Aspects Of Psychoanalytic Theory Research Articles

Pandemic fiction as therapeutic play: The New York Times Magazine’s The Decameron Project (2020)

This article explores the therapeutic potential of narrative fiction during a global health crisis. We focus on The Decameron Project (2020), a collection of short fiction by writers from around the world, commissioned by the New York Times Magazine. The Decameron Project references the narrative framework established by Giovanni Boccaccio in the mid-14th century, when the Black Death devastated Europe. Drawing on aspects of psychoanalytic theory and principles of bibliotherapy employed since the Middle Ages, we argue that The Decameron Project offers strategies to simultaneously confront and contain the anxious mind. Storytelling, according to both Boccaccio and to the editors of The Decameron Project, is not merely a source of distraction but a means of survival.

The psychoanalytic process and self-transcendence

This article intends to reflect on some aspects of psychoanalytic theory and practice, to help psychoanalysis evolve. It is therefore important to update psychoanalytic language and practice so that new potentialities and self-transcendence, in the sense of self-expansion are taken into consideration. It is of the utmost importance to take aspects of development and the relational realm into consideration, as well as the way through which the subject repeats their history, maintaining themself stagnant and in contact with representations that go back to their early relationships.

Therapists' Experience of Working with Interpreters in NHS settings: Drawing Upon a Psychoanalytic Theoretical Framework to Contextualize the Findings of an IPA Study

NHS therapists are required to work with interpreters. Therapy with an interpreter may take longer and aspects of the work may be challenging. Surveys of NHS mental health staff, particularly those working in Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services, indicate that they are experiencing burn‐out, low morale, and increasing stress and depression as a result of ever‐increasing targets and workload demands. This study aimed to gain an understanding of the impact of the context of therapy on the experiences of therapists in the NHS of working with interpreters. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 10 qualified therapists working within an IAPT or secondary care psychology service from one NHS Trust. The verbal data were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) methodology. The key finding of the study was that participants’ experience of their organizational context (whether supportive or pressured and demanding) appeared to drive how they related to the interpreter. Previous literature has applied a psychoanalytic framework to understanding organizational, group and individual responses to stress in healthcare settings, including IAPT. Following the initial analysis, aspects of psychoanalytic theory were used to contextualize the findings. Epistemological and ethical tensions in making links to theoretical frameworks within an IPA study are acknowledged and discussed.

Shelley and the death drive: Romanticism, politics, psychoanalysis

ABSTRACT Psychoanalysis has strong roots in Romanticism, and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s writings have often been thought to prefigure aspects of psychoanalytic theory. This essay explores affinities between Shelley’s poetry and one particular concept: the ‘death drive’, or Thanatos, as Freud sometimes named it, counterpart of Eros in Freud’s metapsychology. Freud felt that this controversial dualistic idea had literary support, writing that it is ‘reinforced by our poets and playwrights’. My essay examines links between Shelley’s writings, Freud’s ideas, and their development in Lacanian theory, to ask whether Shelley provides such reinforcement for psychoanalytic metapsychology, especially in Alastor; or, the Spirit of Solitude (1816). Alastor, I argue, initiates a poetic probing of human psychology on Shelley’s part which takes on a vitally political significance, creating a tension in Shelley’s work between a utopianism and certain proto-psychoanalytic insights that seem to undermine it. With reference to A Philosophical View of Reform, ‘Sonnet: Political Greatness’, Prometheus Unbound, Hellas and The Triumph of Life, I conclude with some further reflections on the dialogue between Shelley and psychoanalysis, highlighting important implications of this for our understanding of Shelley’s writings, and for our thinking about the relationships between Romanticism, politics and psychoanalysis.

Os Casos-Limite e os Limites da Técnica Psicanalítica: Subversão e Cura nos Fundamentos da Psicanálise

Resumo Neste estudo procuramos fazer uma caracterização dos casos-limite como quadro sintomático eliciado pelas contingências socioculturais em crescimento desde a modernidade - implicações que hoje denominamos contemporâneas. A partir disso, procuramos fundamentar a pertinência de uma constante subversão, superação ou transgressão das recomendações técnicas clássicas em psicanálise no sentido do que Ferenczi chamou de elasticidade técnica, a fim de contemplar a noção de cura implicada na especificidade do saber psicanalítico, noção derivada do cura sui e, portanto, de filiação sério-cômico e dialógica. Implicamos pensar a subversão como um modo de funcionamento típico da técnica psicanalítica identificado em seus fundamentos. Conclui-se que a relação peculiar da psicanálise com os limites confere a ela um espaço constantemente afeito à criatividade técnica.

“Warming Someone’s Soul with Your Own Hands”: Ruvim Fraerman’s Children’s Prose and the Legacy of Russian Modernism

ABSTRACT In her article, Maria Maiofis argues that Ruvim Fraerman’s 1939 work Wild Dog Dingo, Or a Story of First Love [Dikaia sobaka Dingo, ili Povest’ o pervoi liubvi] is not primarily intended as a story of adolescent love but rather of the vicissitudes of a teenaged girl’s relationship with her divorced parents. Fraerman’s treatment of adolescent psychology and the difficult path into adulthood reflects the legacy of Russian modernist prose and aspects of psychoanalytic theory, which he may have become familiar with firsthand in the 1910s or 1920s or indirectly through Russian modernist prose.

A New Woman’s Exile in Buenos Aires: Grete Stern’s Photomontages between Feminism and Popular Culture

The focus of this article will rely on the work of the photographer Grete Stern, who had to flee Germany in 1933 due to her Jewish background, and later emigrated to Argentina. Special attention will be given to her photomontage series Sueños (Dreams) for the women’s magazine Idilio, which the artist produced between 1948 and 1951, and which played an essential role in the modernization of Argentinean photography. Moreover, today these photomontages are known for having had a fundamental influence on the dissemination of psychoanalysis in Argentina, as well as on feminist art in general. As these photomontages were published together with the psychoanalytic column “El psicoanálisis te ayudará” and negotiated different aspects of psychoanalytic theory, they were often interpreted within the tradition of surrealist photography.[1] In this article, however, I would like to propose an alternative, perhaps complementary reading of these images and embed Stern’s Dreams in a broader context—the context of her experience as an exile in Argentina, the context of the magazine, and the context of Peronist visual culture. As I will argue, this allows these photomontages to be read as multilayered aesthetic, political, and feminist interventions in a time when more and more restrictions dominated artistic practices in Argentina. In the following, I will provide an insight into Stern’s formation and work in Germany, and the ideas of femininity that influenced her art before and after emigration. After that, I will discuss the politically enforced changes in the field of Argentinean visual culture. And finally, I will analyze Stern’s photomontages in the context of the magazine and their impact beyond, on the modernization of photography in Argentina.

Revisiting the crisis in Freud's libido theory and Abraham's concept of the oral‐sadistic phase as a way out of it

Translations of summaryThe now available unabridged correspondence between Freud and Abraham leads to a re‐evaluation of the significance of Abraham's work. The author proposes the thesis that clinical observations by Karl Abraham of the ambivalence of object relations and the destructive‐sadistic aspects of orality have an important influence on the advancement of psychoanalytical theory. The phantasy problem of the Wolf Man and the question of the pathogenic relevance of early actual, or merely imagined traumata led Freud to doubt the validity of his theory. He attempted repeatedly to solve this problem using libido theory, but failed because of his problematic conception of oral erotics. The pathogenic effect of presymbolic traumatizations cannot be demonstrated scientifically because of the still underdeveloped brain in the early stage of the child's development. Consequently, the important empirical evidence of a scientific neurosis theory could not be provided. A revision of the theory of the instincts thus became necessary. With Abraham's clinical contributions and other pathologic evidence, Freud was, with some reservation, forced to modify his idea of oral erotics by ascribing to it a status of a merely constructed and fictive phase of oral organization. A solution was eventually facilitated via recognition of non‐erotic aggression and destruction, thereby opening libido theory to fundamental revisions. Driven by the desire to develop a scientific theory, Freud initially had, in his first theory of the instincts, assumed a strongly causal‐deterministic view on Psychic Function. His third revision of theory of the instincts, Beyond the Pleasure Principle including the death instinct hypothesis, considered the hermeneutic aspect of psychoanalytic theory, which had previously existed only implicitly in his theory. Further development of the death instinct hypothesis by Melanie Klein and her successors abandoned quantitative‐economic and causal‐deterministic principles, and instead focused on the practical utility of the psychoanalytic theory.

Psychosocial perspectives on end of life care

Personal and professional experience has made the author aware of the way in which emotional responses to vulnerability, life threatening illness, death and dying can significantly influence the course and outcome of medical and social interventions, as well as the provision and quality of care provided. In recent years psychoanalytic studies have enabled a deeper understanding of the unconscious primitive anxieties and associated defences that are part of being human, and to think about the implications for health and social care workers as society strives to meet the needs of an increasingly ageing population. Aspects of psychoanalytic theory, including contemporary applications, have been useful in reflecting on what it means to provide care for those at the end of life. The author will discuss the value of applying psychoanalytic understanding and faculties to this developing area of health and social care. Early findings from a doctoral research project, “Bringing Death Home”, will be referred to. The conclusion will reflect on personal knowledge and lived experience of palliative care social work to consider the significant contribution that relationship-based social work practice can make to the ongoing implementation of the end of life care strategy and the wider integrated care agenda.

Telling a traumatic story through Art: Arshile Gorky’s ‘The Artist and his Mother’

For more than a decade, through re-working a composition based on a sepia photograph, Arshile Gorky (ca. 1904–1948) tried to give form and represent that which by definition defies forms and shatters one’s capacity for representation. Having witnessed the systematic ethnic cleansing of his people as a child, Gorky began a ‘journey’ in his attempt to comprehend his traumatic ordeal through Art. In 1926, with the safety of a constructed name and life, the artist started working on ‘The Artist and his Mother’ series. Focusing on the two versions of Gorky’s early painting and using relevant aspects of psychoanalytic theory, the paper explores his work through a psychoanalytic lens. Psychoanalytic theories on extreme traumatisation along with psychoanalytic notions of temporality will be utilised in an attempt to follow the artist’s struggle to re-create and rework aspects of his traumatic history.

Interpretatation of narrative prose of Milorad Ciric

The aim of this research is to emphasize the variety of topics, characters, motives and narrative ways of Milorad Ciric prose, to write down important traits and qualities of his short stories, as well as to offer one way of reading which represents an endeavor to give an answer to the reader's question as a co-creator of literary discourse. Not a great number of short stories collected in only two books, Encounters with Fire (1991) and Tunnel (1996) illustrates the wealth of artistic inspiration and strength of artist's words which carries the mark of vivid and trustworthy narration. His stories do not differ from the spirit of time in which they were written and therefore they show the basic characteristics of novel genre in the second part of the 20th century: unconventionality, fiction, amazement, problematic identity, irony, decentralization, various dissociations, open ending, aporias, which results in mosaic and broken picture of the world. Poet by profession, Ciric made his prose image specific in the way that he made the visions which could only be sensed and not known. This type of narrative prose requires intuitive reader whose rational thinking will only be used as a helping device in understanding the narrative discourse. Polyphonic structures and polyvalence of the meaning of his texts lead to different interpretations and represent a stimulus for the game of reception. Therefore, the study will make the analysis of representative examples of Ciric prose, which will prove the aforementioned, by methods of the narration theory and reception theory, first of all by structuralism and semiotic method with occasional analysis of certain aspects of psychoanalytic theories.

Edith Jacobson and Otto Kernberg

This article reviews the chapter on Edith Jacobson and Otto Kernberg in Greenberg and Mitchell's (1983) classic volume. It summarizes both their mostly accurate overview of the proposals of these two psychoanalytic contributors, and points to some misunderstanding of them in Greenberg and Mitchell's critique. The article then clarifies Otto Kernberg's present views, and proposes a concept of human motivation that includes both its neurobiological basis and the secondary symbolic level of organization of experience and motivation. This proposal includes a reformulation of the origin of Freud's dual drive system, and stresses the concept of unconscious intrapsychic conflict as a core aspect of psychoanalytic theory.

The Reality-Sampling Deficit and ADHD: Indication for an Active Technique

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common condition and one that the current evidence base highlights as not being best served by the prescription of medication alone (Jensen et al., 2007). The demand facing clinicians is twofold. For the psychiatrist, there is a need to be open to and accommodating of an analytic perspective of ADHD, as one extending understanding of the condition beyond the neurological. For the analyst, I suggest there is a requirement to be open to altering the analytic frame. It is this latter demand that I shall aim to help answer in this article, by highlighting the existence of a reality-sampling deficit in patients with ADHD. Using clinical examples, I shall examine how the concept of a reality-sampling deficit may aid our understanding of the ADHD child's internal experience and their relationship to external reality. In turn, this will lead us toward some adaptations of analytic technique, with an emphasis more upon process than content and links to mentalization-based therapy. I will discuss some relevant aspects of psychoanalytic theory as well as the current evidence base (biological, psychological, and psychodynamic) to form a platform from which we might better help the child with ADHD.

Violence and the Maternal in the Marquis de Sade

Feminist philosophers of religion have drawn attention to desire as a neglected category for approaching the sources and concerns of religion. This paper extends this discussion by engaging with one particularly disturbing aspect of the writings of the Marquis de Sade. In a world where ultimate sexual pleasure is derived from destruction of the Other, Sade glories in describing the suffering of mothers, often at the hands of their own children. This paper offers one possible reading of these dark desires through employing aspects of psychoanalytic theory to suggest that, rather than isolate him from the majority of humanity, we might consider possible connections between the desires he details and our own. This involves considering the ambivalence of the mother, and thus challenging the (often oppressive) idealization of the all-caring, all-nurturing mother.

Transference in the nurse–patient relationship

The therapeutic relationship has been considered foundational to psychiatric nursing practice since at least the mid-20th century. However, this does not, in itself, guarantee either its continuity or relevance to current practice. Concepts such as the therapeutic relationship require sustained attention, both in theory and in practice, to illustrate ongoing relevance to the discipline. This paper addresses the therapeutic relationship in psychiatric nursing via aspects of psychoanalytic theory, particularly the notion of transference, as theorized by both Freud and Lacan. Two case fragments provide practice material, through which transference in the nurse-patient relationship is explored. The nurse, in the context of his/her relationship with the patient, a sick stranger, offers both a listening and the potential development of transference. This transference can be experienced, in part, as a form of attachment to the nurse, one that is not regarded pejoratively as dependency. There is the potential, within the nurse-patient relationship, for a psychical holding to develop, one from within which both the patient can speak and transference might arise. It is argued that listening to the patient has the potential to assist the patient and, with the development of transference, can provide the context for important work.

The unknown Karen Horney: essays on gender, culture, and psychoanalysis

This volume of writings by the distinguished psychoanalyst Karen Horney (1885-1952) completes the publication of her unpublished and uncollected work. It includes pieces on feminine psychology and the relations between the sexes as well as on other aspects of psychoanalytic theory. The editor's introductions set these works in context, showing their significance for Horney's thought and their relation to her other writings. The material in Part 1 provides an important supplement to Feminine Psychology, the book that established Horney as the first great psychoanalytic feminist. It reveals aspects of Horney's early thought not fully developed elsewhere, along with the views about feminine psychology and the relations between the sexes that reflect her later thinking. Part 2 deepens our understanding of the final two phases of Karen Horney's thought - her break with Freud and proposal of a new psychoanalytic paradigm in the 1930s, and her mature theory, developed in the 1940s. In presenting eighteen previously unpublished pieces, four essays that have not been available in English, and other texts that have been difficult to locate, this collection makes accessible an important segment of Horney's work.

Splitting Difference: Psychoanalysis, Hatred and Exclusion

In this paper I will argue that the inclusion of certain aspects of psychoanalytic theory into sociological analysis can be particularly enlightening in specific areas of social research where traditional theory and practice have failed to explain phenomena satisfactorily. This is arguably the case in the explanation of hatred and exclusion, where powerful affective forces fuel racist discourse and support structures of discimination. This is not presented as an antithesis or critique of contemporary sociological methodologies, rather as an addition, a tool through which another dimension of exploration is added to give a greater understanding of conflict arising in social life. This paper seeks to reveal the affective forces that shape motivation in everyday life, influencing social structure and leading to the maltreatment of people because of their ‘otherness’.

The Psychological Consequences of Physical Illness or Defect and Their Relationship to the Concept of Deficit

This paper describes the psychological consequences of physical illness or defect and examines their relationship to the concept of deficit which, in turn, has often been contrasted with psychological conflict.The psychological consequences of physical illness or defect differ in response to various parameters, particularly whether the defect is small, moderate, or severe. Typically, each has its special characteristics, which are considered here in detail.The author underscores that the concept of deficit, which refers to deficiencies in the structuralization of the personality, remains of uncertain scope and definition, despite its frequent use in recent years, mainly in the context of self psychology. Most important is to clarify the relationship between deficit and conflict. The paper explores the terms “defect,” “deficiency,” “deficit,” and “sense of defectiveness”—all of which have similar but different meanings. A further complication arises because these terms have been used sometimes descriptively and atheoretically or as metapsychological concepts embedded in various aspects of psychoanalytic theory.

The seductiveness of theory Thinking about dyads and triads in a case history

Abstract This article is about one aspect of psychoanalytic theory applied to a counselling case history. A life story is presented before explicitly theoretical interpretation. An attempt is then made to syncretize Freud's and Klein's theories into a more abstract psychoanalytic concept called the ‘triangulation principle’. The story is re-read in the light of this concept, showing how psychoanalysis helped the counsellor make sense of the material presented. The article concludes with a critical look at the application of theory to the process of counselling, its advantages and pitfalls, and asks whether psychoanalytic theory is a description of ‘fact’ or, alternatively, an extremely useful way of giving words to the unspoken.

Reason and emotion In psychotherapy: Thirty years on

In summary, then, in 1962 RET displayed important features still current. These include the interrelatedness of cognitive, emotive and behavioural processes, the important role that cognition plays in psychological problems, its humanistic view of the self and the futility and dangers of self-rating. The emphasis on perpetuation rather than acquisition processes of emotional disturbance holds good now as it did then, and the core view of therapeutic change is essentially the same now as it was in 1962, despite further, more recent elaborations. Also, one can find the beginnings of a model of psychological health in 1962 that has been more fully developed since that time. Significant change has occurred in RET since 1962 that updates several of Ellis's original ideas. These include the distinction between interpretations (or inferences) and evaluations, the primacy of musts in accounting for psychological disturbance, the clear distinction between healthy and unhealthy negative emotions and the greater role accorded to force and energy in the change process. Aspects of psychoanalytic theory, as well as conditioning theory featured in 1962 no longer appear, and a greater emphasis is placed on biological aspects of emotional disturbance now than thirty years ago. Finally, a greater range of cognitive, imaginal, emotive and behavioural methods are found in current RET literature than inReason and Emotion in Psychotherapy where Ellis restricts himself to illustrating a few cognitive and behavioural techniques. RET, then, has grown and developed over the past thirty years. In large part, this reflects the theory's flexibility and the competent people who have worked to make RET one of the most viable and widely used cognitive-behaviour therapies. Of these, I modestly include myself!