bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Emergence of Assertion and Aggression During Infancy: A Psychoanalytic Systems Approach
Authors: Stechler Gerald , Halton Antonia
Published: June 2009

A model is presented in which asssertion and aggression are seen as arising from two entirely different biopsychological systems in the human infant. Assertion derives from the universal tendency to be active, to seek stimuli, to generate plans, and to carry them out. It is a self-activating system and is generally associated with the positive affects of joy, interest, and excitement. Aggression derives from the equally universal self-protective system. This system, however, is reactive in the face of a perceived threat and is associated with the dysphoric affects of anger, fear, and distress. During the infant and toddler period, the child's assertions may be treated punitively by the parents as if they were aggressive acts. The child in turn feels threatened and becomes self-protective. The result is a contamination between assertion and aggression and the creation of a new self-sustaining system in which aggression appears to be spontaneous and self-activating. If assertions are frequently blocked, the contamination may be extensive, and it may appear as if an aggressive instinctual process is present. However, a systemic explanation provides a much better fit with the empirical observations than does an instinctual one. Four examples of different family styles are presented. The model permits one to understand the subtle qualitative differences in style reflecting different individual combinations of assertion and aggression and their associated affects.
Psychological Concepts Useful in the Building of Political Foundations between Nations: Track II Diplomacy
Authors: Volkan Vamik D.
Published: June 2009

There are two phases in the process of negotiating for peace with antagonistic national groups. The leader (or leaders) of one such group will not negotiate with his opposite number until political foundations to support such negotiation are laid down, and obstacles to peace identified and dealt with; at least some measure of success is anticipated by both sides. Accordingly, the first phase requires the building of bridges between those representing opposing nations. The activities in this preliminary phase are sometimes called Track II diplomacy; they differ from those of official or Track I diplomacy. I suggest two kinds of concepts that may be useful in Track II diplomacy, and present them in the hope of initialing further discussion, and exploration of metapsychological underpinnings of each concept. As Mitscherlich (1971) suggested, the psychology of international politics may be better understood if psychoanalysts are willing to engage in interdisciplinary work with others engaged in such endeavors.
Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic Science, and Psychoanalytic Research-1986
Authors: Wallerstein Robert S.
Published: June 2009

The present standing of psychoanalysis as a science and the vitality of psychoanalytic research effort are reviewed. The two are interdependent, since the possibilities for empirical research rest on the necessary assumption that psychoanalysis is indeed enough a science to be susceptible to knowledge advance by the (research) methods of science. Concerning our status as a science, I review attacks on our scientific credentials (both from within our ranks and without) by the logical positivists, by the hermeneuticists (a rubric comprising a variety of hermeneutic, phenomenological, exclusively subjectivistic, and/or linguistically based conceptualizations of our field), and the most recent by the philosopher of science, Adolf Grünbaum. I try to demonstrate what I feel to be the failure of each of these assaults, and why I feel there is no reason to see psychoanalysis as anything other than a scientific psychology and, therefore, in theory amenable to empirical research approaches. I then review the history and the current status of these systematic research efforts in psychoanalysis, and the reasons why these have been far less in scope and in accomplishment than has been possible or than has been needed. Here I have focused especially on research involving technique and our theory of change and cure-i.e., research on the analytic process,' on what changes take place (outcome) and how those changes come about or are brought about (process).
Transference Across Gender Lines
Authors: Raphling David L. , Chused Judith F.
Published: June 2009

Four clinical examples of oedipal-based transference across gender lines are presented with the aim of illustrating (1) its existence, (2) the defenses against its emergence, and (3) the use of the analyst's gender as both an organizer of and resistance to certain transference manifestations. Factors that contribute to the availability for analysis of cross-gender transference are discussed, as are the resistances and other obstacles to its actualization.
Writing about Psychoanalysis: I. Analysts Who Write and Those Who Do Not
Authors: Stein Martin H.
Published: June 2009

This study of analysts' writing consists of two parts. In the following paper, I describe the difficulties facing the practicing analyst who wishes to lecture and publish his findings and ideas, whether or not he intends to cite clinical examples. I make some suggestions directed toward overcoming those (largely internal) obstacles. In a second paper, I shall discuss a special problem, concern over how our lecturing or publishing affects the analytic progress of our patients, especially with respect to analysis of the transference.

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money”—Boswell, Life of Johnson
The Psychoanalysis of Art: Some Ends, Some Means
Authors: Kaplan Donald M.
Published: June 2009

The psychoanalysis of art has been a lively activity for virtually a century, ever since Freud first likened certain findings of his self-analysis to certain turns of plot in Oedipus Rex and Hamlet. Yet over this time a lack of clarity has persisted with respect to the kind of knowledge applied psychoanalysis achieves and its means of justification. Starting with the observation that clinical and applied psychoanalysis are, in every respect, radically different endeavors, this paper goes on to identify some ends and means of the psychoanalytic study of art and to suggest a few criteria of adequacy for the outcomes of such study.
Patients' Responses to Their Own Case Reports
Authors: Sxoller Robert J.
Published: June 2009

We would do better ethically and scientifically if throughout the process of writing and publication, we let our patients review our reports of them.
Superego Aspects of Entitlement (In Rigid Characters)
Authors: Coen Stanley J.
Published: June 2009

Dynamic conflict among feelings of entitlement, defectiveness, and deprivation is discussed from the perspective of superego defense against dangerously aggressive (and sexual) wishes. These negative feelings and negative self-images are exploited so as to appease the superego in the face of oneapos;s hostile aggression: that one is justified, that there are extenuating circumstances for oneapos;s hatred and de-structiveness. The “oral” clamor of deprivation and entitlement, together with dependency, submissiveness, and defensive uncertainty, serve a screening function for hostile aggressive wishes, from any developmental level. Typically, attitudes of entitlement are contradictory, unclear, and wavering, because of conflict between differing ego ideal images, and conflict between superego, and ego and id, about the sadistic extractiveness in these altitudes. Altitudes of entitlement are contributed to by past trauma, deprivation, abuse, leasing overstimulation coupled with neglect, or alternating indulgence and deprivation, as well as identification with certain parental attitudes-exploitation and extractiveness-and denial of the need for the superego to assess reality accurately.
Kernberg and Kohut: A Test of Competing Psychoanalytic Models of Narcissism
Authors: Glassman Marg
Published: June 2009

Over the past ten years the problem of validating psychoanalytic theory has received increasing attention from psychoanalysts and nonpsychoanalysis alike. Yet, very little research responsive to this question of validation has been produced. During this same period one of the most fertile controversies in contemporary psychoanalysis reached its peak–the Kemberg-Kohul debate concerning the nature of narcissism. However, for the lack of a validation strategy, this debate has become increasingly sterile, degenerating to a theoretical stalemate at this point.

This paper addresses the problem of validation by using causal modeling as a mechanism for empirically testing many of the claims of these competing models of narcissism. Although the data provide empirical support for both theories, strategic comparisons tentatively suggest that Kohut's self psychology is more parsimoniously explained as a special case of Kernberg's ego psychology-object relations theory.
The Effect of Therapist Interventions on the Therapeutic Alliance with Borderline Patients
Authors: Gabbard Glen O. , Horwitz Leonard , Frieswyk Siebolt , Allen Jon G. , Colson Donald B. , Newsom Gavin , Coyne Lolafaye
Published: June 2009

The authors draw attention to the problems of establishing and maintaining a therapeutic alliance in the psychotherapy of the borderline patient. They elaborate an extensive methodology designed to study the manner in which shifts in collaboration occur in response to therapist interventions. This report demonstrates how one particular borderline patient increased his ability to collaborate with the therapist in response to a transference focus in the psychotherapy. Methodological problems are noted as are directions for future research. Only a series of patients studied with this or with similar methodology will allow for a sophisticated and empirical rationale for choosing a particular form of psychotherapy for a particular kind of borderline patient.
Interpretation, Psychoanalysis, and the Philosophy of Mind
Authors: Cavell Marcia
Published: June 2009

I suggest that a conflict between two philosophical models of the mind so far unremarked in discussions of psychoanalysis is at the heart of questions about its status as a science, the objectivity of psychoanalytic interpretations, and the nature of the unconscious. In philosophy one model is embodied in the tradition of Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, among many others, which construes thought as prior to and independent of language. According to this tradition the mind is self-contained and mental contents or “ideas” are essentially subjective phenomena. It follows that knowledge of other minds and the material world is radically problematic. In the second and more contemporary model the phenomenon of meaning is dependent on interactions between minds, and between mind and the world. Since meaning is understood to be intrinsically social, so in an important sense is mind. I develop this second philosophic model, indicating its relevance for psychoanalysis. I also point out some of the contributions of psychoanalysis to philosophy of mind.
Day Residue and Screen Memory in Freud's Dream of the Botanical Monograph
Authors: Palombo Stanley R.
Published: June 2009

Freud's theory of dream construction allowed the censorship to intervene only when a repressed infantile wish emerged from the unconscious. In his (1899) paper on screen memories, however, he proposed a mechanism for the defensive displacement of current events as they are sorted for introduction into permanent memory. I suggest that Freud was actually describing the conflictual process through which the day residue of the dream is formed. Day residue and screen memory are closely related as elements of the dreamer's present and past experience displaced from his more central instinctual concerns. Freud's dream of the botanical monograph clearly illustrates this relation. Substituted day residues were matched in the dream with relatively innocuous memories of past events of similar cognitive and affective significance. By retracing the substitutions, one can see how a current conflict over Fliess's role in the writing of the dream book recapitulated a series of Freud's earlier conflicts concerning his father and the power of books.
Psychoanalysis, Marital Therapy, and Object-Relations Theory
Authors: Finkelstein Lionel
Published: June 2009

This paper attempts to indicate why psychoanalysts should be interested in marital therapy. It discusses the clinical advantages and disadvantages of marital therapy as compared to psychoanalysis, describes the contributions of the classical psychoanalytic viewpoint to marital therapy, and finally, attempts to complement the classical psychoanalytic viewpoint with an object-relations viewpoint which can illuminate marital dynamics and provide interpretive content during the course of marital therapy.
The Psychoanalysis of Time
Authors: Kurtz Stephen A.
Published: June 2009

The experience of time has been studied psychoanalytically largely through the conceptual frameworks of ego psychology and classical analysis. The implications of self psychology and Lacanian theory for understanding time experience have been relatively little explored. These implications would develop, on the one hand, from Kohut's investigations of fragmentation phenomena and, on the other, from Lacan's concept of the ego and his use of the short session. But time experience cannot be understood entirely in terms of individual histories and the psychoanalytic situation. A preoccupation with time is central to Western culture and is traceable to the social context—thirteenth-century monasticism—in which the clock was first invented. Time enters the analytic session especially in the handling of beginnings and ends, reflecting divergent notions of the purpose of treatment. The standing of time-frame rules in the different systems defined by ego psychology, self psychology, and Lacanian theory are examined together with their underlying assumptions about the nature of reality. These metaphysical issues—no longer academic but made concretely meaningful in each session—go beyond illuminating the concept of time. Our response to them will determine both the direction of each patient's treatment and the course of psychoanalysis itself.
Motivation, Personality Organization, and the Four Psychologies of Psychoanalysis
Authors: Pine Fred
Published: June 2009

Four psychologies currently significant in psychoanalytic thinking are described. An attempt is made to (a) advance developmental proposals describing how the phenomena of each of the four achieve motivational status in the intrapsychic life of the individual and (b) develop a model for the understanding of personality organization across the four psychologies, based on the development of personal hierarchies that establish which issues are superordinate and which subordinate. Taken together, these two points are used to suggest that the four psychologies may not simply represent differing perspectives on intrapsychic phenomena (though they do that, in part) but that they also, simultaneously, represent relatively independent ways in which intrapsychic life is organized.
Pseudostupidity and Analyzability
Authors: Cohn Lawrence S.
Published: June 2009

This paper, in an earlier form, received the Casuso Essay Award of the Florida Psychoanalytic Society in 1984. Accepted for publication March 10, 1987. The author thanks Drs. Floyd Rosen, Joseph Lichtenberg, Alan Zients, Gene Gordon, Robert Gillman, Stanley Needell, and also Mmes. Penny Freed-man and Lynn Siegel for their assistance.

This paper seeks to heighten awareness of pseudostupidity and the potential analyzability of patients who manifest it by defining and explicating it, reviewing the literature, and presenting in detail the psychoanalytic treatment of a pseudostupid patient. Pseudostupidity is caused by an inhibition of the integration and synthesis of thoughts resulting in a discrepancy between intellectual capacity and apparent intellect. The patient's pseudostupidity was determined in part by his need to prevent his being more successful than father, i.e., defeating his oedipal rival. Knowing and learning were instinctualized. The patient libidinally and defensively identified with father's passive, masochistic position. He needed to frustrate the analyst as he had felt excited and frustrated by his parents' nudity and thwarted by his inhibitions. He wanted to cause the analyst to feel as helpless as he, the patient, felt. Countertransference frustration was relevant and clinically useful in the analysis. Interpretation of evolving relevant issues led to more anxiety and guilt, less pseudostupidity, a heightened alliance, and eventual working through. Negative therapeutic reactions followed the resolution of pseudostupidity.
On A Type of Heterosexuality, and the Fluidity of Object Relations
Authors: Hershey David W.
Published: June 2009

This paper delineates a form of heterosexuality whose underlying psychological structure resembles that of perversions. It is characterized by: idealization of instinctual processes, whereby the ego subordinates the object to the actualization of the instinctual event itself; heightened narcissism in an otherwise neurotic ego organization; multiple intrapsychic uses of the object; a special kind of defensive organization; an experienced victory over the superego and associated elevation of certain aspects of the ego ideal; and a resultant alteration in the nature of close interpersonal relationships.

I use clinical vignettes from both male and female patients in psychoanalysis to focus on the phenomena in question. The thinking of Chassequet-Smirgel, Freud, Khan, Rangell, Socarides, and others is used in an attempt to gain an encompassing perspective. It is emphasized that patients demonstrating this form of heterosexuality do not possess a perversion per se, but demonstrate a character neurosis which integrates certain perverse mechanisms into its defensive organization. These mechanisms can be isolated and studied in psychoanalytic treatment, with the potential for illuminating their defensive and mood-regulating functions, and eventual working through and resolution of the intrapsychic conflicts underlying them. Some comments on the implications of this form of sexuality for our contemporary culture are included.
The Concept of Termination and the Evolution of Psychoanalytic Thought
Authors: Blum Harold P.
Published: June 2009

Termination is a post-Freud contribution to the psychoanalytic process, which is never complete. The concept is illuminated in its analytic history and development. A formal well-defined terminal phase led to a tripartite psychoanalytic process which derived from and contributed to advances in psychoanalytic theory and knowledge. The terminal phase is a valuable addition and conclusion, but may be invested with irrational expectation and analytic myth. Various features and formulations of the terminal phase are explored, and the limitations of termination are noted.
Psychoanalytic Enlightenment and the Greening of Diplomacy
Authors: Montville Joseph V.
Published: June 2009

The author reviews aspects of psychoanalytic theory which have helped him in his career as an American diplomat and political analyst. He cites the works of Erikson (1950, 1968, 1969), Volkan (1979, 1987), and Mack (1979, 1983) as especially helpful, and praises the late Jeanne Knutson, founder of the International Society of Political Psychology, for her work on the psychology of victimhood. The role and function of completed and incomplete mourning are discussed as fundamental aspects of unresolved ethnic and sectarian conflict, and the importance of asking and granting forgiveness in the resolution of violent political conflict is explored. The paper ends with a specific application of the meaning of forgiveness in the relationship between Christians and Jews.
Panic Attacks Facilitating Recall and Mastery: Implications for Psychoanalytic Technique
Authors: Silber Austin
Published: June 2009

A patient, during the course of a lengthy analysis, experienced several panic attacks. These regressive episodes, occurring only in the analytic setting, provided her with her special means for recalling and eventually mastering repressed elements of her life. This facilitating aspect of her disorganization, when identified and analyzed as such, helped deepen the patient' analytic experience. It was necessary for the analyst to define verbally and clarify her reconstructed past as it emerged as part of her panic state, transferentially, so that the patient could finally recognize, acknowledge, and understand hitherto hidden aspects of her life. The psychiatric literature in regard to panic states is briefly noted, as is the relevance of comparing the present almost exclusively organic, pharmacological orientation, with Freud' discussion of the “actual” or current neuroses of his day, almost a century ago. On the basis of this case report, the importance of understanding the content and meaning of the panic attack, by analytic means, is once again emphasized.
Aspects of Nonperverse Scopophilia Within an Analysis
Authors: Mahony Patrick J.
Published: June 2009

This essay is intended to contribute to the increasing importance ascribed to scopophilia in modern psychoanalytic literature. The exceptional position of scopophilia is twofold: by virtue of its subdivisions, voyeurism and exhibitionism, it constitutes one of the two pairs of component drives recognized by Freud; and it informs one of the two major perceptual avenues that comprise communication in the analytic setting. A case is presented which shows how the psychic life of a female patient was dominated by a nonperverse scopophilia in a remarkable variety of ways, ranging from hyper-investment to inhibition and phobic curtailment. The case is equally noteworthy for the way in which these various phenomena were reenacted in the transference and in the particular visual character of the analytic scene; thus the patient' optical focal symbiosis and ophidiophobia are related to what I call the analyst' “retro presence.”
Psychoanalytic Reconstructions and Empirical Data: Reciprocal Contributions
Authors: Barglow Peter , Jaffe Charles M. , Vaughn Brian
Published: June 2009

Freud (1905, 1917, 1937) throughout his lifetime sought empirical scientific confirmation of the validity of his discoveries. In pursuit of this goal, he persistently emphasized the importance of establishing agreement between analytic reconstructions and the results of naturalistic child observation. The same objective lead Lichtenberg (1983), Emde (1981, 1985), and Stern (1985) to produce detailed evaluations of the impact of infant research findings on analytic developmental propositions. The present paper examines the relation among clinical reconstructions from an analysis developed through transference interpretations, empirical observations originating in the analytic patient' daughter' psychotherapy, and the results of empirical infant research that was being concurrently conducted by two of the authors. The findings from the clinical analysis of the mother, the psychotherapy of the daughter, and empirical infant research all converged on the same larger causative factor for the daughter' psychopathology–a type of maternal deprivation. Such a confluence of different sources of evidence, each identified by a different method of investigation, provides one kind of validation for psychoanalytic reconstructions, making it possible to provide that “satisfactory degree of certainty” which Freud (1937) called for in the attempt to integrate the patient' “psychic truth” with “actual” or historical truth.
Uses and Limitations of Kohut' Self Psychology in the Treatment of Borderline Patients
Authors: Adler Gerald
Published: June 2009

The treatment of borderline patients provides a setting in which the analyst can evaluate the clinical usefulness of Kohut' theories. The issues that arise in this treatment can also highlight aspects of Kohut' theories that are incomplete and require other theoretical models in order to understand the patient optimally.
Intolerance of Responsibility for Internal Conflict
Authors: Coen Stanley J.
Published: June 2009

A type of patient is described, who has marked intolerance of taking responsibility for his internal conflicts so as to confront them, analyze them, and change. Defensive repetition in pathological object relations aims to avoid what is wrong within and to engage another so as to protect oneself. Genetic, dynamic, and technical aspects of such defensive, dependent relating are considered. Responsibility for oneself and for what is within oneself is held to be terrifying–more than anyone can bear on his own. How destructiveness has become, and remains, so terrifying is discussed.
Effects on an Adult of Incest in Childhood: A Case Report
Authors: Dewald Paul A.
Published: June 2009

Recognition of the widespread incidence of overt incest in childhood has significantly increased in recent years. The described long–term effects range from severe psychopathology and behavioral disorder to mild and subtle manifestations. The interplay of the child's sexual developmental processes and intrapsychic fantasies with the overtly incestuous behaviors adds complexity to the understanding of long–term effects. In this case presentation successful analysis revealed previously repressed extensive father–daughter incest resulting in typically autoplastic neurotic symptomatology and character formation. Effects on ego development and function were traced, and an attempt was made to develop recognition of cues suggestive of past overt incest. The case suggests that many additional factors contribute to the final long–term effects of overt incest in childhood.
To Know or Not to Know: Some Observations on Women's Reactions to The Availability of Prenatal Knowledge of Their Babies' Sex
Authors: Winestine Muriel Chaves
Published: June 2009

The author studied reactions to the availability of prenatal information concerning the sex of the fetus, with the specific aim of differentiating between women: those who chose to know the sex of their babies prenatally (Group A) and those who did not (Group B). Two psychoanalytically informed interviews were conducted by the author with each subject, one before amniocentesis results were known, and one after. The attitude concerning the wish to know the sex or not proved enduring and as such bore a stable relation to the pregnancy. The differing cognitive approach to incorporating the data made available by prenatal technology was accompanied by differing cathexes: Group A women invested more in the fetus as a real object, whereas Group B women invested more in the state of being pregnant. The findings are related to the psychoanalytic literature on pregnancy; special emphasis is placed on the mourning of the lost fantasy of the sex–preferred child as well as the loss of the fantasy of the child of sex opposite to the one determined through amniocentesis. Possible consequences regarding postpartum depression are discussed.
Transformations of Unconscious Fantasy in Art
Authors: Trosman Harry
Published: June 2009

Unconscious fantasy is conceptualized as a representation for drive-related, conflict-laden, wish-fulfilling views of human experience. These are usually related to sexuality, and refer to birth, intrauterine existence, primal scene, castration, and seduction. Unconscious fantasy may be transformed into works of art through a variety of artistic means. The employment of formal means for the representation of fantasy may be the product of an endopsychic perception. Thus, structural attributes of the psyche may also find representation. An example is used from the creative process in the construction of a novel by Henry James, The Spoils of Poynton. In the process of fulfilling artistic purposes in the construction of his plot, the author made use of derivatives of unconscious fantasy which surface in the process of creation. The work of art is the integration of unconscious derivatives which become transformed into artistic structure.
Fantasy Formation: A Child Analyst's Perspective
Authors: Dowling Scott
Published: June 2009

Unconscious fantasy is the principal unit of psychoanalytic investigation. Though individual fantasies, either conscious or unconscious, may emphasize drive, defense, or superego interests, all fantasy life develops from a limited number of themes; these themes concern drive-related issues, experiences of helplessness, or combinations of both. Fantasy formation and fantasy content undergo developmental change. Sensorimotor, behavioral memories occur prior to fantasy and are influential in determining repetitive behavioral enactments. The complexities of infant behavior do not require the postulation of fantasy or representational memory. A complex, innate, instinctual organization of the newborn, similar in many respects to that of other newborn mammals, and distinct from the psychological organization of the older infant, is suggested as an explanation of these phenomena.
What is Mental Representation? A Study of its Elements and How They Lead to Language
Authors: Linnell Zenos M.
Published: June 2009

Mental representation as a psychoanalytic concept has never found a central place in the family of psychoanalytic concepts and gradually has become a stepchild. A modest conceptual outline of infant mental development may help the mental representation concept become more central. The following ideas are hypothesized: (1) Registration is viewed separately from representation so that two distinct types of registration are initiated, one for distinctly mental phenomena, the other for unconscious, reflexive phenomena. (2) Perceptual-apperceptual focus is central, so that consciousness and interest in thinking always occur together whenever registrations are of the mental type. (3) A developmental schema process is proposed that will fill the humanistic object-self and motivational gap between Piaget's and Freud's ideas. (4) Analogy, metaphor, and syntax are seen to contribute to (in addition to being contributed to by) schema formation. (5) The mind is conceived as both an organization of information and as an organizer of information. This allows the separateness of representability from physical influences to be understood as both motivational and basically as process. With these hypotheses, mental representation may be viewed as central to mental organization.
On Patients' Disclosure of Parents' and Siblings' Names During Treatment
Authors: Waugaman Richard M.
Published: June 2009

The patient's spontaneous disclosure of a parent's name is frequently associated with appearance of core conflicts, especially genetic and transference themes of incest, other oedipal derivatives, and separation anxiety.

Using a parent's first name has the unconscious implication of incest, since one is doing something which one's other parent but not oneself is allowed to do. In some primitive cultures, saying aloud the names of one's parents was strictly forbidden. Disclosing a parent's name to the analyst may parallel the developmental step during childhood when the patient learned the parent had a first name. The child's acquisition of language, including proper names, fosters object constancy and the internalization of the parents, from whom language is learned.

For patients who do not usually refer to a sibling by name, disclosure of the sibling's name may also reflect the concurrent emergence of central conflicts. In particular, such disclosure may accompany associations about an earlier closeness with the sibling giving way to subsequent estrangement. Naming the sibling may also mark an intensification of a sibling transference to the analyst.
The Analytic Surface and the Theory of Technique
Authors: Levy Steven T. , Inderbitzin Lawrence B.
Published: June 2009

This paper examines the concept of the analytic surface as a starting point for the interpretive process in relation to the theory of psychoanalytic technique. The history of the concept of the analytic surface within psychoanalysis is reviewed. Four different conceptualizations of analytic surfaces are described (M. M. Gill, P. Gray, A. Kris, E. A. Schwaber). The advantages of a “surface” approach are explored in relation to clinical work, the teaching of psychoanalytic technique, and opportunities for research. Some criticisms of the concept are explored.

“Nothing is rich but the inexhaustible wealth of nature. She shows us only surfaces, but she is a million fathoms deep.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Psychoanalytic Observation
Authors: Spencer James H. , Balter Leon
Published: June 2009

The recent focus on empathy as the essential activity in psychoanalytic data gathering has underemphasized the complexity of psychoanalytic observation and has failed to identify what truly makes it unique among modes of psychological investigation. It is a process that includes introspection and empathy. However, it also includes the analyst's observation of the patient's behavior, and particularly verbal behavior, in a way that is not necessarily empathic. The psychoanalytic use of introspection and behavioral observation together, as they are modified by the analysand's free association and the analyst's evenly hovering attention, provides a unique method of data gathering. The transient, mutually related regressions of analyst and analysand which partly constitute the analyzing instrument modify the field of observation available to both, providing better access to derivatives of the analysand's unconscious mental functioning. This more complex concept of psychoanalytic observation, as opposed to that in which empathy is predominant, has important implications for psychoanalytic training, clinical work, and theory.
Followup of Psychoanalysis Five to Ten Years After Termination: I. Stability of Change
Authors: Kantrowitz Judy L. , Katz Ann L. , Paolitto Frank
Published: June 2009

Seven out of 17 patients interviewed in a long-term followup of psychoanalysis showed either improvement in psychological functioning or a retention of psychological gains they had made during the course of psychoanalysis. Six patients deteriorated in their psychological functioning, but their gains were restored with subsequent treatment. Four patients deteriorated in psychological functioning without restoration, whether or not treatment was reentered. Neither analysts' assessments at the time of termination nor patients' assessments of themselves or assessments based on psychological tests one year after termination predicted which patients would improve or retain psychological change. No causal generalizations about factors related to psychological change can be made from these data. Different factors in interaction are suggested to account for the stability and instability of psychological change.
The Rhetorical Voice of Psychoanalysis
Authors: Spence Donald P.
Published: June 2009

The rhetorical voice of psychoanalysis has a long history and has only recently come to be seen as a special feature of the theory. Its beginnings can be found in Freud's earliest pleadings for the usefulness of metaphor and analogy, although he felt that they were largely provisional and would eventually be replaced by more durable concepts. We have begun to see problems in replacing the central metaphors; the rhetorical base of psychoanalysis may be more enduring than we thought. While our metaphors may never provide epistemic access to the stuff of the mind, they can and do point to specific clinical encounters. Ways must be found to expand our rhetorical treasure chest and develop language even better suited to our concepts and observations.
Followup of Psychoanalysis Five to Ten Years After Termination: II. Development of the Self-Analytic Function
Authors: Kantrowitz Judy L. , Katz Ann L. , Paolitto Frank
Published: June 2009

Thirteen of seventeen patients in followup interviews five to ten years after the termination of analysis reported the development or refinement of a self-analytic capacity. According to the accounts of these patients, there did not appear to be a direct relation between the attainment of a self-analytic function and the extent of resolution of the transference neurosis or the maintenance of therapeutic gains after treatment.
Neutrality in the Analysis of Action-Prone Adolescents
Authors: Chused Judith Fingert
Published: June 2009

An adolescent patient's action during analysis reflects both neurotic conflicts and the developmentally determined task of establishing an integrated self-representation. Concern for the consequences of the action often provokes the analyst to respond, covertly, with interventions intended to change the action through influence rather than understanding. This can lead to a distortion of the analytic process which, in itself, may be an enactment of the developmental conflict. Examination of such interventions reveals a lack of analytic neutrality and an unconscious participation in the patient's neurotic and developmental conflicts. Clinical material from the analyses of two fourteen-year-old girls and a sixteen-year-old boy is presented to illustrate and support this hypothesis.
Does a Panel Discussion on Analytic Technique Have any Effect on an Audience of Analysts?
Authors: Schachter Joseph
Published: June 2009

This is a report of a followup study to determine whether attending a panel discussion group on post-termination patient-analyst contact influenced the analytic audience's attitude on that subject. A questionnaire about post-termination contact was given to 21 analysts who did not attend the discussion group and to 45 analysts before they attended. The same questionnaire was given again to both groups six months later. Responses by the 21 analysts who had not been present remained essentially unchanged. Responses of the 45 analysts, after attending the discussion group, when compared to responses of an earlier group of 300 analysts, showed an increase in the proportion of analysts who said, in reference to psychoanalytic psychotherapy patients, either that they hoped to hear from the patient or that they would like the patient to return to see them at some specified period after treatment termination. Attendance at the discussion seems responsible for a significant effect on the analytic audience's attitude on post-termination patient-analyst contact.
On the Girl's Psychosexual Development: Reconsiderations Suggested from Direct Observation
Authors: Parens Henri
Published: June 2009

Following on two decades of longitudinal direct observation of young children, revisions of two component parts of psychosexual theory seem warranted. First, direct observation does not support the concept of a “phallic” phase as being representative of the girl's first genital phase. Observational findings challenge “phallic” concept-dependent hypotheses Freud proposed in 1925, including how the girl enters her Oedipus complex as well as the nature of her wish to have a baby. In the children observed by the author, phallic aggression was not manifest as much in girls as in boys, between the ages of two and four. Second, it is proposed we put aside the “phallic” phase concept in our considerations of the girl's dynamics and that we heighten our awareness of her early experiences of ambivalence—which lie at the heart of the oedipal conflict—and which leads to a formulation of superego development in the girl more compatible with clinical findings.
On Internal Object Relations
Authors: Sandler Joseph
Published: June 2009

This paper gives an account of the author's attempts to come to terms with the concept of internal object relations, and to find an appropriate theoretical place for it within non-Kleinian mainstream theory. It is proposed that the internal object be regarded as a structure in the nonexperiential realm, being built up daring development on the basis of the child's subjective perceptual and fantasy experiences. The internal objects in turn influence perception, thought, fantasy, current object relations, and transference. From the point of view of the clinician, the concepts of internal object and of internal object relation act as useful organizing constructs for both analyst and patient. Finally, the suggestion is made that internal objects can be regarded as the source of internal “presences” with which the person constantly unconsciously interacts.
Assessment of Suitability for Low-Fee Control Psychoanalysis: Some Theoretical and Technical Considerations
Authors: Epstein Robert A.
Published: June 2009

In the assessment of suitability for low fee control analysis, various factors may interfere with successful referral, evaluation, and disposition. Variables within the referring analyst, patient, candidate, and supervisor are examined in their interaction with the circumstances of the assessment enterprise. Issues of competence, self-esteem, and oedipal rivalry, as well as guilt feelings, concerns about rejection, and other conflicts may be mobilized and may prevent a successful outcome. Clinical data from three assessment are presented and discussed. The concept of an assessment process, analogous to the psychoanalytic process, is proposed. In this process, manifestations of the patients intrapsychic life and indicators of potential transferences emerge in the context of the analysis of the patients reactions to the assessment. Potential sources of interference with the assessment process are identified, and measures to avoid them are suggested.
The Psychoanalytic Case Study: Toward a Method for Systematic Inquiry
Authors: Jones Enrico E. , Windholz Michael
Published: June 2009

This study represents a contribution toward the systematic and empirical investigation of psychoanalytic treatments. The method used, the Q-technique, allows the transformation of clinical data into a form amenable to quantitative analysis, thereby providing an empirical means to test theoretically and clinically derived understandings of psychoanalytic process. The treatment hours of a six-year analysis were audio-recorded and transcribed, and blocks of ten sessions were selected at regular intervals throughout the course of the analysis. Transcripts of these hours were then rated in random fashion by clinical judges with a Q-set designed to provide a standard language for the description and classification of analytic process. These descriptions of analytic hours, as structured by the Q-set, proved highly reliable, demonstrating the method's promise for addressing the long-standing problem of achieving reliable clinical judgments. Results suggest that subjecting the traditional psychoanalytic case study to systematic inquiry can contribute to establishing an empirical science base for some psychoanalytic propositions.
The Nature of Therapeutic Action in Psychoanalysis
Authors: Gray Paul
Published: June 2009

The nature of therapeutic action varies not only with each patient's psychological predilection for utilizing opportunities for change, but also with the manner in which the analyst or therapist presents opportunity for change. Ideally, the therapist bases the latter on personally identifiable theoretical concepts and aims. This inquiry focuses on a relatively narrow field of clinical material in order to provide as close as possible an examination of therapeutic action. The technical approach provides opportunities for change, minimizing alterations resulting from internalizing processes or suggestion. The therapeutic actions arise from analyst and patient sharing observations of the patient's intrapsychic activities of resistance to drive derivatives the patient briefly allowed into consciousness, and represent processes of ego maturation set in motion by intellectually gained and experientially exercised insights.
Castration
Authors: Rangell Leo
Published: June 2009

Castration is not a metaphor within the array of psychoanalytic theories, but a pathological belief operative in the unconscious, which originated during the period of childhood sexuality. Of the two major anxieties, separation and castration, castration anxiety is the most overlooked in clinical discourse and theoretical awareness.

Castration conflicts have a developmental history and are composed of phases as much as separation-individuation is. These extend from the preoedipal to the oedipal years and beyond and, as separation conflicts, persist throughout life. Clinical material is demonstrated from across the diagnostic spectrum and all developmental levels. Phylogenetic studies are corroborative.

As loss of love is a wider derivative of separation anxiety, castration anxiety radiates out to wider fears of invasion and injury to the body. The transference neurosis is more attuned to encompass separation than castration conflicts. This stratum of psychopathology makes reconstruction and the recovery of historical data indispensable.
German Philosophy, Freud, and the Riddle of the Woman
Authors: Makari George J.
Published: June 2009

After Kant's critique of empiricism, subjectivist epistemologies cropped up in 19th-century German philosophy. Schopenhauer argued that the true essence of every object was an irrational and sexual will. This underlying will distorted a subject's knowledge of the world. Schopenhauer's notion of this true essence was analogous to his portrayal of women; they too were natural, irrational, and instinctual. Nietzsche postulated a will-to-power that structured and hence distorted a chaotic world. That structureless “real” world Nietzsche symbolized as the essential “truth of a woman,” a truth which for Nietzsche was unknowable to the desirous male philosopher. Freud, while maintaining belief in empirical truth, developed a psychology of mis-knowledge which had much in common with Schopenhauer's epistemology. His theory of transference grew from a need to explain how female patients libidinally distorted the reality of their male analysts. Conversely, Freud's later writings on women are hampered by the author's realization of his own precarious and subjective position as man trying to know woman. These counter-transferential concerns ultimately made the woman's psychological essence an unknowable riddle for Freud.
Sadomasochism in the Perversions: Some Thoughts on the Destruction Of Reality
Authors: Chasseguet-Smirgel Janine
Published: June 2009

The author summarizes and develops some of her viewpoints on the perversions (outlined in several of the books and articles she has written. For her all the perversions, whatever their content, develop against an anal sadomasochistic backdrop. Their aim is to destroy reality. Reality, from a psychosexual perspective, may be defined as resulting from the existence of the father separating the mother and the child. This may be formulated in another way: reality is recognition of sexual and generational differences. Or, yet again: mother and father have a procreative sexuality, whereas the child does not. This leads to the idea that the destruction of reality is equivalent to destruction of the paternal universe. Clinical case illustrations are provided, one of which centers on the assassination of an old man who, besides representing a paternal oedipal image, also represents reality itself. This case illustrates in concrete form the murder of the father, and hence of reality, accomplished by the pervert when he eradicates the paternal dimension of psychosexuality by regressing to the anal sadomasochistic dimension.