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Showing papers in "International Forum of Psychoanalysis in 2016"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In psychoanalytic education, supervision has been and continues to be regarded as the cornerstone of psychotherapy education; it is the primary means by which psychotherapy ideology becomes translated into practical product, and budding analytic practitioners develop and grow in their therapeutic skills and professional identity as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Having now completed its first century, psychoanalytic supervision has been and continues to be regarded as the cornerstone of psychoanalytic education; it is the primary means by which (1) psychoanalytic ideology becomes translated into practical product, and (2) budding analytic practitioners develop and grow in their therapeutic skills and professional identity. The supreme significance of supervision in contributing to the “making” of the competent psychoanalytic practitioner now seems a widely accepted given, even axiomatic. But as its second century gets underway, what have we learned from psychoanalytic supervision's first 100 years? What are its most pressing needs and, in turn, impressing possibilities at this time? And what needs to most change if psychoanalytic supervision is to most profitably advance in the years and decades ahead? In this paper, I would like to consider those questions, giving focus to five needs that seem to most require attention now: (1) making the practice of psy...

15 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, Wilhelm Reich lectured on "Psychoanalysis as a natural science" before the Communist Academy in Moscow; he was the only Freudian-trained Central European psychoanalyst to do so, and his article "Dialectical materialism and psychoanalysis" was published in the Academy's journal under the banner of Marxism in both Moscow and Berlin.
Abstract: In 1929, Wilhelm Reich lectured on “Psychoanalysis as a natural science” before the Communist Academy in Moscow; he was the only Freudian-trained Central European psychoanalyst to do so. That same year, his article “Dialectical materialism and psychoanalysis” was published in the Academy's journal, Under the Banner of Marxism, in both Moscow and Berlin. By this time, Reich's involvement with political activism aligned with the Austrian Communist Party was increasing, while simultaneously psychoanalysis in the Soviet Union was in decline. Our paper places these events in their proper historical context and includes a discussion of the various attempts to determine the compatibility of psychoanalysis and Marxism. We offer analyses of both the article, “Dialectical materialism and psychoanalysis,” and the lecture, “Psychoanalysis as a natural science,” and the reactions to both by Reich's Russian critics. We show the ways in which responses to his lecture foreshadow what becomes the standard Soviet a...

13 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the author discusses Brenner's conviction that Freud's view is not a misunderstanding but is true for psychoanalysis and rejects his conclusion, which is based on Habermas's judgement that Freud assesses psychoanalysis as a natural science, this constitutes a scientific self-misunderstanding.
Abstract: This paper centres on Habermas's judgement that when Freud assesses psychoanalysis as a natural science, this constitutes a scientific self-misunderstanding. The author discusses Brenner's conviction that Freud's view is not a misunderstanding but is true for psychoanalysis and rejects his conclusion. In the author's view, Freud's assessment of psychoanalysis must be seen as a misunderstanding whose basis lies in its subject. Unconscious figures assert themselves under the repetition compulsion in the same manner as natural laws, each of which asserts itself beyond individual consciousness. It was the discovery of the unconscious that led Freud to conceive of psychoanalysis as a natural science and it seems that this conception is rooted in the structural identity between unconscious and natural processes. Freud's misunderstanding of pseudo-nature as nature seems to be indebted to his energy concept. As it is impossible to deduce psychic energies and their distribution by means of the psychoanalyt...

12 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The history of psychoanalysis has developed along two main routes: metapsychological (drive theory) and relational as mentioned in this paper, enriched along many decades by a variety of strong contributions from Ferenczi to independent thinkers such as Bion, Winnicott, Bowlby, Pichon Riviere, W. Baranger, J. Sandler, Ogden, and Bollas.
Abstract: The history of psychoanalysis has developed along two main routes: metapsychological (drive theory) and relational. So-called “relational psychoanalysis” derives from the convergence of several traditions – interpersonal and sociocultural (Sullivan, Fromm), object relations theory (Fairbairn), self psychology (Hokut), and intersubjective systems theory (Stolorow, Atwood, Orange) – enriched along many decades by a variety of strong contributions from Ferenczi to independent thinkers such as Bion, Winnicott, Bowlby, Pichon Riviere, W. and M. Baranger, J. Sandler, Ogden, and Bollas, among many others. Facing its main controversies in terms of theory, present psychoanalysis evolves between heuristic versus hermeneutic, intrapsychic versus intersubjective, fantasy versus trauma, conflict versus deficit, and drives versus motivational systems. Controversies in technique have also evolved from a neutrality and abstinence model to an optimal provision and frustration model experienced in mutuality but eth...

11 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a story about an alleged sexual affair with Jung and a case of misconduct during treatment, based on a misinterpretation of the documents, a myth, a fiction, was created about the sexual relationship between Spielrein and Jung and another myth was that her relationship with Jung was a cause of the historic break-up between Freud and Jung.
Abstract: Sabina Spielrein's life events became known to posterity through a private correspondence with Freud and Jung, and through her diaries. Based on a misinterpretation of the documents, a myth, a fiction, was created about an alleged sexual affair with Jung and a case of misconduct during treatment. Another myth was that her relationship with Jung was a cause of the historic break-up between Freud and Jung. The biographical facts described by the author in a number of publications show that her treatment ended when she left the hospital to become Jung's student in the medical school, a situation with its own ethical rules. Furthermore, the alleged “scandal” was no public matter: it turned out to be no more than a personal quarrel. Before, during, and after that turbulent episode, Spielrein and Jung maintained a long and tender friendship and correspondence that included sharing creative ideas that enriched psychoanalysis. In these exchanges, a special role was played by the myth of Siegfried and othe...

10 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For example, this article pointed out that even though Freud did not categorize it as a trauma, he was deeply impacted by it in the period when he provided psychoanalysis with his foundation, despite Freud's intellectual erasure of the trauma that Emma experienced, her “cut” never ceased to unconsciously break through Freud's fantasies and discourse.
Abstract: Emma Eckstein's circumcision trauma has been powerfully suppressed, denied, and dissociated from the history of the origins of psychoanalysis. Even though Freud did not categorize it as a trauma, he was deeply impacted by it in the period when he provided psychoanalysis with his foundation. Despite Freud's intellectual erasure of the trauma that Emma experienced, her “cut” never ceased to unconsciously break through Freud's fantasies and discourse, haunting the psychoanalytic building as a veritable ghost. Sandor Ferenczi became the recipient of what Freud could not consider in his own mind, and his revision of the “Bausteine” (building blocks) of psychoanalysis featured an attempt to heal the split embedded in the foundation of psychoanalysis.

10 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the case of Casale Monferrato, exposure to asbestos has led to an extremely traumatic situation that has encompassed cancer and death and affected a variety of social and environmental aspects of both individuals and the community as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the community of Casale Monferrato, exposure to asbestos has led to an extremely traumatic situation that has encompassed cancer and death and affected a variety of social and environmental aspects of both individuals and the community. When an entire community is severely traumatized, psychoanalytic group therapy seems to be the most suitable therapeutic setting: it allows for the historization of the event and the creation of multiple narratives of somatopsychic suffering, producing a transformative effect on nonmentalized emotional aggregates. Making reference to clinical material, I will show how the possibility of sharing, with other minds, the meaning of the trauma also brought into the field each participant's vital aspects, possibly not very intense in each individual but consistently present in the functioning of the mind of the group. I will also illustrate how this led to the development of a new and more mature psychic asset, with which painful and deadly experiences connected to th...

10 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The psychoanalytic movement is experiencing a serious crisis: its scientific consensus, social standing, and impact on practice in mental health have all been steadily declining over the last decades as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The psychoanalytic movement is experiencing a serious crisis: its scientific consensus, social standing, and impact on practice in mental health have all been steadily declining over the last decades. This unfortunate process has been variously explained in terms of prevailing hedonistic social values, the political influence of drug companies, and cuts in health-related expenditures. Following a suggestion by Garza Guerrero, we rather believe that the sources of the contemporary crisis in psychoanalysis are to be searched for within its own development and current social and cultural life. Specifically, we think psychoanalysis has failed to bring the revolutionary contribution of interpersonal and intersubjective paradigms to its fuller consequences. Here, we review five core dimensions in which such failure is particularly apparent: (1) an unwitting reliance on the medical model of mental illness; (2) an ontological, concrete understanding of unconscious processes; (3) a manifest failure to full...

8 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, an analytic psychotherapy process with a 6-year-old girl who had suffered since birth from severe epileptic seizures, with consequent general impairment of her development, is exposed and discussed.
Abstract: The vicissitudes of an analytic psychotherapy process with a 6-year-old girl who had suffered since birth from severe epileptic seizures, with consequent general impairment of her development, are exposed and discussed. It is proposed that an oneiric vertex be adopted to better understand the full interplay between the patient's traumatic experience and the sessions’ flow. The therapist's ability to use his reverie in order to learn the patient's language behind the words – to resonate with his patient – is proposed as a key aspect in the process of transforming the traumatic experience of uncontainable threatening emotions. Using more than words, the analytic process unfolds gradually both through the analyst's availability to engage in a deep internal working-through of the experience of being with the patient, and from his capacity to learn from the patient's experience.

8 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The notion of truth and solidarity can be found in the work of some psychoanalysts, specifically in Otto Kernberg's proposals as mentioned in this paper, who made a creative integration of object relations theory, especially in its Kl...
Abstract: Today, there are two ways of conceiving psychoanalysis, a classical one focused on the search for truth within the internal world of the patient, and a contemporary one perceiving the patient–therapist relationship as the axis of exploration. Rorty's criterion, which divides disciplines into either truth-based or solidarity-based, may be applied to this dichotomy. These conflicting positions come from two different historical periods: the Enlightenment and the contemporary world. They inhabit a sterile environment without theoretical discussion or comparison. The Renaissance relocated man at the centre of creation and urged him to seek encounters with others as well as with the truth concealed in nature. Possibly, these elements of truth and solidarity, initially designed as complementary, integrative, and nonconflicting, can be found in the work of some psychoanalysts, specifically in Otto Kernberg's proposals. Kernberg makes a creative integration of object relations theory, especially in its Kl...

7 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In his 1918 paper "Lines of advance in psychoanalytic therapy" as discussed by the authors, Freud suggested that psychoanalysis should reach out to the masses on a larger scale by alloying the pure gold of analysis with the copper of direct suggestion, and time has proven this assertion to be true.
Abstract: In his 1918 paper “Lines of advance in psychoanalytic therapy,” Freud suggested that psychoanalysis should reach out to the masses on a larger scale. “We need to alloy the pure gold of analysis with the copper of direct suggestion,” he noted. Time has proven this assertion to be true. As Freud had anticipated, the psychoanalytic technique has left doctors’ offices to enter a number of different areas: from hospital and state mental health centers to clinics, social work organizations, and nongovernmental health institutions. Moreover, some authors, following the paths established by Freud, have conceptually enriched psychoanalytic theory and eventually achieved a voice of their own. Hence, one might wonder whether today, in the early twenty-first century, “pure gold” psychoanalysis exists, whether there is a psychoanalyst who, with uncontaminated theories, is conceptually pure gold, the owner of the truth. This paper tries to find the common denominator of current theories of psychoanalysis throug...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The historical separation of psychoanalytic practice from the research community and the university probably relates to the relative lack of empirical investigation and the contested status of research in general within the psychoanalyst community.
Abstract: The teaching of psychoanalysis encompasses a wide array of educational stages, from undergraduate students to psychoanalytic candidates and lifelong training for professionals. Papers published in psychoanalytic journals play a fundamental role in teaching tasks. The historical separation of psychoanalytic practice from the research community and the university probably relates to the relative lack of empirical investigation and the contested status of research in general within the psychoanalytic community. In addition, there is not enough debate among different schools and orientations, making it very unlikely that creative solutions to theoretical and practical discussions will be found. Related to this, there seems to be a worrying deficit of recent references in psychoanalytic papers compared with general psychiatric journals or medical publications. This reflects a dangerous attitude of not paying attention to contemporary writers within our own field. Reasons behind this might be fear of co...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed the temporal dimension of depression by making reference to one of the clinical cases he treated and re-examining a clinical case analyzed by Edith Jacobson.
Abstract: The author analyzes the temporal dimension of depression by making reference to one of the clinical cases he treated and re-examining a clinical case analyzed by Edith Jacobson. According to the result of his observations, the developmental psychodynamics of a depressive state normally appears to take place in two distinct phases: a first narcissistic loss, which gives rise to an integrative conflict and to the formation of a certain identificatory structure, is later followed by a second narcissistic loss, which leads to the real depressive state. The two phases present a specific, intrinsic connection constituted by the implication of the same identificatory element of the self, recognition of which can favour a clinical work that more closely adheres to the deep dynamics of depression.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Varvin, S. as discussed by the authors discusses the role of psychoanalysis with the traumatized patient in helping to survive extreme experiences and complicated loss. But this is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in the International Forum of Psychoanalysis.
Abstract: This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Varvin, S. (2015, February). Psychoanalysis with the traumatized patient: Helping to survive extreme experiences and complicated loss. In International Forum of Psychoanalysis (No. ahead-of-print, pp. 1-8). Routledge. [copyright Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/0803706X.2014.1001785].

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reported their experience with several controlled group programs that have been underway since 1975 in Bilbao, Barcelona, and Geneva for patients with severe psychiatric disorders in short-term and long-term inpatient and outpatient clinics.
Abstract: The good results obtained with the long-term psychoanalysis of neurotic and personality disorder patients on a outpatient basis have not been paralleled by good results for severe psychotic patients treated on an inpatient basis. However, psychoanalytic thinking and training personnel in this remains an essential tool in institutions, both for the maintenance of a therapeutic milieu and for understanding and improving the work of the therapeutic teams. On the other hand, psychoanalytically oriented group psychotherapy is a basic therapeutic tool in short-term and long-term hospitalization units for psychiatric patients. The well-known experiences of therapeutic communities, today unduly neglected, are an example of its efficacy. We have reported our experience with several controlled group programs that have been underway since 1975 in Bilbao, Barcelona, and Geneva for patients with severe psychiatric disorders in short-term and long-term inpatient and outpatient clinics. The results have been pos...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors try to conceptualize the very different models of psychoanalysis that emerge on the basis of the irreducibility between natural sciences and social sciences, and they are situated in a historical context, paying attention to the epistemological debates that have accompanied psychoanalysis.
Abstract: Departing from the debate between Julia Kristeva and Daniel Stern that produced a predictably intense polemic, the author tries to conceptualize the very different models of psychoanalysis that emerge. On the basis of the irreducibility between natural sciences and social sciences, these models are shown. They are situated in a historical context, paying attention to the epistemological debates that have accompanied psychoanalysis for many years. Differences are exemplified through the exploration of Kristeva's and Stern's perspectives about the functions of the mother figure. The debate between Stern and Kristeva took place in the context of the 2010 IFPS Forum.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors try to demonstrate the necessity of taking culture into account by drawing on Lacan's approach, which is based on the lessons of Freud and emphasizes the fact that every culture has its "discontents", which stem from the incompleteness at the very heart of human experience.
Abstract: Psychoanalysis cannot distance itself from culture and its transformations. It cannot ignore cultural ideals, which each individual uniquely appropriates to produce identifications, find his place within the human community, express his desires, and manifest the suffering occasioned by each difficult experience. This article will try to demonstrate this necessity of taking culture into account by drawing on Lacan's approach, which is based on the lessons of Freud. The author emphasizes the fact that every culture has its “discontents,” which stem from the incompleteness at the very heart of human experience, and that our cultural constructions are therefore constantly being reworked. By doing so, she aims to cast a different perspective on the relationship between the psyche and culture, and bring out the inherent complexity of the now fashionable notion of the “decline of the father,” which is systematically used to explain the new symptoms and ills of modern society. By detecting this decline, b...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors suggest that patients contribute to analytic endeavors through a knowledge of their own unique ways of organizing their experience, of building an intersubjective space with significant others, of the type of life that they consider worth living, and primarily of their specific passions and yearnings.
Abstract: Patients contribute to analytic endeavors through a knowledge of their own unique ways of organizing their experience, of building an intersubjective space with significant others, of the type of life that they consider worth living, and primarily of their specific passions and yearnings. The more that therapists allow the patients’ unique self-knowledge to influence their therapeutic perceptions and decisions, the further they will advance patients’ status as co-experts working together with the therapist to create and formulate new, richer knowledge. In the present article, it is suggested that one of the main reasons why patients’ self-knowledge is excluded from the therapeutic dialogue is that the persuasive power of the therapists’ rich and deep knowledge challenges the patients’ self-authority. Through an illustrative vignette, therapists are recommended to use a metacommunication intervention to restore the balance that has been undermined between the therapist’s authority and the patient’s...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Following the tracks of the pioneers of the psychoanalysis of schizophrenia, who discovered the singularity of transference in such cases and, during the wars, among traumatized soldiers, they came to the conclusion that trauma and psychosis belong to the same field of destruction of the symbolic order, that is, an area of death, where time stops, where there is no other, except for a ruthless agency that erases truth and trust as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Following the tracks of the pioneers of the psychoanalysis of schizophrenia, who discovered the singularity of transference in such cases and, during the wars, among traumatized soldiers, we came to the conclusion that trauma and psychosis belong to the same field of destruction of the symbolic order, that is, an area of death, where time stops, where there is no other, except for a ruthless agency that erases truth and trust. In that field, patient and analyst are co-researchers, exploring and challenging the possible existence of a reliable other as a positive outcome. Such an event “happens in a few sessions” – as described by the late Martin Cooperman, psychoanalyst at the Austen Riggs Center and veteran of the Pacific wars – “but it takes many years to get there.” We will give examples of some critical sessions, when time starts to flow again. They take place at the crossroad of the patient's and of the analyst's story with the catastrophes of History.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore how Sullivan's interpersonal theory can be applied clinically and illustrate this with a clinical case, considering the emotional impact, on the clinician, of a Sullivanian point of view.
Abstract: This paper explores how Sullivan's interpersonal theory can be applied clinically and illustrates this with a clinical case. It considers the emotional impact, on the clinician, of a Sullivanian point of view. Each theoretical orientation equips the analyst differently. Sullivanian technique impacts the analyst's focus, feelings of competence, and hopefulness. Although each theory emphasizes different aspects of the clinical material, this paper suggests that there is a set of clinical values that inspire the work of all analysts, regardless of orientation.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Fromm's rich legacy, his writings on sociocultural phenomena, his religious thinking, his contribution to psychological theory and clinical theory, and his influence are discussed in this article.
Abstract: This book is an expose on Erich Fromm’s rich legacy, his writings on sociocultural phenomena, his religious thinking, his contribution to psychological theory and clinical theory, and his influence...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare the explicit interpersonal method of psychoanalysis of Harry Stack Sullivan and the implicit and until now insufficiently recognized interpersonal methods of Sigmund Freud, arguing that the centrality of emotions as motives and movers or action suggests redefining psychic reality as emotional reality.
Abstract: This discussion explores and compares the explicit interpersonal method of psychoanalysis of Harry Stack Sullivan and the implicit and until now insufficiently recognized interpersonal method of Sigmund Freud. Interpersonal means interaction via expression of feelings, emotions, and actions, gestures of body and face, and words. The centrality of emotions as motives and movers or action suggests redefining psychic reality as emotional reality. While Freud did not have the word “interpersonal,” invented by Sullivan, he nevertheless acted as an interpersonal psychotherapist both in his prepsychoanalytic period and, thereafter, from his beginnings as a psychoanalyst in 1893. The other purpose of this paper is to promote a new era of collaboration and cross-fertilization between the IPA and other psychoanalytic authors and organizations.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore certain aspects of reading as a psychic activity, focussing on editorial reading of psychoanalytic texts, where the author puts stress on container-contained aspects of the reader-text-author relationship.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to explore certain aspects of reading as a psychic activity, focussing on editorial reading of psychoanalytic texts. The author puts stress on container–contained aspects of the reader–text–author relationship. The efficiency (or failure) of a text as container is more or less to be sought in its form and its “readability.” Concerning psychoanalytic texts, the editorial reader has to function as a container for the author's primitive and/or Oedipal anxieties, a process necessary for the evaluation and/or the potential transformation of a text; moreover, the psychoanalytic journal as a whole, through the linking processes it establishes between readers and authors, in the psychoanalytic community, can be regarded as the third object of a commensal container–contained relationship.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In connection with a conference in memory of Herbert Rosenfeld in 2014 in his home town of Nuremberg, from which he had to flee in 1935, the author did some research on the work of this outstanding, later British, psychoanalyst in Germany as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In connection with a conference in memory of Herbert Rosenfeld in 2014 in his home town of Nuremberg, from which he had to flee in 1935, the author did some research on the work of this outstanding, later British, psychoanalyst in Germany. The first results are presented here. How the first links came about remains unclear, but a few of his articles were published in German from 1955, and in the 1970s he held occasional seminars in Munich. His contacts with colleagues from the German Psychoanalytic Association (DPV) at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s (until his death in 1986), especially through a supervision group he led, seem, however, to have been the most influential ones. Rosenfeld transmitted a particularly “experience-near” approach to the patient, which also acknowledged and took seriously (self) destructive elements in the transference and countertransference. Over the following years and decades, a number of colleagues wished to deepen this approach. How this line was fur...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Aguillaume as mentioned in this paper argues that psychoanalytic practice is neither a positive nor a hermeneutic science, it feeds from both methods in order to devise methodologies and theoretical models that increase, at best, its specific knowledge.
Abstract: More than a hundred years after the birth of psychoanalysis, we find that, rather than creating a welldefined object of study and an unequivocal practice, subsequentdevelopments in the field have increasingly moved away from this goal. Manifold schools have emerged that may be grouped according to two basic positions, namely, the one that places something like the scientific method at the core of its endeavor, and the one that does the same with something like the hermeneutic model. I say something like because neither position fully corresponds to these two methods. The object of psychoanalysis transcends empirical observation and mere interpretation. Attempts to define its identity from either perspective have failed. Thework ofGrünbaum inquiredprecisely into these different approaches. He strived to characterize the Freudian method as strictly scientific in comparison with other orientations, such as Paul Ricoeur’s, which belongs on the side of hermeneutics. Grünbaum never aspired to harmonize both positions; he always advocated a scientific psychoanalysis, whose epistemological failings were easier to identify. Nevertheless, the challenge of constructing an epistemologically specific psychoanalysis, and hence a new object transcending both fields (that of the natural sciences and that of the social sciences), remains unresolved. This difficulty, however, does not prevent some of us from trying. While psychoanalysis is neither a positive nor a hermeneutic science, it feeds from both methods in order to devise methodologies and theoretical models that increase, at best, its specific knowledge. For example, there have been various efforts to incorporate empirical observation so as toproduceknowledgebeyond thepsychoanalytic setting. Among these efforts is the work carried out by Daniel Stern, Peter Fonagy, and others, in short, by the IPA’s Research Committee, created in 1990 under the direction of Robert Wallerstein. Verification demands are also starting to prevail, and Grünbaum’s work accurately illustrates this development. We find papers that present empirically validated results and attempts to verify psychoanalytic concepts. Whether these undertakings simplify or distort the psychoanalytic model should be a matter for reflection and debate. In any case, we believe that psychoanalysis is solid enough to allow us to see the current situation as another vicissitude of our time, when values such as effectiveness and profitability make it possible to downplay, if not neutralize, all the disciplines that lie outside this new episteme. Can we admit such fragmentation? Or is it a question of accepting a de facto situation in which the preservation of the idea of a common ground is but an unfounded wish, and reality clearly shows the existence not of one or many, but of two opposing psychoanalyses with different legitimacies? Rómulo Aguillaume reflects on this problem of two psychoanalyses. To this end, he uses as his starting point the models presented by Daniel Stern and Julia Kristeva at the IFPS Congress held in Athens in October 2010. Siegfried Zepf continues with this epistemological reflectionand,basedonHabermas, shows themisunderstandings that led Freud to confuse unconscious and natural processes. Such confusionmay have contributed tohispersisting in thehopeof viewingpsychoanalysis as a natural science. Anyhow, Freud never seemed to doubt the scientific nature of psychoanalysis and never addressed the split between the natural and the social sciences. Our discipline was forced to face this split when the social environment demanded effectiveness. Such demand, however, did not prevent the application of psychoanalysis in practice – even in hospitals, for instance, by way of group work, as José Guimón shows. Juan Rodado inquires into the nature of psychoanalysis from this perspective of therapeutic effectiveness. Social demand forced Freud to open a crack in the pure gold of psychoanalysis with the copper of suggestion. In other words, psychoanalytic practice changed and gave rise to endless theorization, which is the situation in which we find ourselves today. Alejandro Ávila and Miguel Ángel González optimistically describe a theory, intersubjectivity, and an author, Otto Kernberg, capable of choosing a path that makes it possible to combine strength and meaning. The temptation to bring together diverse theories and practices has always existed. The problem is how to distinguish relevant theoretical aspects from those aspects that simply show thinkers’ ability to combine theories. Yet psychoanalysis is more than a discipline and a science. It is an ideology, that is, the expression of a desire to change reality rather than merely reflecting it. The passion driving this debate seems to confirm such a premise.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the role of the superego in the development of depression, and present a new perspective on the relationship between self-loathing and self-destruction in anorexia.
Abstract: In his seminal work Civilization and its discontents, Freud links the evolutionof culturewithman’s discomfort in it, mainly because of the loss of happiness due to “the ethical demands of the cultural super-ego” (Freud, 1930, p. 133). He holds that if the aim of life, as revealed by human behavior, is the satisfaction of all desires, the first requisite of culture is the assurance of a law thatwouldput limits to personal gratification as a demand of society. “Man’s natural aggressive instinct, the hostility of each against all and of all against each” (ibidem, p. 122), which menaces society with disintegration, is dealt with by its internalization in a part of the self called the superego (Jones 1957). Psyching suffering from relinquishing gratification and from the harshness of the superego, the “pathology of cultural communities”, according to Freud (ibidem, p.143), is the price tobepaid for civilization.According toBion, group culture (as can be, for instance, faith to a group leader or egalitarianism) arises from the conflict between individual needs and a group mentality that expresses a unanimous will, which is in opposition with conscious individual aims (Bion 1961, Bléandonu 1990). In this way the cultural bond is associated with the uncomfortable acknowledgement of incompleteness and of imperfect protection from lack. But what happens if culture itself endorses the aim of omnipotently gratifying every need? In this volume of International Forum of Psychoanalysis, Raaja Stitou ponders the above question in her article “Psychoanalysis and cultural change: Lacan’s contribution and a new perspective”. She holds that modern civilization tries to cover up lack at its root through sophisticated objects which technology offers, while contemporary normative discourses are dominated by the denial of the incompleteness inherent in the human condition. All these can lead to a new kind of psychic suffering, related to the destructiveness this very denial entails, and discernable in joint expressions of subjective suffering and social problems, such as various kinds of violent actions and addictive behavior. A culture of omnipotent denial of lack can imply a denial of bodily needs through the provision of an idealized body image. In their article “The implication of the sadistic superego in anorexia”, Ana Maria Rudge and Betty Fuks speak of the interplay of cultural and intrapsychic factors in the “culture” of anorexia. Concerning the role of the ferocious superego in this case, they see it as an often culturally mediated, foreign-body like incorporated voice that dictates the object’s wish to the subject. Relinquishing unlimited gratification as a prerequisite of the social bond that forms the basis of civilization and as a source of pain, reminds of the necessity of giving up possession of the object – or of the reality of losing it, and of the depressive pain this causes. Giancarlo Ventimiglia’s article “On the development of depressive states from a psychodynamic point of view” focuses on the narcissistic aspect of object loss that underlies depression, while also analyzing its temporal dimension. Object loss and trauma have often been associated with the cultural activity that is called art, which creates a special link of mutual containing between the artist and its public, through a dialogue of aesthetic forms and responses to them. In her article “Claude Debussy’s Opera Pelleas et Melisande : Secrecy, mystery and ambiguity in Debussy’s life and art”, Gertrude Schwartzman deals with the way Claude Debussy achieved to contain the longings rooted in his unhappy childhood experience in a cherished work of art, speaking of love and loss. Love and loss constitute, to a large extent, the subject matter of Henry Zvi Lothane’s article “Sabina Spielrein’s Siegfried and other myths: facts vs. fictions”. The author attempts at fathoming the use of the mythical/cultural/artistic figure of Siegfried by Sabina Spielrein and its transformation to a personal symbol in her effort to work through her relationship with Jung. He also juxtaposes the creative use of mythologybySpielreinwith the transformationofGermanic mythology to a racist, destructive ideology by theNazis, a culturewhich eventually served as legalization for the genocidal “Final Solution”. This juxtaposition may remind us of Freud’s final remarks in “Civilization and its Discontents”. Freud writes:

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Debussy attempted to conceal the stresses of his early life: his father leaving to fight in the Franco-Prussian War, his younger siblings being sent to live with an aunt, and Debussy remaining alone with his mother as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Debussy attempted to conceal the stresses of his early life: his father leaving to fight in the Franco-Prussian War, his younger siblings being sent to live with an aunt, and Debussy remaining alone with his mother. His early-discovered musical talent provided him with a sense of continuity throughout his life. However, he felt his training at the Paris Conservatoire to be restrictive and rebelled against it in the musical style he developed. Debussy’s opera Pelleas et Melisande gave him an opportunity to creatively depict these thwarted passions and his aversion to restriction.

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TL;DR: In this article, the author attempts to shed some light on Herbert Rosenfeld's thought and his way of working when was in Italy during 1978-1985, with specific regard for the new way in which he looked at clinical practice at that time.
Abstract: In this paper, the author attempts to shed some light on Herbert Rosenfeld’s thought and his way of working when was in Italy during 1978–1985. In particular, the author would like to show, in a sketchy way, the evolution of his thought, with specific regard for the new way in which he looked at clinical practice at that time. In the author’s opinion, the Rosenfeld that he and his group met and got to know in Italy was able to open new horizons in clinical practice, implicitly questioning some of his own or his circle’s previous viewpoints.

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TL;DR: In this article, the authors distinguish two paradoxical aspects of anorexia, i.e., the defense of subjectivity and the assumption of one's own wish, from the death drive and the voice of a sadistic and ferocious superego that demands immediate obedience.
Abstract: Based on our clinical experience with anorexia, we propose to distinguish two paradoxical aspects of this disorder. On the one hand, anorexia may serve as a shield and support to open up a space for subjectivity, promoting a separation from the mother. Eros is responsible for this defense of subjectivity and of the assumption of one's own wish. But the anorexic individual may, on the other hand, be subjected to the death drive and to the voice of a sadistic and ferocious superego that demands immediate obedience. The death drive, present in different combinations with Eros, is an obstacle to the work of the psychoanalyst.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored paranoid and depressive trends in a patient who was abused as a child and discussed how each parent affected the patient's way of coping with life's challenges.
Abstract: This paper explores paranoid and depressive trends in a patient who was abused as a child. It discusses how each parent affected the patient's way of coping with life's challenges. In this context, paranoia is described as a set of defenses against the father's shocking intrusions, while the mother's impact shows itself in the patient's depressive tendencies.