly defended, con ict between competitive companions. It is interesting that the play is presented in this manner, which makes it available from multiple perspectives and also urges the viewer to “dig deeper”. In the play, the splitting of affect from intellect, the defense of isolation, seemed to be another primary method of communicating. Melitta felt that Klein’s interpretations were always “in the slot”. Sexual implications aside, this accurate but emotionally barren method of communication left the characters and the audience hungry to nd out where the real emotional conviction had been hidden. In the play, Klein used aggression and paranoia as a defense against her own schizoid fears and depressive guilt regarding her son and daughter (2). It was far easier for her to rage against their lifestyles and their autonomous choices than to explore her feelings of having hurt and damaged them. She found it far more tolerable to project her own problems into her daughter’s analyst, Glover, than to see herself as envious and greedy. Klein’s chronic attacks on her son’s attempts to love others amounted to a tearing apart of his manhood. This was expressed by her righteous judgment of each