Psychoanalytic Concepts Research Articles

True Crime Narratives

This article investigates the contemporary fascination with true crime narratives, an subject which is fast becoming a central area of interest in crime fiction studies. As the overarching genre of crime fiction itself becomes the most read literature genre, not to mention its growing popularity in other popular cultural mediums – TV, film, documentary, podcast, blogs, etc., true crime – which has always been a popular sub-genre – is arguably moving centre stage aligned to our recent obsession with the real life figure of the serial killer. The usual discussions of both individual and collective obsession and fascination with such topics, is generally limited to arguments within conscious parameters of ethical choice, This paper will explore an alterative reading that introduces the Lacanian psychoanalytic concepts of the sinthome and jouissance, and argues that any reading of these topics cannot be contained within conceptions of rationality and ethical choice.

On Transference in Clinical Ethics Consultation: Recognizing and Working through the Past in Surrogate Decision Making

Clinical ethics consultants often confront the most difficult clinical encounters, typically in the setting of chronically critically ill patients and surrogate decision makers. These encounters require not only analytical skills but interpersonal skills as well. In this article, I focus on an interpersonal skill absent from the American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities Task Force's Core Competencies for Healthcare Ethics Consultation. I introduce the psychoanalytic concept of transference and argue that knowledge and use of transference phenomena are sometimes indispensable for ethics consultation with surrogate decision makers. For solicitation of moral views, disclosure of relevant beliefs and values, and identification of the central ethical question-essential to assessment and analysis-cannot at times begin without recognition and working through of transference.

Approaching the Transference Relation in Cognitive‐Behaviourism: Applying a Lacanian Logic

Authors aiming to conceptualize a ‘cognitive countertransference’ continue to search for the most effective way to integrate psychoanalytic theory, and a coherent definition for such a concept. This paper first argues that authentic attempts at integration of the concept of transference into cognitive‐behaviourism require a return to seminal work on Übertragung (transference) and Gegenübertragung (countertransference). References to these terms throughout the work of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan are discussed in the context of the overall progression in the work of both theorists. With regard to two fundamental psychoanalytic concepts that underlie a Freudo‐Lacanian understanding of transference – the unconscious and repetition – this paper subsequently explores how a Lacanian logic may inform the emerging ‘cognitive countertransference’ literature. This paper contextualizes such thinking within the ongoing psychoanalytic debate regarding the utility of the analyst's participation in the transference relation. Ultimately, this paper argues that a cognitive countertransference may be redundant in favour of an understanding of shared cotransference, or transference relation, which begets simple theoretical conclusions, and technical recommendations. Implications for cognitive‐behavioural theory and practice are examined.

The disavowal of racism in Brazil

The history of migrations to Brazil is the history of the country itself, since the original inhabitants of the territory - the natives - were almost completely exterminated by the Portuguese. In Brazil, any child of school age learns that our land is mestizo and welcoming, and that its population is the result of the mixture of Portuguese, Italians, Spanish, Germans and Japanese, among other peoples. Curiously, the majority immigrant group that formed the country usually does not appear on that list: the Africans. In that case, immigration was forced, originating one of the main traumas that still mark the Brazilian culture and society. This trauma were not left in the past: it was not overcome and it continues to be updated – according to the logic of traumatic functioning, that of the compulsion to repetition - present in the entire structure of social relations in the country. In this paper I intend to deal with the peculiarity of Brazilian racism, articulating the memory of the slavery regime to psychoanalytic concepts – such as repression, narcissism of minor differences, splitting of the ego, and disavowal – capable of denouncing silent segregation that the black population suffer in the country.

Petro‐masculinity and climate change denial among white, politically conservative American males

AbstractWhite, politically conservative males in the United States have been widely found to maintain petro‐masculine attitudes that include aspects of racism, misogyny, and climate change denial. These beliefs and their associated behaviors, including climate destructiveness, can be conceptualized as compensatory reactions to modern‐day racial, gender, and climate‐related anxieties that are experienced as threats to traditional white male privilege and power. They then manifest as and energize authoritarian desires and their associated sociopolitical movements, including the current Republican effort to Make American Great Again. This paper utilizes psychoanalytic concepts concerning individual and large‐group identity, group psychodynamics and processes, and the intergenerational transmission of idealized myth and fantasy to further elucidate and expand upon these complex phenomena. It then suggests specific strategies for disentangling the strong links between white hegemonic masculinity, fossil fuel use, and climate change denial, thus opening doors to alternative, non climate‐destructive yet still empowering notions of individual, large‐group, and national identity that are, instead, based in communal concern and climate care.

The psychoanalytically-informed interview in social work research

ABSTRACT British psycho-social studies is a new paradigm of transdisciplinary scholarship situated at the borderlands of social and psychological theory. Its development has been represented as providing avenues for a more critical and reflexive engagement with psychoanalysis in social work, disentangled from the unfavourable meanings with which psychoanalysis has been associated (e.g. as apolitical and reductively focussed on intrapsychic dynamics). However, much remains to be said about the implications of methodological developments and debate in psycho-social studies for social work research, particularly in terms of the impetus it provides for reflecting on the transformations brought about in resituating psychoanalytic concepts and practices away from their traditional clinical context in social research and theory. This article draws from doctoral research concerned specifically with the theory and practice of research interviewing. It provides an account of the development of this research and explores the role of interpretation as part of a psychoanalytically-informed interview approach.

Fetish, Taboo, Simulacrum: An Applied Psychoanalytic/Semiotic Approach to the Experiential Consumption of Musical Products

This paper aims at furnishing a conceptual model by drawing on key concepts from Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic theories for understanding the experiential consumption of musical products. By critically engaging with the process of meaning co-creation through promotion discourses an attempt is made to tackle interpretively the phenomenon of consumption and the value stemming from consumptive acts of artistic products, such as those produced by the music industry. The fruitful combination of psychoanalytic with semiotic terms and methods, which was integral to Lacanian psychoanalysis and evident, albeit latently, in Freud’s interpretivist approach to the «symptom», attains to enrich the proposed model that was coined in 1998 and progressively refined ever since both conceptually and methodologically. The interpretive model was applied to primary research findings from focus groups with core consumers of musical products by following a discourse analytic route. The interpretation of the findings is suggestive of both the vast and relatively to positivistic approaches underexplored potential of psychoanalytic concepts in adding interpretive depth to qualitative consumer research, while taking into account the paradoxical nature of psychoanalytic postulates and the paradoxical ground on which psychoanalytic theory is edified.

“I Will Have Lacked”: Rethinking Sexual Difference and Sexed Subjectivity Through Psychoanalytic Temporal Relationality

ABSTRACTSexual difference, as understood by contemporary Lacanian scholars, is the Real that marks a constitutive gap or discord beneath the construction of sexual identity, but in what way does the Real relate to the Symbolic in a process of becoming a sexed subject? This article explores the possibility of sexual differentiation through a psychoanalytic conceptualization of temporal organization and rearrangement. Taking the moment of the “primal view” in Freud’s text as its point of departure, this article demonstrates that the origin of sexual difference in psychoanalysis is actually a temporal difference between two processes of becoming, explained by Freud’s Nachträglichkeit and Lacan’s future anterior, respectively. In comparison with women’s time, it is argued that the Lacanian temporal relationality promotes a new epistemology of sexed subjectivity that permits an expanded understanding of the lived experience of being sexed.

O psicólogo no acompanhamento de adolescentes quem cumprem medidas socioeducativas: seria possível uma escuta analítica?

O objetivo deste artigo é discutir sobre o trabalho do psicólogo no campo das Medidas Socioeducativas (MSE), especificamente no da Liberdade Assistida (LA). Por meio de uma discussão teórica acerca de conceitos psicanalíticos ‒ como o desamparo ‒, é possível pensar nas atitudes antissociais e na delinquência como manifestações da angústia na adolescência. De acordo com o pressuposto de Laurent (2007), a implicação do sujeito com o seu sintoma e a abordagem do vínculo formado entre psicólogo e adolescente se efetivam como auxílio para mudanças subjetivas na vida do jovem, pensando-se nos impasses que o interpelam, sem recorrer aos caminhos da violência. Considera-se que a LA possa constituir-se como um espaço de estímulo ao protagonismo do jovem e como um meio de o profissional da assistência social conhecer o adolescente e a sua realidade, contribuindo para a ruptura de preconceitos. Além disso, pode-se pensar em políticas públicas adequadas às necessidades deste público.

Three Approaches to a Cultural Object: The Film <i>Under the Skin</i>

This article presents three approaches to the film Under the Skin by Jonathan Glazer (2014) that correspond to three interpretative vertices. The film is an adaptation of Michel Faber´s science fiction novel set in Northern Scotland which follows an extraterrestrial that, manifested in a female human form, drives around the countryside picking up male travelers. She seduces and sends them to her home planet. Her experience on Earth is complex and causes tragical consequences. The impact of the film offered an opportunity for the authors to expand their perspectives on different directions. The first part of the article refers to psychoanalytic concepts that are applied to the film, mainly the psychoanalytical conceptualizations about the body and the starting point of mental functioning. In the second part subjective constructions are evoked by the method of free association which is applied to the film recalling the Marsyas Myth, the confrontation of Oedipus with the Sphynx, the work of Anish Kapoor in his modern version of Flaying Marsyas. A subjective construction is built. These two ways of reading the film are called applied psychoanalysis. The third part, a perspective derived from the articulation between Psychoanalysis, Aesthetics and Art Criticism serves as a trigger to read the film in its specificity as a cultural object allowing the expansion of psychoanalytic reflection in the interdisciplinary sense. This third way of reading a piece of art is called implicated psychoanalysis.

History and time: the problem of the new beginning in Walter Benjamin’s philosophy

In his early and especially late works, Walter Benjamin develops his own concepts of history and subject. The latter partly relates to psychoanalytical concepts of subject but differs from those in experimentally and scientifically oriented psychological approaches. Denouncing historicism, which constitutes the basis of the cultural-historical approach in psychology (among others), Benjamin questions both the cyclic and the linear, or progressive, concept of time from the standpoint of the moment of «here and now». In his own words, he conceptualizes time as history that takes place in «now-time of recognizability» (Jetztzeit der Erkennbarkeit). Only that kind of time, according to Benjamin, lets the history take place and begin, differing it from the empty, homogenous flow of mythical time. Benjamin does not solely develop his critique of the myth’s subject. He also critically defines the now-time as history, describing the phenomenological reality of the crisis of subjectivity and the subject of history as such. The paper focuses on the latter and analyzes it with the help of Benjamin’s figures of the storyteller, the critic and the historian, used to describe his own critical work. The paper sheds light on the linguistic nature of the crisis of subjectivity and, in this context, on Benjamin’s ideas of history, freedom and transformation of the subject, as well as on the possibility of something essentially new. In the course of analysis, the author of the article points out some psychological and psychotherapeutic consequences of W. Benjamin’s ideas which can induce psychology to take a critical look at its own understanding of history, subject and development, both from the theoretical and the empirical perspective.

A Condensation Effort: Pina, Lacan, and a Matter of Writing

Abstract The present article intends to articulate the notion of letter as littoral, as forged by Jacques Lacan in his textLituraterre, with the German artist and coreographer Pina Bausch’s dances and plays. We go from the signifier to the letter in Lacan's teachings and proceed with an analysis of the creative process of Pina Bausch's works, aiming to that which seems to present itself as having no sense, as something out of language’s reach; out of what one can say and tell within a field of multiple meanings. Thus, we intend to sew those psychoanalytic concepts to the fragments appearing in Bausch’s productions in order to achieve a further grasping and understanding of the concept of letter in Lacan.

Why Can’t We See It?

ABSTRACT The relevance of a patient’s experience of physical punishment in childhood may be obscured and difficult to acknowledge for both patient and analyst. This paper illustrates my own struggle with the issue by presenting excerpts of my work with an adult analytic patient, children in a mental health clinic, and PTSD patients in the Veterans Administration system. In the discussion that follows I demonstrate how the psychoanalytic concept of disavowal can be useful in expanding our ability to engage in meaningful discussions with our patients regarding this issue.

Ethnopolitical Conflicts in Transit Time as Moral and Psychological Phenomenon (Attempts of Diagnosis and Treatment)

The article observing psychoanalytic and other psychological approaches to description and overcoming ethnopolitical conflicts in Russia and other post-Soviet countries. The materials of the International Dialogue Initiative group and the scientific works of its members are used broudly. The notion of psychological trauma and phenomenon of post-traumatic syndrome, inherent in transit societies, are considered in details. National anmity is subject on analysis through the psychoanalytic concept of “chosen trauma”. The special attention is paid to the issues of psychological treatment aspects of ethnical traumas. Relation to former war as to common trauma, but mourned and buried trauma, might helpful for adaptive transformation of it in the public consciousness and reconciliation between former enemies, in the end. The conception of essential human need to have both enemies and allies, elaborated by outstanding psychoanalyst Vamik Volkan, is one of the key factors for it.

Steps Towards a Unified Theory of Psychopathology: The Phase Space of Meaning Model.

The hypothesis of a general psychopathology factor (p factor) has been advanced in recent years. It is an innovation with breakthrough potential, in the perspective of a unified view of psychopathology; however, what remains a controversial topic is how its nature might be conceptualized. The current paper outlines a semiotic, embodied and psychoanalytic conceptualization of psychopathology – the Phase Space of Meaning (PSM) model – aimed at providing ontological grounds to the p factor hypothesis. Framed within a more general model of how the mind works, the PSM model maintains that the p factor can be conceived as the empirical marker of the degree of rigidity of the meaning-maker’s way of interpreting experience, namely of the dimensions of meanings used to map the environment’s variability. As to the clinical implications, two main aspects are outlined. First, according PSM model, psychopathology is not an invariant condition, and does not have a set dimensionality, but is able to vary it locally, in order to address the requirement of situated action. Second, psychopathology is conceived as one of the mind’s modes of working, rather than the manifestation of its disruption. Finally, the puzzling issue of the interplay between stability and variability in the evolutionary trajectories of patients along with their life events is addressed and discussed.

OBSERVING PARALLAXICAL IDENTITIES OF PLACE IN ARCHITECTURE – ADOPTING ARCHITECTURAL AND PSYCHOANALYTICAL APPROACHES TO URBAN FABRICS

This article analyses the concept of the parallaxical identity within architecture, and its significance in identifying a metaphysical barrier between buildings, urban fabrics, and cognitive understanding. The research focuses and expands upon Slavoj Žižek’s parallax of postmodernist cultural architecture and it’s “zero-institutional” role in marginalising class-struggle and incommensurability between architecture and audience. Interrogating psychoanalytical parallax and architectural concepts of parallax in its history, it explains the determining of a “parallaxical identity of place,” present within cities and as a result of regeneration schemes. Through a design method examining an example of cultural architecture, this article presents a case to integrate psychoanalytical analysis as a useful design methodology within practice. At the end of the article, recommendations are made on how to observe and manage against any potential dissociative or psychological barrier between architecture, environment and community.

O adolescente e as Políticas Públicas no Brasil: incidências de sua vulnerabilidade

Research about adolescence is a current topic in nowadays, due to the social implication with their rights to care in the public area. Therefore, the proposal aimed to provide a discussion about adolescents in the contemporary world, based on the possibility of articulating between the Brazilian government's public policy available online, and the characterization of the adolescent in the psychoanalytic conceptions of Freud, Rassial and related sciences. Public policies are a way used by the government to minimize the effects of deficiencies at different times in a population's development, in which they focus on the importance of health promotion, protection, and recovery. Thus, considering the concept of adolescents from the Ministry of Health, combined with the widespread social point of view, and the consideration of Psychoanalysis, there is the possibility of providing an access route for social interventions, so that the results of these reflections are put into practice, transforming the idea of a problematic adolescent, reducing his suffering and the damages arising from the biopsychosocial perspective of this phase of human development.

Large Group Regression and the Emergence of Psychopolitical Criminality

AbstractThis article examines criminality that can emerge within the context of a political party’s large group regression. The group behavior of the Democratic party after its loss in the 2016 United States Presidential election serves as a case that illustrates this concept. Psychoanalytic concepts discussed by Vamik Volkan are used as the framework for understanding the party’s group behavior. Since its loss in the election, the Democratic party has demonstrated remarkable coherence in its hostility towards Republicans. The hostility has ranged from uncivil behavior to violence manifested across a range of socioeconomic statuses and locations. The steep decline in the Democratic party’s civility towards its opponent is indicative of a large group regression. The loss of the 2016 Presidential election precipitated the party’s regression, which has left its members responding in primitive psychological ways. A range of criminality has emerged within this regressed state, such as assault, battery, and false police allegations. The regressed state of the party leaves it vulnerable to malignant narcissistic leadership or dysfunctional ideologies, which can normalize the regressive behavior. The large group regression examined in this paper may apply to other Western societies that experience dramatic sociopolitical change.

Diagnóstico diferencial em psicanálise: especificidades na prática clínica com um paciente depressivo

A depressão pode ser considerada como altamente prevalente na população mundial, adquirindo dessa forma uma crescente importância na prática analítica e assumindo a condição de predominância da motivação para a busca de tratamento. Objetiva-se no presente estudo oferecer um breve panorama da complexidade e vastidão do trabalho clínico com pacientes depressivos à luz da teoria psicanalítica e ressaltar a relevância do diagnóstico diferencial nesse contexto. Para tanto, serão utilizados fragmentos e discussões de um caso clínico atendido em uma clínica escola do curso de psicologia. Foram utilizados como aporte teórico conceitos psicanalíticos oriundos da teoria de Freud. Buscou-se enfatizar a relevância do diagnóstico diferencial em situações da prática clínica com pacientes depressivos, considerando as especificidades inerentes a esse tipo de caso, tais como a diminuição da autoestima e a ideação suicida.

‘Supposing that truth is a woman, what then?’: The lie detector, the love machine, and the logic of fantasy

One of the consequences of the public outcry over the 1929 St Valentine’s Day massacre was the establishment of a Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory at Northwestern University. The photogenic ‘Lie Detector Man’, Leonarde Keeler, was the laboratory’s poster boy, and his instrument the jewel in the crown of forensic science. The press often depicted Keeler gazing at a female suspect attached to his ‘sweat box’, a galvanometer electrode in her hand, a sphygmomanometer cuff on her arm and a rubber pneumograph tube strapped across her breasts. Keeler’s fascination with the deceptive charms of the female body was one he shared with his fellow lie detector pioneers, all of whom met their wives – and in William Marston’s case, his mistress too – through their engagement with the instrument. Marston employed his own ‘Love Meter’, as the press dubbed it, to prove that ‘brunettes react far more violently to amatory stimuli than blondes’. In this article, I draw on the psychoanalytic concepts of fantasy and pleasure to argue that the female body played a pivotal role in establishing the lie detector’s reputation as an infallible and benign mechanical technology of truth.