bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
On Structures
Authors: Applegarth Adrienne
Published: June 2009

Some of the metapsychology involving the concept of structure is briefly reviewed, together with some difficulties presented by it. The concept of structure is defined, for purposes of the paper, and various kinds of structures are delineated. The author confines herself to the “microstructures,” such as memories, cognitive structures, affect structures, defenses, identifications. Possible factors related to the development and maintenance of structures are discussed. In addition, the concept of structural change is taken up. It is suggested that an essential in such change is conscious review, however brief. The author proposes that structure formation and change is a fruitful area for mutual work by psychoanalysts and basic scientists.
Our Analytic Heritage: Ideals and Idealizations
Authors: Simons Richard C.
Published: June 2009

The relation between ideals and idealizations is examined with regard to the aims of the American Psychoanalytic Association in advancing psychoanalytic education, practice, and research. Ideals are essential for preserving the past and as guides for the future. However, the idealizations that often develop in response to new discoveries and innovations may lead to a defensive clinging to the past as well as to an overly enthusiastic embrace of new ideas. Both these forms of idealization may serve as powerful resistances to creative and constructive change.
Unconscious Fantasy: Introduction
Authors: Shapiro Theodore
Published: June 2009

Freudian psychoanalysis has long been a depth psychology with devotion to the idea that unconscious fantasies dictate behavior. That concept is traced from its origins to the present to expose its various forms as ego psychology has emerged.
Unconscious Fantasies, Structural Theory, and Compromise Formation
Authors: Abend Sander M.
Published: June 2009

Although the existence of unconsciuous fantasies is an empirical assumption, in the clinical situation unconscious fantasies are treated as if they have a concrete existence.

Unconscious fantasies form intermediate links in causal chains of which clinical observations constitute one end, and the components of unconscious conflicts, the other. Like all clinical material, fantasies may be affected by actual experiences; they may also be revised, layered, and can function to alter and disguise other fantasies as well as provide gratification. From a technical standpoint, it is most important to analyze their constituents and to adduce their primary purposes in the clinical situation of the moment.

The nature of the evidence that identifies the presence of particular unconscious fantasies is discussed. Although a single analytic session is presented by way of illustration, I am convinced that the analyst's entire understanding of the patient inevitably channels his or her interpretive focus on the associational material of each analytic hour.
Unconscious Fantasy: Developmental and Self-Psychological Considerations
Authors: Shane Morton , Shane Estelle
Published: June 2009

The authors view unconscious fantasy from the perspective of self psychology as a significant addition and emendation of the classical framework. A selective review of the pertinent literature is presented, followed by clinical material illustrating the contribution of self-psychological concepts to the understanding of unconscious fantasy formation.
Unconscious Fantasy: A Reconsideration of the Concept
Authors: Inderbitzin Lawrence B. , Levy Steven T.
Published: June 2009

Despite general agreement about the clinical importance of unconscious fantasy, the concept itself has remained unclear. After reviewing Freud's work on the subject, the conceptual dilemma is specified: where in current psychoanalytic theory do we place this important, dynamically repressed, structuralized mental content? Three conceptual paths have been followed in attempting to deal with this problem. The first emphasizes the structural, tripartite model, discarding topographic concepts. The second replaces the structural model with a schema model borrowed from academic psychology. The third combines the structural and topographic models. None of these approaches is entirely satisfactory and without problems.

Because of their central role in mental life, unconscious fantasies deserve careful definition. They should be distinguished from conscious fantasies and daydreams as well as from the process of fantasizing. They are differentiated from other varieties of unconscious content by their enduring quality and their organized, storylike quality reflecting the distortions typical of the primary process. As dynamically unconscious templates from the childhood past, they shape subsequent compromise formations and are relatively impervious to new experience. The development of psychoanalytic theory from a macrostructural to a microstructural emphasis is discussed in relation to the unconscious fantasy concept.
A Model of Mourning: Change in Schemas of Self and Other
Authors: Horowitz Mardi J.
Published: June 2009

The mourning process may serve an evolutionary purpose, one that has allowed maximum survival characteristics. By passage through the phases of grief, the bereaved person prepares to make new commitments to others and to accept new personal roles. This passage involves an unconscious change in mental structures of meanings about the self and other people. This paper examines mourning in terms of such person schemas.
The Transference Neurosis in Freud's Writings
Authors: Reed Gail S.
Published: June 2009

This paper reviews the evolution of the concept of transference neurosis in Freud's writings. It suggests that the language in which the concept of the transference neurosis is originally expressed by Freud includes an idea of the analyst as aggressively pursuing the analytic cure by waging a solitary battle against the patient's disease. With the representation of the death drive and the larger role accorded to sadism as its external manifestation in Freud's revised drive theory of 1920, the patient becomes the ally; resistance, in the sense of the conservative forces, not disease, in the sense of libidinal conflict, becomes the enemy. It is thus difficult to speak of a transference neurosis in the circumscribed way Freud originally meant it, and he ceased to use the term after 1926 rather than redefine it to fit his broader perspective. In this broader perspective, relative resolution of conflict replaced radical liberation of the patient from disease.

That Freud did not redefine the term does not imply that he discarded it, or that we necessarily should. This paper suggests that Freud implied a functional distinction between transference as transforming agent and transference neurosis as result of that transformation. That distinction defines psychoanalytic cure in terms of the understanding of a symbolic transformation which is, through the transference neurosis, reexperienced as part of the psychoanalytic process.
Introducing Psychiatric Residents to Psychoanalysis: A Visiting Analyst's Perspective
Authors: Sonnenberg Stephen M.
Published: June 2009

The serious decline in applicants for psychoanalytic training mandates the attention of psychoanalytic educators. If students are to be drawn to psychoanalysis, creative methods must be employed to convey the vigor and excitement of work in the field.
Foundations of Psychoanalysis Reconsidered
Authors: Meissner W. W.
Published: June 2009

Grünbaum's approach to psychoanalysis suffers from several difficulties. It imposes a standard of logical reductionism and methodological purity that not only violates the nature of psychoanalytic knowledge, but imposes an invalid standard of verification and scientific confirmation. It utilizes a brand of dichotomous reasoning that forces psychoanalytic propositions into artificial positions that do not reflect the actuality of analytic practice. It imposes a standard of verification that is impossible for psychoanalysis, along with all forms of psychological knowledge, to reach. It visualizes psychoanalysis as encompassing only one form of knowledge of human psychic life, forcing it into a model that eliminates other aspects of the psychoanalytic process, so that psychoanalysis is subjected to criticism only on one dimension among several-a kind of psychoanalytic straw man. The psychoanalysis that is so impaled often is difficult for the psychoanalytic practitioner to recognize. To the extent that Grünbaum's skillful and highly informed criticism of the philosophical bases of psychoanalysis encounters these difficulties, the value of his argument falls short of providing a useful basis for advancing psychoanalytic knowledge and particularly for promoting the quest for pertinent standards of validation within psychoanalysis.
“Meaning” Connections and Causal Connections in the Human Sciences: The Poverty of Hermeneutic Philosophy
Authors: Grünbaum Adolf
Published: June 2009

In much of psychoanalytic theory and therapy, Freud repeatedly inferred a causal connection between thematically kindred events by relying on the kinship between their thematic contents. This paper strongly endorses his search for causal explanations. But it argues in detail that (1) his causal inferences from thematic connections rest on an important fallacy, which undermines major etiologic conclusions in psychoanalysis; (2) a related, weighty inferential error is damaging to the Freudian theory of transference, when it infers the pathogenic role of an early childhood scenario from the thematic reenactment (recapitulation) of that scenario in the adult patient's interactions with the analyst, and with other people. Both arguments draw on subject matter in psychoanalysis, physics, evolutionary biology, common-sense psychology, history, and medicine to arrive at a fundamental caveat for all of the sciences: Even when the thematic kinship (or so-called “meaning connection”) between events is indeed of very high degree, this fact itself does not license the inference of a causal linkage between these events. A corollary of this result is that we must reject the accusation of Karl Jaspers and the hermeneutic philosophers that Freud's own conception of the psychoanalytic enterprise suffered from a “scientistic self-misunderstanding.”
Helping Patients by Analyzing Self-Criticism
Authors: Kris Anton O.
Published: June 2009

This paper is addressed to patients' need for help with punitive self-critical attitudes. Such help has not always been sufficiently provided by psychoanalysts, owing to an unrecognized failure of neutrality. Historically, a gradual overemphasis on the concept of an unconscious sense of guilt has acted as a barrier to the appreciation of shame. An alternative concept, punitive unconscious self-criticism, which stands in contrast to constructive self-criticism and is common to the painful affects of guilt, shame, humiliation, and depression, can facilitate helpful analytic treatment. Heinz Kohut's contributions are examined. His analytic stance is differentiated from his theories of development. In the former, characterized by an affirmative altitude, he takes a position of functional neutrality toward shame and pays consistent though unstated attention to the effects of punitive unconscious self-criticism. The affirmative attitude can be employed without adoption of Kohut's self psychology, i.e., without abandoning the basic psychoanalytic approach to mental conflict and development. The concept of punitive unconscious self-criticism and the concept of divergent conflict, provide sufficient explanatory power. Clinical examples are used to illustrate these ideas.
Followup of Psychoanalysis to Ten Years After Termination: III. The Relation Between the Resolution of the Transference and the Patient-Analyst Match
Authors: Kantrowitz Judy L. , Katz Ann L. , Paolitto Frank
Published: June 2009

As part of a long-term followup study of the outcome of psychoanalysis, we examined the relation between the extent of resolution of the transference at termination and the characteristics of the patient-analyst match. For twelve of the seventeen patients interviewed five to ten years after termination of psychoanalysis, the researchers found that the patient-analyst match played a role in the outcome of the analysis. Illustration of the influence of the match in cases where the transference was resolved and those where it was not are presented.
An Exploratory Study of Mother-Child Interaction During the Second Year of Life
Authors: Settlage Calvin F. , Rosenthal Judith , Spielman Philip M. , Gassner Suzanne , Afterman Joseph , Bemesderfer Sandra , Kolodny Susan
Published: June 2009

The aim of this study was to further understanding of development during the crucial second year of life. The study employed a naturalistic, semistructured situation for the observation of mother-child behavior. The experimental stimulus was the progressive diversion of the mother's attention away from her child. This diversion evoked separation anxiety in the child and the individual and interactive regulatory behaviors of the mother-child pair. Concurrently, the child's behavior was observed in a play group situation. One set of rating scales was devised for assessment of the mother-child interaction, and another set for assessment of the child's functioning in the play group. The major hypothesis was that maternal and child behaviors that foster the child's successful handling of phase-specific stresses and developmental tasks will be positively correlated with the child's functioning in the play group. This hypothesis is supported by the findings of the study.
Mobilizing Fundamental Modes of Development: Empathic Availability and Therapeutic Action
Authors: Emde Robert N.
Published: June 2009

A positive developmental thrust becomes mobilized by virtue of therapeutic action. This thrust is specified in terms of a set of fundamental modes of development that are biologically prepared and have been identified through recent research. The modes are first apparent in infancy and continue throughout life. The setting conditions which allow for the fundamental modes of development to be reactivated are provided by the therapeutic relationship. It is hypothesized that the empathic availability of the therapist enables these modes to operate as powerful background influences. Developmental aspects of empathy and of availability highlight the importance of adult regulatory functions and the construction of shared meaning.
Developmental Psychology and Psychoanalysis: I. the Context for a Revolution in Psychoanalysis
Authors: Leichtman Martin
Published: June 2009

After describing the manner in which the integration of psychoanalysis and developmental psychology became a central problem for ego psychology, the author examines the conditions that make it possible for new research and theory in developmental psychology to contribute to a revolution in contemporary psychoanalytic theory. They include: (1) the emergence of a state of “crisis” in American psychoanalysis centering on questions of the nature of early development and how it can be known; (2) the explosive growth of developmental research on early childhood dealing with issues at the heart of that crisis; and (3) the presence of a new generation of psychoanalysts and psychoanalytically oriented researchers capable of bringing that research to bear on those issues.
Four Psychoanalytic Perspectives: A Study of Differences in Interpretive Interventions
Authors: Fine Sidney , Fine Esther
Published: June 2009

This research study was designed to test two main hypotheses: (1) there are detectable differences in interpretive style among classical, Kleinian, Kohutian, and Kernbergian analysts; and (2) the nature of these differences can be discerned and described. The methodology consists of three phases of data collection. The statistical findings are presented, along with clinical examples, followed by a discussion of their implications.
Psychoanalytic Concepts of the Etiology of Severe Mental Illness
Authors: Willick Martin S.
Published: June 2009

In this paper I challenge some prevalent psychoanalytic concepts of the etiology and pathogenesis of severe mental illness which I believe to be in need of revision. There is insufficient evidence to conclude that the etiology of the two major adult psychoses, schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness, can be attributed to failures in development or fixations during the earliest years of life. Furthermore, I believe it incorrect to ascribe these failures of development to deficiencies in the early maternal environment. I base my disagreements on three main considerations: the misinterpretation of the etiological significance of regression, the relevance of new biological data, and erroneous conclusions drawn from lack of diagnostic distinctions.

I also challenge the generally held concept of etiologic phase specificity which proposes that failures during various early phases of development can be correlated with different kinds of adult psychopathology. In calling this concept into question, I argue that current psychoanalytic concepts of the etiology of the borderline group of disorders also need to be reevaluated.
A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Depression
Authors: Brenner Charles
Published: June 2009

A correct understanding of the role of depressive affect in triggering psychic conflict leads to a reformulation of the origins and the psychodynamics of depression as a feature of mental illness. It also raises serious question about the validity of the diagnosis of depressive illness.
Aggression and Love in the Relationship of the Couple
Authors: Kernberg Otto F.
Published: June 2009

In this paper I examine the interplay of love and aggression in a couple's emotional relationship. I explore the activation of dominant repressed or dissociated object relations with the parental figures, and the unconscious collusion of both partners to enact these past relationships in the present. I then examine the couple's relationship as determined by differences in male and female development, as well as the counterpart of these differences-unconscious moves toward “twinship” and complementarity.

Unresolved oedipal conflicts are explored as a major cause of invasion of the couple's sexual boundaries, and a vehicle for the expression of dissociated aggression from many sources. Perversity-the “recruitment of love at the service of aggression”—as a threat to the basic fabric of a couple's love life is one alternative to the normal channels for elaboration of aggression in their relationship. Protective functions of the couple's interaction with their social network are examined in the context of their elaborating and integrating aggression with love.
Between Prolixity and Reductionism: Psychoanalytic Theory and Occam's Razor
Authors: Gedo John E.
Published: June 2009

To achieve a coherent theory of mental functioning, psychoanalysis cannot continue to explicate its observations through the “complementary“ use of models based on differing premises. Moreover, the current profusion of plausible theories is unmanageably prolix; it is true, however, that theory must account for the complexity of constant shifts of developmental levels in terms of currently used adaptive devices. The simplest possible clinical theory will add to existing theories of motivation and development only the concepts needed to explicate reasons for these shifts in modes of functioning. Motivations are preprogrammed in the brain, so that theories of motivation must be congruent with neurophysiological knowledge. But the current status of a person's organismic motivations can only be inferred on the basis of the affective reactions they generate.

The acquisition of symbolic capacities changes the infant from an organism automatically striving to fulfill a preprogrammed ground plan into a creature of self-awareness able to formulate wishes and to establish those priorities among them best called “self-organization.” Thenceforth various wishes may come into conflict; the need to avoid the resultant discomfort gives rise to defensive operations. Defense may take the form of regression, although the latter is generally based on established deficits in the adaptive repertory-“apraxias.” If developmental progress takes place, superseded modes of behavioral organization remain forever available for contingencies wherein they are advantageous. The theory presented meets the criteria of “Occam's razor”; it remains to be seen, however, whether it does so at the cost of some reductionism.
One Kind of Negative Therapeutic Reaction
Authors: Renik Owen
Published: June 2009

A case is reported in which a young man for several years experienced his analysis primarily as a source of pain. Each new insight he achieved was an occasion for increased distress rather than liberation. Considerable analytic work elucidating motives for this negative therapeutic reaction produced no change in it. Eventually, it could be determined that the patient's need to suffer within the treatment relationship served a specific form of denial in fantasy that has not, to the author's knowledge, been described elsewhere. The importance of covert libidinal, object-preservative aims in such frustrating and destructive impasses is discussed, as well as the role of countertransference enactment.
The Psychoanalytic Treatment of a Preschool Boy With a Gender Identity Disorder
Authors: Haber Calvin H.
Published: June 2009

A three-year, nine-month-old boy began analysis by wishing he was a girl and pretending he was a superheroine. Over the course of almost five years, the cross-gender defense against fear of loss of the object, anal loss, and castration by the object reorganized in all libidinal phases through early latency. Developmental arrests seemed to occur during the anal rapprochement and oedipal phases that led to observable cross-gender strivings by two and a half years of age. The role of early childhood illness, narcissistic vulnerability, mother's childhood wish for a sister, the mother's adult wish for a daughter, a shared fantasy between mother and child, identification with the perceived power and beauty of mother and grandmother, pathological sibling rivalry that influenced identification with his sister, were demonstrated in his play during sessions. Interwoven in the background was the impact of an emotionally absent father, a dying grandfather, and an accident-prone uncle. This paternal matrix seemed to discourage budding masculinity and encourage feminine identifications.

The analyst's approach and the child's responses to interpretation of the transference manifestations, cross-gender behavior, fantasies, and play are presented. Finally, the gradual resolution of the conflicted wish to be a girl was supplanted by the emergence of appropriate gender identification. A two-year followup appeared to confirm his postanalytic gender stance and continuing consolidation of stable gender development.
Some Comments on Masochism and the Delusion of Omnipotence From A Developmental Perspective
Authors: Novick Jack , Novick Kerry Kelly
Published: June 2009

This paper explores the relation of the delusion of omnipotence to masochism and suggests that this fantasy constitutes a major component of the resistance so prominent in work with masochistic patients. The connections among masochism, omnipotence, negative therapeutic reaction, and clinging to pain are discussed. The classical view has been that the failure of infantile omnipotence forces the child to turn to reality. Our experience with masochistic patients suggests that it is the real failure to achieve competent interactions with others that forces the child to turn to omnipotent solutions. The distinction is made between fantasies that enhance the real capacities of the self and those aimed at denying and transforming the pain and inadequacy of the mother–child relationship. The epigenetic transformations of omnipotent fantasies through all levels of development are described. The patient's need to protect the omnipotent fantasy is discussed in relation to resistance at each phase of analysis.
Sadomasochism, Sexual Excitement, and Perversion
Authors: Kernberg Otto F.
Published: June 2009

Sadomasochism, an ingredient of infantile sexuality, is an essential part of normal sexual functioning and love relations, and of the very nature of sexual excitement. Sadomasochistic elements are also present in all sexual perversions. Sadomasochism starts out as the potential for erotic masochism in both sexes, and represents a very early capacity to link aggression with the libidinal elements of sexual excitement. Sexual excitement may be considered a basic affect that overcomes primitive splitting of love and hatred. Erotic desire is a more mature form of sexual excitement. Psychoanalytic exploration makes it possible to uncover the unconscious components of sexual excitement: wishes for symbiotic fusion and for aggressive penetration and intermingling; bisexual identifications; the desire to transgress oedipal prohibitions and the secretiveness of the primal scene, and to violate the boundaries of a leasing and withholding object. The relation between these wishes and the development of erotic idealization processes in both sexes is explored in the context of a critical review of the pertinent psychoanalytic literature.
The Dread to Repeat: Comments on the Working–Through Process in Psychoanalysis
Authors: Ornstein Anna
Published: June 2009

This paper focuses on the process of working through in psychoanalysis. Reemphasis of the centrality of the empathic listening perspective and discovery of the selfobject transferences made it necessary to reconceptualize various aspects of the analytic process from the perspective of psychoanalytic self psychology. With the help of a clinical vignette, the paper illustrates the manner in which archaic defense organizations and newly developing psychic structures find a compromise solution in a transference symptom. Such symptoms can serve as nodal points in the process of working through; they represent a transitional phase between the old automatic responses to narcissistic injury and an increased capacity to use signal anxiety. The psychopathology that became illuminated in this process can be described phenomenologically as a self–defeating personality disorder.
Sadomasochism and the Defense Against Recall of Painful Affect
Authors: Blos Peter
Published: June 2009

Defense against recall of painful affect is proposed as a significant element in the complex entity of neurotic sadomasochism and symptom formation. This formulation requires that the fantasy of reversibility-what happened can be undone-be analyzed in the transference and predict, for the patient, a painful feeling of loss and rage. The structure and tenacity of the powerful resistance to this work has the regressive, anal nature of reversibility which is also seen in the sadomasochistic characteristic of self and object interchangeability. The perceived threat of loss may be understood as related to early object loss, either whole or partial, and is associated with a flawed body image. Because the formative circumstances lie deep within the patient's past, reuniting residual affect, historical event, and early wishes by means of reconstruction is the only means, of resolution. But, because it requires the relinquishment of the sustaining illusions of the sadomasochistic structure-omnipotentiality, omnipotence and bisexuality-the process will be experienced by the patient as intensely narcissistically dangerous. Vignettes from the analyses of two women illustrate the thesis and suggest the scope and direction of its clinical application.
Freud and the Figure of Moses: The Moses of Freud
Authors: Blum Harold P.
Published: June 2009

Moses was a lifelong preoccupation of Freud, representing a double and idealized self and object. Freud identified with different aspects of Moses during different periods of development, from concrete hero to abstract ideal. He turned to Moses in the concluding phase of his relationship with Fliess and his self–analysis, and then at other times of crisis. The Moses recreated by Freud is important to the evolution of the concepts of the superego, and his Moses studies simultaneously illuminate the developmental significance of internalization, identification, and abstract symbolic thought. Latently autobiographical, the Moses motif is related to the analysis of unconscious conflict and trauma and to issues of Jewish identity and analytic ideals.
On Methods of Reporting Clinical Material
Authors: Klumpner George H. , Frank Alvin
Published: June 2009

The members of the Committee on Scientific Activities of the American Psychoanalytic Association are concerned about the paucity of clinical data in psychoanalytic reports and by the quality of what does exist. We have proposed a few standards for clinical reports that we believe will be reliable and clear and will have enduring usefulness. We recognize the need for maintaining confidentiality and, at times, for disguise; we also recognize the need to balance these requirements against (he dangers of misleading the reader (or listener). These conflicting requirements have resulted in our concentrating on some general principles for clinical reporting. We have appended a tentative form, and examples, to be considered for that purpose.
Clinical and Theoretical Aspects of Enactment
Authors: McLaughlin James T.
Published: June 2009

Enactment as a concept can serve analytic discourse through its established meaning of an act intended strongly to influence, persuade, or force another to react. We might agree to use the term in two complementary ways: Broadly, enactment can designate all behaviors of both parties in the analytic relationship, even verbal, in consequence of the intensification of the action intent of our words created by the constraints and regressive push induced by the analytic rules and frame. Patient and analyst are vulnerable to falling back on behaviors that actualize their intentions, doing so in ways motivated by and reflecting transference hopes, fears, and compromises shaped in their developmental past. Specifically, enactment can then be defined as those regressive (defensive) interactions between the pair experienced by either as a consequence of the behavior of the other. While nominally an interpersonal perspective, this concept of enactment facilitates more balanced attention to the involvement of both parties and to the intrapsychic dynamics in both that specifically shape their interactions. A clinical vignette illustrates the analyst's contributions to enactment, especially those reflecting his reactivated conflicts and their relation to his theoretical and technical preferences.
Is the Oedipus Complex Still the Cornerstone of Psychoanalysis? Three Obstacles to Answering the Question
Authors: Simon Bennett
Published: June 2009

Current controversies about the centrality of the Oedipus complex in psychoanalysis are difficult to resolve unless we address three obstacles in the way of rational examination. The first is that the Oedipus complex, Freud's “shibboleth” of psychoanalysis, is politically controversial. Second is the great difficulty in agreeing upon the definition and boundaries of the Oedipus complex, especially the necessary complexities introduced with the negative Oedipus complex, female sexuality, the nature of the preoedipal, and counteroedipal fantasies and actions. The third obstacle involves basic questions of psychoanalytic epistemology: our criteria for evidence to prove or disprove any particular proposition. I conclude that the awareness of these difficulties signifies a certain maturation in our thinking and that the complexity introduced by these obstacles can in time provide the groundwork for a set of formulations that is richer and closer to the complexities and ambiguities of the clinical situation.
The Analyst's Self-Analysis and its Impact on Clinical Work: A Comment on the Sources and Importance of Personal Insights
Authors: Sonnenberg Stephen M.
Published: June 2009

In reviewing descriptions of self-analysis in the literature, as part of an ongoing inquiry into the nature and role of self-analysis in the life and work of the psychoanalyst, the author noted a focus on circumscribed self-analytic work, or on a method for self-analysis that did not stress its clinical relevance. Missing were descriptions of the encompassing, multi-sourced, multimotivated, interminable nature of self-analysis in the analyst's work life and personal life. In response to those findings, the author focuses on the conduct of his self-analysis over a period of several months, following an illness experienced by his mother. He attempts to convey certain qualities of his self-analysis: it goes on all the time, it is variously fueled by experiences in and outside his consulting room, and it is practiced self-consciously and with self-discipline. He also describes the ways in which his self-analysis enhances his clinical effectiveness and promotes his personal growth, and notes that all of an analyst's experiences are interconnected opportunities for personal and professional development.
A Patient's Transference to the Analyst's Supervisor: Effect of the Setting on the Analytic Process
Authors: Luber M. Philip
Published: June 2009

A case is presented in which the patient's transference to the analyst's supervisor became evident just prior to the switch from clinic to private patient status. The patient experienced the supervisor as a restraining father figure who protected her from acting on her erotic wishes toward the analyst. Analysis of this led to the recall of previously repressed memories of sexual wishes toward her brother, and the sense of protection from these wishes that she had gotten from the presence of her father. The literature on transference involving the supervisory constellation and the training setting is reviewed, and the concepts of split and institutional transference are examined. Factors inhibiting the analysis of patient' fantasies about the analyst's status as trainee, including the presence of the supervisor and the institute, are discussed.
After the Analysis: Analyst as Both Old and New Object
Authors: Pfeffer Arnold Z.
Published: June 2009

In the course of followup study of satisfactorily analyzed former patients, there are observed two sets of phenomena: (1) recurrence of the analytic transference neurosis, and (2) rapid recovery from this transference neurosis. These phenomena are telescoped repetitions of the analysis and reflect the ongoing mental representation of the analyst as a displacement from the objects of the past, organized into the transference neurosis. The spontaneous and rapid recovery from the transference neurosis in followup study repeats the “cure” of the analysis and the new ongoing representation of the analyst as a nonconflicted object. This new image of the analyst is based on both the resolution of the transference neurosis and new displacements from positive experiences with significant figures from the past.
Shall Drawing Become Part of Free Association?: Proposal for a Modification in Psychoanalytic Technique
Authors: Brakel Linda A. Wimer
Published: June 2009

Three psychoanalytic case vignettes are presented where drawing is used beneficially as part of the free-associative process. The history of the psychoanalytic use of drawing is briefly reviewed, together with a new technical proposal regarding the role of drawing in free association, Justification for testing this modification leads to a consideration of methodological issues and the nature of free association. Possible advantages of this modification, including enhanced clinical understanding through integration of pictorial and verbal modes, and greater potential for access to the period of life where experience is more visually dominated, are considered and also discussed in relation to dual hemispheric mental organization.
On Reminiscences
Authors: Shapiro Theodore
Published: June 2009

Recently, psychoanalysts have focused on narrative truth and her-meneutics with diminished attention to the role of remembering in symptom formation and treatment. This shift has tended to remove us from prior status as a motivational and cognitive science with potential for causal inferences. At the same time, psychiatry and cognitive science have moved toward a vigorous study of reminiscences and their role in pathology. Arguments for a revival of Freud's position on the central role of memory are cited. A case example is offered to show that Freud and his psychoanalytic progeny have never taken a simplistic view of archeological truth, but were among the original group to bring to light the distorting effect of mind on remembering, and actually led the way for other scientific approaches.
Useful Aspects of Acting Out: Repetition, Enactment, and Actualization
Authors: Roughton Ralph E.
Published: June 2009

In his seminal paper on acting out, Freud (1914) wrote: “We render the compulsion [to repeat] harmless, and indeed useful, by giving it the right to assert itself in a definite field. We admit it into the transference as a playground in which it is allowed to expand in almost complete freedom and in which it is expected to display to us everything in the way of pathogenic instincts that is hidden in the patients mind” (p. 154). This paper reexamines the ambiguous concept of acting out as both a resistance to and a useful component of the analytic process. Current concepts of repetition in the transference, enactment, and actualization avoid the pejorative connotation of acting out and, therefore, allow for a more neutral, analytic attitude toward these inevitable and vital components of the analytic process.
Can Analysts Agree? The Problems of Consensus and the Psychoanalytic Mannequin: I. A Proposed Solution
Authors: Caston Joseph
Published: June 2009

Psychoanalysis, plagued by lack of demonstrable consensus on clinical formulations, is as much endangered by overinflated agreement from stereotypical dynamic formulas: tests of psychoanalytic hypotheses derived from any such formulations may therefore rest on questionable foundations. The problems that give rise to artifactual overagreement or failure to reach agreement are here traced in earlier empirical psychoanalytic research. Review reveals that although new and inventive empirical strategies (applied in the last two decades) achieve adequate success in the area of agreement, they demonstrate little headway in ruling out that stereotypy may underlie such consensus. The present investigation offers a solution for testing agreement in complex clinical psychoanalytic propositions, in a way that sets up a “test of the mannequin”: that is, whether stereotypical assumptions about the patient's dynamics are overridden (revised) by the specific character of a given patient's narrative. The mannequin concept introduces a new and epistemically crucial consideration in the making of psychodynamic formulations and is relevant to both empirically controlled and clinical contexts of observation and formulation. No psychoanalytic paradigm, whether classically ego-psychological, self-psychological, control-mastery, or object-relational, escapes this problem.
Can Analysts Agree? The Problems of Consensus and the Psychoanalytic Mannequin: II. Empirical Tests
Authors: Caston Joseph , Martin Elinor
Published: June 2009

The present investigation reports on the execution of an empirical strategy for testing agreement in complex clinical psychoanalytic propositions, and for testing whether stereotypical assumptions are overridden (revised) by the specific character of the patient's narrative. The findings reveal that, in general, for the several domains of psychoanalytic formulation, psychoanalyst judges reach superior levels of ordinal agreement, and modest to good levels for agreement on magnitude. Moreover, formulations based on verbatim psychoanalytic sessions pass the “test of the mannequin” in most domains, i.e., surpass stereotypical psychoanalytic assumptions about the patient's dynamics. The mannequin concept, here operationalized, introduces a new and epistemically crucial consideration for the making of psychodynamic formulations. Other novel contributions of these studies include the development of operationalized measures of (reconstructive) historical linkage, and the introduction of magnitudinal agreement in this empirical area.
A Transitional Phase in our Understanding of the Psychoanalytic Process: A New Look at Ferenczi and Rank
Authors: Fogel Gerald I.
Published: June 2009

In The Development of Psychoanalysis, Ferenczi and Rank (1922) demonstrate an important transitional phase in the conceptualization of the psychoanalytic process. It is not the archaic language of libidinal flow that separates their work from modern psychoanalysis, but their insistence on the ideal of the analysts's objective authority, despite the implicitly more current interpersonal and structural understandings embedded in their sound principles of character analysis. Freud's early theory presumed the possibility that an analyst could be an objective observer of forces entirely within the patient. Today's theories must account for newer intrapsychic, interpersonal, and intersubjective realities-the analysts subjective experience as well as his observing functions. In the decade preceding the monograph, implicit developmental, structural, and object-relational understandings began to emerge. A concurrent dramatic but unacknowledged change in the meaning of the terms “psychic reality” and “intrapsychic” also occurred. The controversies surrounding the monograph predicted many lines of development and dialectics for future theoretical discourse. The subjects of counter transference and empathy, almost entirely absent in the monograph, became major fields of study, and focal points for divergent schools in the new struggle to define the necessary roles of the analyst's interaction and subjective experience.
Reflections on the History of Psychoanalysis
Authors: Bergmann Martin S.
Published: June 2009

The proliferation of psychoanalytic schools demands the reexamination of the history of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis emerged at the intersection between the rational heritage of the enlightenment and the interest in the morbid that was the hallmark of romanticism. This paper focuses on moments when psychoanalysis was poised at a crossroads where various routes could have been taken. Differentiation is made among the heretics, modifiers, and extenders of psychoanalysis. Discussed within a historical frame of reference are the contributions of leading modifiers-Melanie Klein, Hartmann, Winnicott, Kohut, and others-as well as their extenders. The paper concludes with a discussion of some current urgent problems facing psychoanalysis.
Measuring the Ghost In the Nursery: An Empirical Study of the Relation between Parents' Mental Representations of Childhood Experiences And Their Infants' Security of Attachment
Authors: Fonagy Peter , Steele Miriam , Moran George , Steele Howard , Higgitt Anna
Published: June 2009

This paper presents a summary of the Anna Freud Centre-University College London, Parent-Child Project. Its most important finding was that the security of the infants' relationship with both parents at 12 and 18 months could be predicted on the basis of qualitative aspects of the parents' accounts of their own childhoods collected before the birth of the child. This confirmed Selma Fraiberg's observations concerning the reemergence of childhood conflicts at early stages of childbearing. Possible mechanisms mediating this link are explored with particular reference to the role of the parents' accurate mental representations of the infants' menial world.
Impasses in Psychoanalysis: Overcoming Resistance in Situations of Stalemate
Authors: Kantrowitz Judy L.
Published: June 2009

Many impasses occur in treatment when the patient fears that analysis will repeat frightening or disappointing experiences. These stalemates result from the patient's conviction that the analyst has confirmed a preexisting belief that is central to the patient's primary conflict. Frequently, this belief involves an unacceptable or frightening self- or object representation. At these times, intense resistance and strong negative transference/countertransference reactions may develop. Impasses are differentiated from these strong negative reactions only by virtue of the fact that they remain unanalyzed. The factors that create these negative states can best be understood in instances where the potential impasse is resolved. When impasses persist, most often patients leave treatment. Under these circumstances, we can try retrospectively to understand what has gone wrong, but without the patient's confirmation, our conclusions must remain speculative. Four cases illustrate varying degrees of analysis and resolution of resistance and transferencel countertransference binds.
In Search of Psychoanalytic Technique: Perspectives from on the Couch and from Behind the Couch
Authors: Simon Bennett
Published: June 2009

The author's experience as a patient in analysis with four different analysts is recounted. Similarities and differences in technique, especially with regard to overall analytic atmosphere, use of interpretation, reconstruction of childhood, dream interpretation, self-revelations of the analyst, and the way politics was discussed are compared. The author concludes that major differences in personality and temperament of the four analysts made a substantial difference in the experience of analysis. Finally, the author discusses whether such differences are indeed important, and in what sense we can speak of the place of analytic technique. Is it a body of leaching and practice that is aimed at minimizing the differences attributable to individual analysts' style and temperament, or is it a body of teaching and practice, still to be elaborated, that gives us a full and flexible account of how analysts actually function?
Monitoring The Analytic Surface
Authors: Spence Donald P. , Mayes Linda C. , Dahl Hartvig
Published: June 2009

How do we listen during an analytic hour? Systematic analysis of the speech patterns of one patient (Mrs. C.) strongly suggests that the clustering of shared pronouns (e.g., you/me) represents an important aspect of the analytic surface, preconsciously sensed by the analyst and used by him to determine when to intervene. Sensitivity to these patterns increases over the course of treatment, and in a filial block of 10 hours shows a striking degree of contingent responsivily: specific utterances by the patient are consistently echoed by the analyst's interventions.
The Reconstruction of Early Childhood Trauma: Fantasy, Reality, and Verification
Authors: Good Michael I.
Published: June 2009

The contrasting perspectives of historical (actual, material) truth as opposed to narrative (intrapsychic) truth in psychoanalytic reconstruction parallel the controversial shift in Freud's thinking from a traumatic theory of neurosogenesis to a greater emphasis on fantasy and psychic reality. Freud and analysts since have sought to tease apart psychic and material reality as they dovetail in the transference. However, published cases in which a patient's memory of a childhood trauma turned out to be a verifiable fantasy or false belief and not an actuality appear to be remarkably scarce. This paper describes a case in which the patient indicated that in early childhood she had been subjected to antimasturbatory measures and finally to clitoridectomy that had ongoing traumatic effects. The case strikingly illustrates how a false memory of shock trauma may represent effects of strain traumatization interacting with fantasy and the state of drives and ego development in early childhood. It also highlights issues in the areas of trauma and memory, historical and intrapsychic truth, and the theory and technique of psychoanalytic reconstruction. Although it may not always be possible in the psychoanalytic situation to differentiate actual and plausible past events, in some cases the distinction between these perspectives on truth has clinical relevance that is more than academic.