Showing papers in "International Forum of Psychoanalysis in 2002"

Toward a Science of Social Character

Abstract: To fully develop a science of social character, three aspects of Fromm's social character theory need to be clarified. The first has to do with the difference between individual and social character. Fromm expanded on Freud's description of normal types: erotic (receptive), obsessive (hoarding) and narcissistic (exploitative). Besides the concept of social character, Fromm made three major contributions to the psychoanalytic theory of character: the concept of productiveness, sociopolitical modes of relationship, and the marketing character. Social character is an interaction between internalized culture (values) and individual character. This interaction results in variations in social character and helps explain the second issue, how social character changes. The concept of social selection explains how narcissistic entrepreneurs restructure social institutions to shape a new social character. The third issue concerns how social character develops throughout the life cycle. Fromm never offered a develop...

Narrative Derivatives of Alpha Elements: Clinical Implications

Abstract: The author considers both the psychoanalytic field and the ways in which the characters of a psychoanalytic session can be understood. He then develops one of Bion's ideas, the dream in the waking state, by isolating the derivatives of such dreams or rather the alpha elements they consist of. The author implies a theory of technique which takes account of all the signals "the bi-personal field" gives the analyst about the functioning of the analytic couple by means of "narrative derivatives". This enables continual changes to be made in interpretation

An Explanatory Theory for Psychoanalysis: The Unconscious as Symbolopoiesis

Abstract: The author points out that it is desirable for psychoanalysis to possess not only descriptive theories, which are useful for clinical purposes, but also a general, unitary theory to explain the functioning of the mind. An explanatory theory must be consistent with the findings of the other sciences of the mind. Freud pursued his explanatory aim by formulating his energy-and-drive theory in line with the sciences of his day. This underlay the recognition achieved by psychoanalysis at the time. We currently lack an explanatory theory consistent with the present-day neurosciences, while on the other hand the energy-and-drive theory can no longer be deemed to possess explanatory value. However, a new explanatory theory can be constructed on the basis of today's cognitive sciences. Summarizing the ideas presented in his writings over the last twenty years, the author here puts forward his own theory, which he considers will be useful, first, in a clinical context, second, with a view to standardizing the langu...

Postmodernism: Its Origins and its Threat to Psychoanalysis

Abstract: Postmodernism originated in an overreaction to "modernist" sociocultural trends of the past few centuries. Flaws of postmodern writers include: ignorance and distortion of the history of science and philosophy; the erroneous assumption that such faults of some natural scientists as reductionism and narrowness are intrinsic to the entire enterprise, even to rationality; overgeneralizing such valid criticisms to the level of metaphysical relativism; and deliberately obscure and pretentious writing. Its vogue is a threat to science in general and to psychoanalysis in particular. Psychoanalysis was vulnerable to a postmodernist attack because of Freud's rejection of scientific standards for his creation, his na¨ L ve realism, and his authoritarian heritage plus certain weaknesses of theory, technique, and organization resulting from it. Analysts are urged to stay close to clinical observation and abstain from generalizing outside their realm of expertise.

Psychoanalysis in Psychiatric Institutions - Theoretical and Clinical Approaches

Abstract: The paper presents historical remarks about psychoanalysis in institutions with a special focus on the contributions of nurses working in psychoanalytic settings. A case report of the forensic psychotherapy ward in Reichenau Mental Hospital, which is organised as a therapeutic community, shows how individual psychotherapy, group psychotherapy and special nursing care contribute to significant progress in the treatment of a severely narcissistic arsonist.

The Problem of Silence: Training Analyses

Abstract: An unusual set of silences mark the history of psychoanalysis, and the origins of training analysis is notable among them. Organizational trade unionist politics too often substitute for genuine scholarship. The advantages and limitations of the practice of training analysis need to be explored. Both Glover and Lacan pioneered politicization. A variety of authoritarian devices have been operating for suppressing "dissidence." The future of psychoanalysis may depend on the extent to which the political, social, and strictly philosophic sides of psychoanalysis get explored. in proposing that training analysis leads to

Psychoanalysis and Biology: An Epistemological Re-Discussion

Abstract: This paper discusses Freud's theory in the context of the most significant redefinitions in contemporary biology. Freud's ideas in general, as well as his conception of mental illness, were deeply grounded in the paradigm of evolutionist biology, which prevailed during his lifetime. Over the last four decades, another paradigm emerged in this field and became dominant, i.e., the informational paradigm. For this reason, some of the implications of this new paradigm for resignifying Freud's concepts like repetition, death drive and anxiety will be outlined.

Fromm's Spirited Values and Analytic Neutrality

Abstract: The analyst and the patient must feel enough hope to sustain their active effort. A significant aspect of the analyst's role is inspiring hope. This seems to require that the analyst take a life-affirming position that violates traditional notions of analytic neutrality. Yet, in facilitating the patient's full self-expression, we do not want to lose the benefits of neutrality. Fromm's work can inspire us to try to integrate an attitude of spirited hope with interpretations whose content neutrally encourages the patient to reveal his whole self.

Psychoanalyst's Values and Countertransference

Abstract: On the subject of countertransference we attempt to establish a line of continuity between Freud's own expression "blind spot" and Fromm's idea of "counterattitude". It is pointed out that both expressed the idea of the analyst's unconscious as an "instrument" for understanding the patient's unconscious. It follows that the decision to openly use or not to use countertransference in analysis also depends on the concept we have of it and on its extent. The psychoanalyst's real and illusory values and his convictions with regard to human nature influence the countertransference and the analytic relationship. Analytic listening itself may be distorted by it. We must be highly aware of this to avoid enclosing what the patient says in a theoretic scheme. What is needed, therefore, is an open theoretic scheme, more oriented towards understanding than interpretation. Aspects of analytic communication and of the relationship between language, thought and insight are examined. A humanistic point of view is assumed...

Ethics and Values in Psychoanalytic Education: Challenges

Abstract: Changes both within the profession of psychoanalysis and in society as a whole have affected our psychoanalytic training programs and presented new ethical challenges Whereas in earlier decades training programs needed to be concerned primarily about the inviolability of the training analysis and the choice of appropriate analytic candidates, today there is little support for psychoanalysis as a treatment modality Institutes are experiencing greater competition in attracting quality candidates and in providing them with adequate training experiences This strain encourages institutes to operate in unethical ways to attract candidates On the other hand, within the profession itself we are experiencing much theoretical ferment and the increasing feminization of the profession These changes are affecting our training institutes and our ethical values in both positive and negative ways

Eating Disorders: A Bond between Medicine, Culture and Psychoanalysis

Abstract: In this article we intend to discuss eating disorders, principally anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. We initiate this discussion from a medical point of view and then proceed to psychoanalytic theory in an attempt to shed light upon the cultural aspects that influence these disorders. Special emphasis has been given to certain Brazilian cultural patterns that permeate the manifestation and treatment of this condition in our tropical country. We have centralized our discussion around three questions: Can eating disorders be considered as post-modern disorders? Do contemporary factors have a determinant role in the onset of this disorder? How can psychoanalysis contribute toward a better comprehension of these disorders?

Trauma Lives in Speech

Abstract: The author approaches the topic through infant observation. At the age of eight months the baby moves in the borderland between the physical and the symbolic. When the baby hurts herself, she needs the mother's arms to protect her: at the same time, her budding spoken symbol "mama" is comforting in itself, it carries the memory of the mother's arms. Can speech - tone of voice, rhythm, pauses - and the moments of loss, absence, the losing of self also be intertwined? The author discusses the question of how trauma starts to live in speech through two patients. She talks about "a silent language" which speaks in between the words and sentences - changes the rhythm of speech, makes lose words, tears a hole in speech. This "silent language" talks about trauma, reaches for its very essence - a bodily experience and meaning to the wholeness/disruption of self.

Cross-cultural Psychoanalysis and the Interpersonal Perspective

Abstract: From its beginning Interpersonal Psychoanalysis was eminently suited to address theoretical and clinically issues when working with patients from different cultures. The open-ended quality of the detailed inquiry was a particularly useful tool to get to know the "stranger," as American social scientists of the fifties and sixties were quick to acknowledge. It therefore comes as a surprise how few interpersonalists have addressed themselves to cross-cultural issues. Particularly lacking has been attention to countertransferential problems in analyzing patients from other cultures. In addition the impact of the cultural climate on the analytic process itself has rarely been explored. As cross-cultural contacts in the consulting room have become more frequent it is important for analysts to consider that developmental sequences, family relationships, interpersonal distance, concepts of time and openness to emotional sharing may differ from what Western psychoanalysis considers to be "normal."

Looking a Hundred Years Back: Remarks on the Concept of "Wishing" in Psychoanalysis

Abstract: While the concepts of "wish" and "wish fulfillment" have indeed remained central since the start of classical psychoanalysis, they are only weakly anchored both in theory and practice. It has become common today for psychoanalysts to use the term "to wish" in the sense of "to want" or "to intend." As a first step, it will be emphasized that "wish" should not be constructed along the lines of "intention." An examination of the relationship of "wish" to "wish fulfillment" is then followed by an evaluation of its practical significance for psychoanalysis and for our understanding of mental life in a general sense. Turning to an example dream sequence, we will arrive at the psychoanalytic core of the issue: the assumption of hidden, non-obvious, non-recognizable wish fulfillment scenarios. At this point in the discussion, a method of access will be sketched out - the dramaturgical approach - that, although it makes use of the idea of free association, does so in a manner that diverges from Freud's original re...

Dreams, Psychoanalysis and the Emergent Economic Electronic Culture

Abstract: This article is an attempt to begin to weave together Freud's work - on dreams here envisioned as the original model for virtual reality - and from Fromm's work - on the impact of the market on personality The contributions of these two psychoanalysts provide a necessary dual foundation for an understanding of emerging aspects of human psychology that are evolving, at the beginning of the 21st Century, alongside the profound influence of the electronically driven global market It is time for psychoanalysis to engage more fully in the study of cultural forces While it is easy to disregard dreams, both in the general culture and of late in psychoanalysis itself, dreams and their interpretation have always been central in human living, in the development of religion and in the birth of psychoanalysis as our own secular religion Dreams, in their disembodiment and in their fluidity of information transformations have served as one model for developments within cyber culture and virtual living The destruct

Clinical Relevance of Social Character and Social Unconscious

Abstract: The author discusses his recollection of Erich Fromm's views on psychoanalytic work with patients, including the author's treatment of a patient. The remembrance involves Fromm's clinical thinking on social character and the social unconscious, and its relevance to present-day clinical work. The author presents, in detail, his treatment of a 37-year old successful woman which addresses certain of today's clinical views on gender differences that resonate and differ with Fromm's thinking on the treatment of the marketing personality.

A Woman Is Being Beaten - Issues on Violence and Femininity

Abstract: What kind of contributions can psychoanalysis make toward issues that concern violence and femininity, specifically the violence that women establish in the relations with the significant other and themselves? In this paper, the authors attempt to answer this question by dealing with concepts such as instinct, masochism and enjoyment. Additionally, they recognize the act of psychoanalytic listening as a genuine and valid manner of getting the unconscious to speak. This act of listening can be practiced either in the traditional psychoanalytic setting of private offices or in psychoanalysis applied to public institutions, for the principal tool is language as it permeates human relationships and proportions the structure of the unconscious mind.

Encounter with Gerard Chrzanowski

Abstract: Gerard Chrzanowski was a prominent representative of psychoanalysis. However, he was not a friend of strict delimitations between the different psychoanalytic schools and the struggles between them. Having grown up in Poland, having lived a few years in Switzerland and the rest of his life in USA he had a multi-cultural background. He was with that well prepared to exert an integrative role between the different psychoanalytic movements and especially in the International Federation of Psychoanalysis, of which he was one of the founders and honourable members.

Violence and Racial Matters in Brazil: A Psychoanalytical Approach

Abstract: This article is the result of a study on Psychoanalysis and Racial Matters which has been conducted by a group of black Brazilian psychoanalysts affiliated to the C´ L rculo Psicanal´ L tico de Minas Gerais - CPMG, Brazil. Even though Brazil is a multiracial and miscegenetic country, the lowest levels of the social pyramid have always been occupied by its black citizens who represent almost half of the Brazilian population. Therefore, the idea that people have about blacks is that they are ugly, dirty and weak: the image of failure. In this article we have considered the effects that are caused by this imaginary psychic register which has been historically produced on the psyche of the black Brazilian. Although Psychoanalysis has had significant influence on mental health in Brazil, it has made little or no contribution to the understanding of this matter. To further our comprehension of this enigma, we pose the question: what does a psychoanalyst hear when a black person speaks?

The Historical Path of the "Círculo Psicanalítico de Minas Gerais"

Abstract: The author describes the historical pathway trailed by a psychoanalytical institution (Circulo Psicanalitico de Minas Gerais) in a developing country (Brazil) and the structural consequences to this institution. As this institution was founded according to Igor Caruso's non-orthodox proposals, it has been destined to be a pluralistic society, composed of members who follow multiple theoretical orientations. As all of these members are united in the same institution, they all have the same hierarchical rights. The author discusses the difficulties encountered in maintaining this sort of institution.

On the Psychoanalytic Treatment of the Depressive Personality

Abstract: In order to discuss the depressive personality we have first to distinguish between this clinical entity and other types of depressive psychopathology that might also be chronic. The character traits and psychodynamics of the depressive personality confirm that there is a special group of patients, who belong to a depressive disorder continuum. The particular technical problems that depressive personality present are: (1) the inability to enjoy anything and the consequences of this on the therapist's experience and interventions, and (2) the negative therapeutic reaction which threatens the analytic process and the therapist's competence. If we combine transference/extratransference interpretations with an "empathetic understanding" approach to systematic confrontation and interpretation, we can therefore justify the need for a slightly modified psychoanalytic technique in the treatment of the depressive personality.

Psychoanalysis and Human Values

Abstract: Psychoanalysis can contribute quite a lot to the question of values and to a theory of ethics. While the first part of this presentation is focused on the impact psychoanalysis continues to exert on present day ethical theory, the second part discusses Erich Fromm's particular approach to psychoanalysis. Fromm was the first to reformulate in his psychoanalytic approach the idea of an ethic of the virtues. With his theory of character (and of social character) he made values an integral part of psychoanalytic theory. Hence, what matters most morally from a psychoanalytic stance is the quality of character orientation. Despite the fact that - in Fromm's own socio-psychoanalytic approach - man's character is the product of adaptation to the environment, morality for him is dictated by economic and social requirements - whatever common sense may tell us to the contrary. For Fromm there is an intrinsic primary tendency to growth in all human beings. Thus, morally good is whatever furthers the growth of our own...

Three Phases of Treatment with Borderline and Psychotic Patients

Abstract: Three distinct, yet overlapping, phases of treatment emerge when working with some borderline and psychotic patients. This are patients who test the ordinary limits of psychoanalysis, but can profit from its deep exploration. The first phase is colored by acting out, interpersonally and intrapsychically. An analytic envelope of containment is necessary to sustain the treatment. Interpretive holding and containing help the patient find a psychic receptacle capable of detoxifying violent projections. Many of these patients terminate prematurely. The second phase is centered around the patient's defensive use of the death instinct to extinguish or destroy certain parts of their mental functioning. This difficult standoff between parts of the patient's mind becomes replicated in the transference. The third phase reveals the more fundamental problem of paranoid∼schizoid anxieties of loss and primitive experiences of guilt. These include fears of persecution and annihilation. Some patients abort treatment in th...

Psychoanalysis and University in Brazil: Possibilities and Limits of This Articulation

Abstract: The goal of this article is to clarify some of the aspects concerning the academic teaching and research that is carried out in the field of psychoanalysis in the Brazilian Universities, versus the transmission and training in psychoanalytic institutions. The author describes how psychoanalysis is present in the Brazilian university context, from undergraduate to graduate studies, and also points out perspectives regarding the future of psychoanalysis in Brazil.

The Impossible Ideal: A Patient-Oriented Therapy

Abstract: Our profession is being challenged theoretically and by practical realities. Many of its basic premises are being questioned and a hostile managed care bureaucracy has been curtailing treatment opportunities. These challenges force a latent issue into full view: Is psychoanalytic wisdom tied to its dogma and technical rituals or can much of its wisdom be integrated into a more inclusive interdisciplinary perspective? Psychoanalysis has a history of resisting change. It defined too early what was and what was not to be considered psychoanalysis. Dogmatization made idols out of theories and the rituals of techniques. Theories are valuable tools only and not scientific truth. While institutes and official sanctions have lacked in open-mindedness, the unofficial practicing psychoanalyst has been far more creative in adapting psychoanalysis to the patient's needs and embracing the freedom to develop his or her idiosyncratic ways, wisdom, and skills. We need to increase our therapeutic repertoire beyond those t...

Controversies and Conflicts in the Institution of "Open" Psychoanalysis: Cases from the History of the Therapeia Foundation

Abstract: The institution of psychoanalysis has included controversies, dissensions and expulsions at both the theoretical-methodological and personal-organizational levels. There have also been several intra- and intergroup conflicts in the history of psychoanalysis, and in constructing and patterning the future of psychoanalytic knowledge. In the context of Finnish psychoanalysis, the Therapeia Foundation (founded in 1958) met from the start with resistance from official psychiatry and also from the IPA. For example, in the mid-1960s, D. W. Winnicott, as the President of the IPA, supported the orthodox Finnish psychoanalytic study group (later to become the Finnish Psychoanalytical Society), and pronounced that the Therapeia group was too loose and was not strictly able to use the IPA-recognized designation "psychoanalytic." The Therapeia Foundation and its Training Seminar combined classical psychoanalysis and its new versions with existentialphenomenological views, anthropological medicine, research on "social ...

Policy Regarding Publication of Case Material

Abstract: International Forum of Psychoanalysis, like other psychoanalytical and medical journals, has to rethink its policy on publication of clinical material. The reason is the changing relationship between the analyst and his patient. The feminist movement has focused its critic on paternalistic patterns and on the right of each individual to her and his subjectivity. Therefore we Ž nd it adequate to consider involving the patient in the decision to publish clinical material. Another reason is the fact that psychoanalytical journals nowadays are published not just as hard copies, but are also in electronic media and the material is available through different search engines on Internet. Thereby the material in our journals is accessible to a broader public outside the professional realm. As a consequence of this development publication of case material has been extensively discussed at the latest two meetings (2000 and 2001) of the Council of Editors of Psychoanalytic Journals in New York. At the meeting in December 2001 it was suggested that the council would issue a policy declaration on this topic. The desirability of a common declaration of the psychoanalytic journals has been emphasized since the Medical Journals have decided on a publishing policy stating that:

Psychoanalysis and Human Values

Abstract: One of my patients has lately been concerned with what he has termed ‘living in falsehood’. What he sees and talks about is mostly things he has described and discussed previously in our work, but when he saw them within the frame of ‘living in falsehood’, they struck him like an earthquake. What he saw was not one or two particular lies, but how all his life has been imbued in falsehood. A recurring item has been the basis of his marriage. An early ‘chivalrous’ version tells how he came back from a long journey, and the girl he dated before his journey told him that she had been raped during his absence, and he offered to marry her in order to console her. In another version, the woman said that the rape was a lie and never happened. In still another narrative, his wife-to-be had been unfaithful during his absence and the talk about rape was a cover up. Still after several years of analysis it is not clear, either to me or to my analysand, what really happened between them. At a more basic level similar uncertainties obscure the conditions of his conception and birth. My patient doubts that he has been wished for – or rather feels that he has never been good enough as a substitute for a stillborn sibling. A long and painful delivery, including serious asphyxia, is one of the elements in the narratives of my patient’s coming to the world. In my countertransference I have experienced my patient as a fertilized egg which has not been able to decide whether to attach to my analytic uterus or not. Thus the life of my patient has unfolded within a misty uncertainty allowing a plurality of simultaneous vague stories. My patient’s ‘discovery’ of his living in falsehood has the quality of what Bion named an ‘act of faith’ (1). Through a leap into the dark my patient leaves at a side his preoccupation with the various versions of his stories supported by fragments of memory and desire. He is becoming aware of something more fundamental. He suddenly sees how he has attempted to establish the facts of the circumstances at his birth and at his marriage within a system that automatically prevents a clear vision, like a hall of distorting mirrors. My patients disclosure of having lived in falsehood is not a question of re-cognizing something previously known or named. He has found a new ‘truth’, not by establishing a correspondence between a thought or story and external facts, but by a creative, symbolopoetic act. He has disclosed another vertex or aspect that changes his ability for evaluative processing. I do not know what will emerge from this occurrence. What I sense is that my analysand, who early in our work talked about himself as a ball turned inside out, and as unable to be turned right, suddenly has achieved this transformation. In his earlier state-of-mind, that of falsehood, he had no real evaluative capacity to orient himself in his life. He just walked around in a Ž nite system maintaining the same feelings of being fooled, envious, jealous and worthless. Nothing and nobody gained a real value for him. In the stateof-mind disclosing ‘living-in-falsehood’ certain values begin to appear meaningful to him. In my view, my vignette above points to the value I Ž nd the most precious of those that psychoanalysis supports through its very method. I refer to the inherent trust in the possibility of creative truth emerging from a dialogue facilitating free associations. The papers published in this issue attest that the topic of Psychoanalysis and Human Values may be approached from many angles. Many of them were presented at the XI Forum of Psychoanalysis, organized by The William Alanson White Society and sponsored by The International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies. This Forum was dedicated to the memory of Erich Fromm at the 100 years anniversary of his birth. Erich Fromm is known as one of the analysts who have dedicated special interest to the topic of human values, and many of the contributions refer to Frommian ideas.

Switch Him On

Abstract: In this article, the author describes somber scenes that have been extracted from Brazilian reality. Some of the elements that compose these scenes have been analyzed as to their relation with contemporaneity and psychoanalytic topics of interest: perversion, helplessness, pain, life instinct, death instinct, humor and indifference.

A Contemporary Notion of Time: Fragments of a Case from Rio de Janeiro

Abstract: This paper presents vignettes of a case from the city of Rio de Janeiro in which temporality appears as a fundamental issue Severe difficulties in validating the past and integrating past, present and future reveal pertinent questions on time and the ideal function in the contemporary world The author underlines the relevance of such questioning for the practice of psychoanalysis today