American Psychoanalysis Research Articles

What's American About American Psychoanalysis?

In this essay, we pose the question of psychoanalysis and national character. We explore the Americanness of psychoanalysis in this country through an examination of the history of its emergence in the early and mid-20th century, and through an examination of the impact of pragmatism on the formation and evolution of psychoanalysis in the United States. We consider American models of change and the impact of theoretical movements such as feminism and queer theory. We explore a particular quality and meaning of unconscious phenomena through an examination of American visions of nature over the past century and a half. The impact of elements of national identity and dominant American ideas and practices on relational psychoanalysis is also addressed.

The American Independent Tradition: Loewald, Erikson, and the (Possible) Rise of Intersubjective Ego Psychology

This paper has both theoretical and historico-cultural dimensions. Theoretically, it describes the origins of an “American Independent Tradition,” intersubjective ego psychology, in the work of Loewald and Erikson. Just as the British Independent or Middle Group thinkers incorporated elements of both the Anna Freudian and Kleinian approaches, so the work of Loewald and Erikson incorporated and synthesized elements from the two dominant and antagonistic schools—Hartmannian ego psychology and Sullivanian interpersonal psychoanalysis—that constituted classical American psychoanalysis. Intersubjective ego psychology, exemplified in the work of these two founding thinkers and others who follow them, remains firmly committed to ego psychological understandings and technique while also theorizing, without thereby coming to identify as either interpersonal or relational the centrality and pervasive impact of the object-relational, developmental, and analytic transference—countertransference fields. As a historicocultural study, the paper explores what makes American psychoanalysis American, though it also suggests that defining, other than descriptively, what is characteristically American is itself problematic and can be done only with self-conscious irony. It also provides a historical overview of psychoanalytic controversies in the United States, and it considers schematically the relations between “American” and “European” psychoanalysis.

American Psychoanalysis: A Comparative Attempt

Right now, North American psychoanalysis, taken as a whole, seems rough-edged compared with its European counterparts. It puts more emphasis on the reality of other minds that inevitably influence and limit the ways in which the patient's unconscious psychology does and does not become available for analytic scrutiny and change. It is more in the United States, than elsewhere, that a new literature on sexuality (as a key source of fantasy, transference, countertransference, anxiety, etc.) is vital. We are more eager to incorporate ideas from France and Britain than French and British psychoanalysts are to adopt ours. Affect has assumed a more direct and explicit role in American literature than in British or French literature. Finally, the expectation is more urgent here that psychoanalytic treatment will work, that the quality of patients' subjective and relational lives and the quality of their loving and working will be better after analysis.

Hans Loewald: a radical conservative.

Hans Loewald's work was relatively marginalized in its day and it is little known outside the United States. It is, however, assuming increasing importance in American psychoanalysis. Loewald's attractiveness as a theoretician is due, in no small part, to his rigor and synthetic reach. He is able to accomplish the difficult feat of remaining non-sectarian and systematic at the same time. Indeed, Loewald's work contains an integrative vision that is unusual in today's fragmented psychoanalytic world. This author tries to show how Loewald attempts to reconcile many of the rigid oppositions that often become reified in analytic controversies: structural theory versus relational psychoanalysis, traditionalism versus revisionism, oedipal versus pre-oedipal, modernist versus postmodernist and hermeneutical versus scientific. The article examines how Eros, understood in terms of the psyche's synthetic strivings, plays a major role in Loewald's theory. The author also situates Loewald's position within contemporary psychoanalytic discussions of epistemology. These discussions tend to criticize the objectivism of modern science-and analysis in so far as it models itself on science-and stress countertransference and the subjectivity of the analyst. Loewald's argument, however, runs in the opposite direction. Because of his concern with the autonomy and individuality of the patient, he is concerned with the clinical dangers rising from an overemphasis on the subjectivity of the analyst.

Hans Loewald: A radical conservative

Hans Loewald's work was relatively marginalized in its day and it is little known outside the United States. It is, however, assuming increasing importance in American psychoanalysis. Loewald's attractiveness as a theoretician is due, in no small part, to his rigor and synthetic reach. He is able to accomplish the difficult feat of remaining non‐sectarian and systematic at the same time. Indeed, Loewald's work contains an integrative vision that is unusual in today's fragmented psychoanalytic world. This author tries to show how Loewald attempts to reconcile many of the rigid oppositions that often become reified in analytic controversies: structural theory versus relational psychoanalysis, traditionalism versus revisionism, oedipal versus pre‐oedipal, modernist versus postmodernist and hermeneutical versus scientific. The article examines how Eros, understood in terms of the psyche's synthetic strivings, plays a major role in Loewald's theory. The author also situates Loewald's position within contemporary psychoanalytic discussions of epistemology. These discussions tend to criticize the objectivism of modern science‐and analysis in so far as it models itself on science‐and stress countertransference and the subjectivity of the analyst. Loewald's argument, however, runs in the opposite direction. Because of his concern with the autonomy and individuality of the patient, he is concerned with the clinical dangers rising from an overemphasis on the subjectivity of the analyst.

Family romance, family secrets: case notes from an American psychoanalysis, 1912

This work, which presents an early psychoanalyst's session-by-session notes on a case of hysteria caused by severe sexual trauma and incest, offers a vivid portrait of psychoanalytic practice in the second decade of the 20th century. Accompanying these notes are commentaries by Elizabeth Lunbeck and Bennett Simon that situate the case historically and throw light on the many difficulties that both analyst and patient encountered in the treatment. The book should be of interest to students of the history of psychoanalysis and other psychological therapies, to those interested in the history of women and gender, and to clinicians struggling with the treatment of severely traumatised patients.

Reflections on the Intersubjective Foundations of the Sense of Self Commentary on Paper by Steven Stern

The passing of the dominance of the doctrine of intrapsychic determinism has created a vacuum, leaving behind it a “crisis” in American psychoanalysis. A confusing array of relational concepts and models are emerging in attempts to fill the gap. It is my conviction that, in order to help determine what is transient and what may have enduring value, such attempts should be subject to the same scrupulous deconstructivist efforts as were formerly directed at the classical psychoanalytic model. With this in mind, some hidden assumptions that underlie the model offered in Steven Stern's paper are the focus of examination in my discussion.

Évolution historique du concept de somatisation

The concept of somatization is one of the notions that is frequently utilized both in psychiatry and in the medical field. However, it still suffers from a lack of precision that renders difficult and equivocal any reading of scientific articles on the subject. The authors of this article have focused on the historical development of the concept of somatization in an effort to elucidate the issue. The concept can be interpreted in two ways, one etiological and the other nosological. The former stems from the psychoanalytical movement, is principally etiological, and can be viewed as a synonym for conversion. The disturbed circumstances surrounding the creation of the term partly is account for the current confusion regarding its meaning. The latter meaning, which is derived from American liaison-psychiatry, has a mainly nosological character. It is at the very center of an epistemological turning point for the development of considerations on hysteria and its psychopathology, with the decline in importance of American psychoanalysis and the development of the neurosciences during the second half of the twentieth century. In fact, hysteria, a pathology that constituted the basis of psychoanalysis, has thus changed epistemological status to become an exclusive diagnosis, with a partial rejection of the contributory role of the psychopathology involved.

American Pragmatism and American Psychoanalysis

The author compares American pragmatism with American psychoanalysis in an effort to place the existence of the many diverse schools and theories of psychoanalysis in a historical context. Pragmatism is seen as a theory of instrumentation or a collection of tools for accomplishing goals; it claims that many of our efforts to know and seek truth are based upon myths. Psychoanalysis, too, can be seen to pursue certain theoretical claims based on myths. The present climate of pluralism in psychoanalysis is not a phase, but an indication of our diverse ways of achieving in-depth understanding of another person.

The growth and transformation of American ego psychology.

The roots of ego psychology trace back to Sigmund Freud's The Ego and the Id (1923) and "Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety" (1926), works followed by two additional fundaments, Anna Freud's The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (1936) and Heinz Hartmann's Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation (1939). It was brought to full flowering in post-World War II America by Hartmann and his many collaborators, and for over two decades it maintained a monolithic hegemony over American psychoanalysis. Within this framework the conceptions of the psychoanalytic psychotherapies evolved as specific modifications of psychoanalytic technique directed to the clinical needs of the spectrum of patients not amenable to psychoanalysis proper. This American consensus on the ego psychology paradigm and its array of technical implementations fragmented several decades ago, with the rise in America of Kohut's self psychology, geared to the narcissistic disorders, and with the importation from Britain of neo-Kleinian and object-relational perspectives, all coinciding with the rapid growth of the varieties of relational psychoanalysis, with its shift in focus to the two-person, interactive, and co-constructed transference-countertransference matrix. Implications of this intermingled theoretical pluralism (as contrasted with the unity of the once dominant ego psychology paradigm) for the evolution of the American ego psychology are spelled out.

American Psychiatry After World War II: 1944–1994

Introduction. I -- The Experience and Lessons of War. Military psychiatry since World War II. War, peace, and PTSD. Silver linings in the clouds of war: a five-decade retrospective. II -- Postwar Growth of Clinical Psychiatry. American psychoanalysis since World War II. Psychiatric education after World War II. The evolving role of the psychiatrist from the perspective of psychotherapy. Psyche and soma: struggles to close the gap. Postwar psychiatry: personal observations. III -- Public Attitudes, Public Perceptions, and Public Policy. The National Institute of Mental Health: its influence on psychiatry and the nation's mental health. Mental health policy in late twentieth-century America. Deinstitutionalization and public policy. Antipsychiatry. The consumer movement. The cultural impact of psychiatry: the question of regressive effects. Managed care and other economic constraints. IV -- The Rise of Scientific Empiricism. American biological psychiatry and psychopharmacology, 1944--1994. Functional psychoses and the conceptualization of mental illness. Diagnosis and classification of mental disorders.V -- Differentiation and Specialization. Child and adolescent psychiatry comes of age, 1944--1994. A brief history of geriatric psychiatry in the United States, 1944--1994. Addiction psychiatry: the 50 years following World War II. Forensic psychiatry after World War II. VI -- Principles and People. Ethics in the APA after World War II. Women psychiatrists in American postwar psychiatry. Minorities and mental health. Epilogue: transition. Index.

American Psychiatry After World War II: 1944-1994

American Psychiatry After World War II: 1944-1994

The Hofgeismar lectures: a contemporary overview of Horneyan psychoanalysis.

Part I of this paper describes Karen Horney's theory of neurosis. In the 1930s, Horney repudiated Freud's view of female developmental psychology. She argued that cultural factors rather than anatomy or innate biological drives were the primary determinants not only of female development but of personality, as well. When genetic and environmental circumstances together lead to basic anxiety early in life, she believed a deep inner conflict emerges in the individual leading to the need for elaborating layers of rigidified protective defenses. She called this the neurotic process. This process can result in discrete symptoms of mental disorder as well as the more generalized problems of alienation from the person's real self and reliance on neurotic solutions. In Part II, the practical application of Horney's theory to clinical work is demonstrated in a case presentation of a notably timid and perfectionistic man. Part III points up elaborations of Horney's theories by later workers of her school, the American Institute for Psychoanalysis, and provides a history of her school within the broader context of American psychoanalysis. The author's emphasis on postmodern and narrativist elements of Horneyan psychoanalysis are illuminated, as well.

A Note on Roy Grinker Sr

Roy Grinker was a major figure of the Chicago Institute of Psychoanalysis. He collaborated with Frank Alexander in the ground-breaking exploration of the psychodynamics of psychosomatic medicine. Men Under Stress (Grinker & Spiegel 1963) was the major American work to come out of World War II psychiatry. His research on borderline patients, little remembered now, was an attempt to identify different groups of patients within the borderline spectrum, ranging from the neurotic to the psychotic with thetrue' borderline patient well-delineated. I met Roy Grinker on one occasion when I was lecturing on borderline patients at Michael Rees Hospital, Chicago, where Grinker was head of psychiatry. I remember that he came, listened attentively and kindly, discussed my views on group psychotherapy with borderline patients. I was pleased to have met so distinguished a figure in American psychoanalysis and psychiatry who had published the first major research study of a large group of borderline patients and their treatment in the in-patient unit of his hospital (Grinker & Werble 1977). Grinker is mentioned several times in John A.P. Millet'sPsychoanalysis in the United States, (in eds. Alexander et al. 1966). He was a member of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, a self-appointed group of psychiatrists - many of the leaders were psychoanalysts - who had been disillusioned by the failure of organized psychiatry to realize the significance of the advances made by the emerging science of psychodynamics or to appreciate changes in the concepts of care for the mentally ill that war experience had helped develop. Roy Grinker's work on battle fatigue helped create a whole new understanding

The Correspondence of Edward Glover and Lawrence S. Kubie

Lawrence S. Kubie, one of psychoanalysis's distinguished thinkers, had gone from America to be analyzed in London by Edward Glover in 1928-1930. Glover, in spite of all his achievements as a thinker and publicist, has had a bad press ever since he resigned from the British Psycho-Analytical Society in 1944. These letters illustrate not just the successful personal relationship between Kubie and Glover, and how both of them were interested in research, but some of their respective struggles within the psychoanalytic movement. Kubie, who was for a time President of the New York Psychoanalytic Society, was able to help Glover remain within the International Psychoanalytic Association by securing for Glover honorary membership in the American Psychoanalytic Association. Glover, who for years had been Ernest Jones's second-in-command, encountered some of the resentment at Jones's autocratic manner of running the British Society. But Glover had taken a key role, allied with Anna Freud, in dissecting Melanie Klein's theories during the World War II Controversial Discussions. (Klein's daughter Melitta Schmideberg, an analysand and supporter of Glover's, was also in touch with Kubie.) After Glover withdrew, and before he successfully became a member of the Swiss Psychoanalytic Society, Kubie secured an offer for Glover to become Clinical Director of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. Although Glover decided to stay in London, he remained an outsider; Glover suffered not just from the circumstances of the clash occasioned by the arrival of analysts loyal to Anna Freud and her father's judgment about Klein's ‘deviation’, but his own ideological intolerances ensured his isolation. He was, however, an administrative success at the ISTD, the Portman Clinic, as well as the British Journal of Criminology, and as a teacher of someone like Kubie, who in his own way also became a maverick within American psychoanalysis.

American Psychoanalysis in the New Millennium

American Psychoanalysis in the New Millennium

From divergence to convergence in American psychoanalysis: the influence of Freud's background on the splitting of the psychoanalytic movement.

From divergence to convergence in American psychoanalysis: the influence of Freud's background on the splitting of the psychoanalytic movement.

The new American psychoanalysis: a commentary.

The new American psychoanalysis: a commentary.

Erikson's concept of ego identity reconsidered.

This paper explores and attempts to explain the paradox that Erik Erikson--after Freud, undoubtedly the psychoanalyst best known, most deeply esteemed, and most widely influential in the sociohistorical surround of world culture--has at the same time never been properly integrated into the psychoanalytic mainstream, but has instead been marginalized, consigned to a persisting psychoanalytic limbo. Two successive contexts within the historical unfolding of psychoanalysis in America, the milieu in which Erikson worked, would seem to account for this neglect. First, Erikson's monumental contributions to our understanding of the psychosocial developmental process, of the epigenesis of the ego, of the phase-specific developmental tasks across the eight postulated stages of the life cycle, and of the intergenerational cogwheeling of the life cycles were made during the 1950s and 1960s and could not easily be integrated into the ego psychology metapsychological paradigm then monolithically regnant within American psychoanalysis. And, second, as a major paradigm shift took place in America, beginning in the 1970s, toward a more relational, interpersonal, and intersubjective framework, Erikson's contributions, couched as they were in the structural language of the ego psychology of his time, were overlooked and went unremarked as seminal precursors of the newly emerging emphases. The clear relationship of Erikson's concepts of (ego) identity to emerging conceptions of self in relation to objects was simply not noticed, and his work continues to this day to be neglected and unintegrated within psychoanalysis.

Why do schools of thought fail? Neo-Freudianism as a case study in the sociology of knowledge

A full account of the social production of knowledge requires an understanding of how schools of thought fail, as well as succeed. This paper offers a sociology of knowledge analysis of the collapse of neo-Freudianism as a separate school of psychoanalysis and influential intellectual current. While the existing literature stresses personal conflicts between Karen Horney, Erich Fromm and Harry Stack Sullivan as a major cause of the failure of cultural psychoanalysis, my analysis highlights the sect-like nature of Freudian institutes, the professionalizing dynamics of American psychoanalysis, the contribution of the celebrity-dominated book market and culture, and the highly controversial nature of Erich Fromm's writings and intellectual activity. Neo-Freudianism is conceptualized as a hybrid system that is a combination of a literary phenomena, intellectual movement, faction of a sect, theoretical innovation and therapy. This analysis of hybrid intellectual systems raises larger sociology of knowledge questions about schools of thought and intellectual movements. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.