Freud's Ideas Research Articles

Freud x Lacan: ¿Dualidad o complementariedad en el estudio de la angustia?

El objeto de estudio de este trabajo es la compilación de la teoría del concepto de angustia desarrollada por Freud en sus relaciones con el concepto de represión. A lo largo de su trabajo, hay dos teorías y varias elaboraciones sobre la angustia. Freud, después de 1925/6, a menudo se refiere a sus dos teorías, aunque en cierta medida las teorías se superponen y entrelazan. Hasta 1925/6, el término angustia se entiende como el efecto de estímulos represados ​​excesivos debido a la satisfacción de no conducir. El sujeto impedido de descargar la libido sexual, por la acumulación de excitaciones, los convierte en síntomas de miedo, causando sudoración, taquicardia, contracciones musculares, entre otros. Las circunstancias externas concretas o la maduración insuficiente impiden que el sujeto satisfaga libremente sus impulsos de impulso y produzca estados de angustia. La idea de Freud es antigua cuando escribe sus cartas a Breuer y compila en "El mecanismo psíquico de los fenómenos histéricos" (1996, p. 41) sobre el mecanismo psíquico de los fenómenos histéricos: "que se experimentan estímulos excesivos por el tema como algo abrumador que lo lleva a un estado de miedo e impotencia ". De esta manera, la represión finalmente produce las diversas formas de neurosis de ansiedad. Al reformular su teoría de la angustia, Freud mantiene la idea de que el sujeto expuesto a una excitación excesiva vive en una situación de impotencia, necesitando lidiar con los estímulos que lo afectan frente a una amenaza de datos real o imaginaria. Desarrolla la teoría del segundo tema, sitúa a la UE como un lugar de miedo y presenta otra concepción de la relación entre represión y angustia, invierte la secuencia previa de represión producida por la angustia y afirma que será la angustia hacia la que la UE siente el peligro, que llevará al sujeto a la represión. Básicamente, temores como el miedo a la castración o el miedo a la pérdida del amor materno llevarán al sujeto a reprimir sus tendencias libidinales.

Alternative perspectives to Armando Simón's “Goodbye Sigmund Freud: The case for exorcising the ghost of Freud from the field of psychology”

ABSTRACTThe present article is a response to Armando Simón's article: “Goodbye Sigmund Freud: The Case for Exorcising the Ghost of Freud from the Field of Psychology.” I acknowledge Freud’s shortcomings, suggest why Freud's ideas continue to be promulgated despite these shortcomings, and argue that Freud cannot realistically be expunged from psychology. While acknowledging that Simón makes some valid points and criticisms, I offer that the present means of framing the situation better explains the issue and also is more productive/realistic in addressing this matter within a contemporary psychology milieu.

ON SOLUTIONS OF ANTIMILITARIST FEMINIST THINKING IN THE PANDEMIC ERA

The article analyses discussions in modern feminist theory about perspectives for promotion of feminist politics and criticism of neoliberal and anti-gender politics in pandemic situation. In particular, the critical arguments of C. Arruzza, T. Bhattacharya and N. Fraser in their manifesto Feminism for 99% (2019) against liberal feminism and their project of "another feminism" as alternative to the liberal one, which will be focused not on elites but on masses of "real women". The controversial character of the thesis of Manifesto authors is shown: in the situation of a pandemic as a radical rupture of social bonds, an effective argument for international feminist solidarity can be their proposition that all women, regardless of their ethnic, class and racial affiliation, should be united on the basis of their unpaid reproductive and domestic work. The reflections of J. Butler on opportunities of restoring social bonds and resisting the forces of destruction and militarism are analyzed in her book Forces of Nonviolence (2020), in which she develops S. Freud's ideas about the possibility of overcoming the death drive, which in his opinion is the driving force and cause of any war. It is shown that Butler, following Freud, identifies mania as a force capable of overcoming death drive and understands mania as a protest of a living organism against its destruction or self-destruction. The article analyses Butler's thesis about modern feminism, that if uncovering appropriate forms of education, it can develop in human beings a manic aversion to violence and war as means of destroying organic life. In the conclusion, author suggests that it is possible to reconsider feminist criticism of liberal feminism and return to its slogans, while radicalising them.

Две антропологические рецепции идей Фрейда: С.Л. Франк и Л. Бинсвангер

The aim of the paper is to compare Semyon Frank’s and Ludwig Binswanger’s reception of Freudian ideas, represented in published works and correspondence (mostly unpublished) of the both thinkers. The essence of this reception is anthropological one. In a positive perception of psy­choanalysis and in its criticism Frank and Binswanger strive to formulate a new understanding of Man, which overcome nihilistic tendencies and is irreducible to either traditional religious anthro­pology or secular humanism. From their point of view, the anthropological discoveries of psycho­analysis cannot receive an appropriate interpretation within the framework of its own naturalistic schemes.

‘A bud from the tree of life’: William McDougall’s response to Freud

In the interwar period, William McDougall, Wilde Reader in Mental Philosophy at Oxford, then Professor of Psychology at Harvard and Duke universities, was probably Britain’s pre-eminent psychological theorist. While he has been little studied in recent times, he developed a complex and detailed system of psychology centred on instinct and social relations that was very widely circulated in his day. A distinctive aspect of his approach is that he largely rejected reductionism and associationism, preferring a psychological model with a strong note of personalism. He was active in identifying the parallels between his approach and Freud’s, and his non-reductive intuitions generate an interesting rejoinder to Freud. This paper reviews McDougall’s system of psychology, discusses the points of intersection he identified with Freudian ideas, and comments on McDougall’s complaint about the narrowness of the Freudian focus on sex.

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen: America's public critic of psychoanalysis, 1947-1957.

This paper examines the role of Bishop Fulton Sheen in the popularization of Freudian psychoanalysis in the United States during the 1940s and 50s. Social historians argue that Freudian ideas were pervasive in American culture during this period. While their claim speaks mainly to the impact of psychoanalysis on the cultural elite and college educated, they also suggest that Freudian ideas affected ordinary men and women. In the former case, the group impacted is small and not representative of the population as a whole; in the latter, the evidence is sparse and impressionistic. Neglected in their consideration is the influence of Fulton Sheen whose opinions on Freud reached an audience of 30,000,000 during the height of the popularity of his TV show, Life is Worth Living. Sheen's audience was more inclusive and representative of mainstream America. The negative and highly cautionary view of psychoanalysis he presented to many Americans was contrary to that which was promoted to and embraced by many of the college educated and likely shaped both their views of Freud and psychoanalytic therapy.

Discussion of “The Therapeutics of the Fee in Psychoanalysis”

This discussion of Dr. Pauley’s paper (this issue) on the therapeutics of the fee first highlights the various valuable contributions Pauley makes. It applauds his unusual openness in sharing his internal vulnerability with patients around fees, his raising the question about why fee setting is so complicated for analysts and patients alike, his focusing on omnipotent fantasies in the transference and countertransference, and his uncovering of the multiple meanings money has for therapists beyond just their income. Berger picks up on Pauley’s invitation to therapists to be more curious about their own discomforts with money. Drawing on her own teaching, writing and clinical experience, she adds to Pauley’s more global ideas, stressing instead the more specific meaning of money in each treatment dyad. Among these specifics, Berger highlights the chronic avoidance of teaching about money in analytic institutes. She clarifies some Freudian ideas about how money can become tied up with anal witholding, and offers examples of how she got stuck with three patients around setting and raising their fees. Berger describes how these patients’ believed that their fees could mean safety, value or exploitation and how these attribuitions generated countertransference blind spots for her. The discussion urges clinicians to keep digging hard into themselves for the many meanings of money, to pay attention to the devil in their own details, and thereby maximize the richness of their work with patients around a topic so loaded for all of us.

Seeing without self: Discovering new meaning with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy

ABSTRACTNew research in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy merits a reexamination of the neurobiology and phenomenology of psychedelic states. First person accounts of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy are used to re-conceptualize the ego boundary as a defense mechanism which regulates the significance that objects hold for the self. Therapeutic action is attributed to ego dissolution, which enables subjects to see new significance in things. This process coincides neurobiologically with uncoupling certain midline cortical structures, and psychodynamically, with deactivating defense mechanisms which mitigate the threat of losing the loved object. It also enables the dreamlike imagery, symbols, and metaphor of the primary process, a regression to earlier ways of relating to objects, and feelings of love and connectivity. The process supports Freud's ideas about the oceanic mode of relating to the world existing alongside the narrower, mature ego feeling. The former is better suited for finding meaning in life, while the latter is better suited for survival. The noetic quality of the psychedelic state derives from an unconscious recognition that experiences without character defenses feel more genuine than others, and conform to earlier ways of feeling and thinking. The accessibility of the primary process makes psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy transformative, not just informative. An analogy is drawn to Fonagy's developmental model of mentalization. Absent the defensive, self-critical lens of a prior self-concept, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy serves as an ideal paradigm for the transformative experience of seeing oneself through the eyes of another, leading to greater self-acceptance. Flight instructions for navigating this royal road to the unconscious are considered.

Freud's Legacy and Modern Theories of Ineffable Trauma.

Notions of ineffability, what cannot be put into words, vary depending on the historical and cultural context and, in particular, on shifting linguistic ideologies about the capabilities and limits of language. In recent decades psychoanalysts have embraced a modern notion of ineffability centered around traumatic bodily experiences that are thought to be inexpressible. However, these ideas break with Freudian ideas about language and, most importantly, with his understanding of the processes of interpretation that give meaning to both psychic pain and attempts to heal it. Contra Freud, current theories of ineffable trauma re-inscribe a dominance of the body over the psyche and over-simplify Freud's ideas about the retro-determination of trauma.

Problems in Freud's Psychology of Women.

Freud's ideas on the development and psychological characteristics of girls and women, though laden with rich clinical and theoretical discoveries and achievements, appear to have been significantly flawed by the influence of traditional patriarchal and evolutionary values. This influence is evident in certain questionable presuppositions, logical errors and inconsistencies, suspensions of intensive inquiry, underemphasis on certain developmental variables, and confusions between observations, definitions, and value preferences. Under three headings-The Problem of Women's Morality and Objectivity, The Problem of Neglected Prephallic Development, and The Problem of Naming-I discuss Freud's generalizations concerning ego and superego development in boys and girls, penis envy, biologically predestined procreativity, the role of the mother, the fateful linkages male-masculine-active-aggressive-dominant and female-feminine-passive-masochistic-submissive, and other topics as well. In general, it is argued that Freud's generalizations concerning girls and women do injustice to both his psychoanalytic method and his clinical findings.

‘A Marriage of Freud and Euclid’: Psychotic Epistemology in The Atrocity Exhibition and Crash

The writings of J.G. Ballard respond to the sciences in multiple ways; as such his (early) writing may productively be discussed as science fiction. However, the theoretical discipline to which he publicly signalled most allegiance, psychoanalysis, is one whose status in relation to science is highly contested and complex. In the 1960s Ballard signalled publicly in his non-fiction writing a belief in psychoanalysis as a science, a position in keeping with psychoanalysis’ contemporary status as the predominant psychological paradigm. Various early Ballard stories enact psychoanalytic theories, while the novel usually read as his serious debut, The Drowned World, aligns itself allusively with an oft-cited depiction by Freud of the revelatory and paradigm-changing nature of the psychoanalytic project. Ballard’s enthusiastic embrace of psychoanalysis in his early 1960s fiction mutated into a fascinatingly delirious vision in some of his most experimental work of the late 1960s and early 1970s of a fusion of psychoanalysis with the mathematical sciences. This paper explores how this ‘Marriage of Freud and Euclid’ is played out in its most systematic form in The Atrocity Exhibition and its successor Crash. By his late career Ballard was acknowledging problems raised over psychoanalysis’ scientific status in the positivist critique of Karl Popper and the work of various combatants in the ‘Freud Wars’ of the 1990s; Ballard at this stage seemed to move towards agreement with interpretations of Freud as a literary or philosophical figure. However, despite making pronouncements reflecting changes in dominant cultural appraisals of Freud, Ballard continued in his later writings to extrapolate the fictive and interpretative possibilities of Freudian and post-Freudian ideas. This article attempts to develop a deeper understanding of Ballard’s ‘scientific’ deployment of psychoanalysis in The Atrocity Exhibition and Crash within the context of a more fully culturally-situated understanding of psychoanalysis’ relationship to science, and thereby to create new possibilities for understanding the meanings of Ballard’s writing within culture at large.

To Honor and to Grow: Recommendations for the Enduring Family Business

Family businesses are unique and complex; they have aspects and layers to them that are unlike any other organizations because at the root of family businesses' identities are the aspirations of both the business and the family's members, which could be at odds with one another. This note—a meta-analysis drawn from many authors' work—explores an approach that identifies ways to unify family and business, examining new possibilities and building a strong resiliency in the process. This analysis of various characteristics within family businesses provides opportunities to learn about how families are unique, offers examples of family businesses (when possible), and, most importantly, leads to clear recommendations. Excerpt UVA-ENT-0224 Rev. Jan. 17, 2020 To Honor and to Grow: Recommendations for the Enduring Family Business Family businesses are unique and complex; they have aspects and layers to them that are unlike any other organizations. Interesting and importantly, they combine Freud's idea of what constitutes a complete life: lieben und arbeiten [to love and to work]. At the root of family businesses' identities are the aspirations of both the business and the family. These two sets of goals are often seen as opposites, which suggests a need to reconcile, manage, or overcome such conflicting sets of demands. In this way, a family business must then choose between the needs of the business and the needs of the family. Perhaps a more effective approach is a more expansive view—one that identifies ways to unify family and business, exploring new possibilities and building a strong resiliency in the process. The examination of various characteristics within family businesses provides opportunities to learn about how families are unique, offer examples of family businesses (when possible), and, most importantly, lead to clear recommendations. These characteristics include family and business, business history and current reality, preservation and adaptation, family transitions and succession planning, the idea of an open bubble, a changing market environment for a company steeped in its legacy, family and culture in a business, new forms of communication with the same messaging, one family with new members, and plans for the future that are consistent and relevant. As such, each section of this note will demonstrate how family businesses can embrace their inherent complexities and challenges to create differentiating and enduring advantages.

New Education beyond the school: Rosemarie Benjamin’s Theatre for Children, 1937-1957

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the work of Rosemary Benjamin’s Theatre for Children in Sydney as a compelling narrative of the New Education in Australia in the late 1930s, an historical moment when theatre for children emerged as a cultural experiment rich in educational ideas.Design/methodology/approachContemporary sources and archival records are explored through several interpretive frames to develop a historical account of Benjamin’s Theatre for Children from 1937 to 1957.FindingsBenjamin’s concept of children’s theatre was shaped by English progressive education as much as the Soviet model she extolled. She pursued her project in Sydney from 1937 because she found there a convivial European emigré community who encouraged her enterprise. They understood her Freudian ideas, which commended the use of the symbolic resources of myth and fairy tales to help children deal with difficult unconscious material. Benjamin also analysed audience reactions applying child study principles, evidence of the influence of Susan Isaacs and the New Education Fellowship. More successful as a Publicist than a Producer, Benjamin was able to mobilise support for her educational cause among performers, parents, cultural figures and educational authorities. Her contribution was to pave the way for those who would succeed with different models of theatre for children.Originality/valueThis is the first study to employ archival sources to document the history of the Theatre for Children, Sydney and address its neglect as a theatre project combining educational and theatrical values.

Vom Wahn- und Wahrsprechen des technologisch Unbewussten

In Modes of Existence, Bruno Latour criticizes psychology for having drawn an untenable line between the inside and the outside, between the soul and the world. However, psychoanalysis is not concerned with describing the psyche as a purely internal phenomenon, but rather with adopting a fundamentally relational point of view that makes not only relations between people, but also their relationship to the technical world describable and therefore discussable. By taking into account Freud's idea of a psychic apparatus, this article depicts, from a theoretical perspective, the technological unconscious as a source of truth-telling in order to unveil current developments in digital cultures. It is precisely here that psychoanalysis, or a psychoanalytically inspired media theory, has a lot to offer: beyond Latour's ontological pluralism, it takes up the question posed by Michel Foucault about the indissoluble linkage of the human subject to language and thus positions itself as a counter science to any anthropology.

Psychology and psychoanalysis in Argentina: Politics, French thought, and the university connection, 1955-1976.

The hegemonic place acquired by psychoanalysis in the Argentinean psychotherapeutic field is recognized by friend and foe alike. Nevertheless, the historical process leading to this situation is less well known. In this article, I focus on 2 periods crucial to understanding the unusual scope of Freudian ideas and practices in that country. The first one (1955-1966) corresponds to the professionalization of psychology and was marked by projects such as those of Bleger and Pichon-Rivière. Their ideas involved an alliance between psychology and psychoanalysis within a larger synthesis whose philosophical framework was French existential phenomenology. This eclectic "psychoanalytic psychology" found an amazing sounding board in the newly created university psychology programs, in which it was adopted by future psychologists who took psychoanalysis as their primary theoretical and practical reference. The second period (1966 -1976), however, after the reception of French structuralism (mainly via Jacques Lacan and his local interpreters, such as Oscar Masotta), implied an exclusive disjunction: either psychoanalysis or psychology. Psychoanalysis was presented as a return to the Freudian sources. Therefore, it was supposed to replace a psychology that "ignored" unconscious determinism. Thus, paradoxically, Lacanianism, which found its main audience in psychology programs, invited psychologists to relinquish their own professional identity to become psychoanalysts. My hypothesis is that the prominent position that psychoanalysis still holds in Argentina can be best understood by considering the history of its relationship with academic psychology and situating that connection in an intellectual and political context in which French thought has always been crucial. (PsycINFO Database Record

Rivalry: Benign or Belligerent Sibling of Envy and Jealousy? A Clinical Reflection on the “Winded, not Wounded” Experience in the Countertransference

Recognizing rivalry as a discrete concept, adjacent to envy and jealousy but clearly differentiable, has a useful place, in particular, in clinical work. In the transference-countertransference, the analyst feels alive to difference, provoked to fight or duel, embattled but invigorated and alert, sometimes “winded but not wounded.” This contrasts with the deadliness that can characterize the countertransference with the more manifestly envious patients. In rivalry, there is a need to keep the object alive, despite the ambivalent tie to the object. Drawing on Freud's idea of “intimate friend and hated enemy,” I argue that Mitchell's (2003) description of the duality of “simultaneity of adoration and murder” in sibling rivalry is central to clinical conceptualization: this simultaneity links to Freud's (1920) first adumbration of the death drive as rooted in the need “to restore an earlier state of things.”

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND RESTORATION OF THE CONCEPT OF HUMAN NATURE IN POLITICAL REALISM

The article is devoted to the restoration of the concept of human nature in the theory of political realism. The crisis of theory of international relations at the turn of the 20th and 21th centuries forced the followers of political realism to reconsider the main ideas of the structural realism of Kenneth Walz and to begin to study the internal factors of world politics. Thus, scientists need an intellectual basis, on the foundation of which new realistic ideas could appear. The author shows, that some adequate ways to solve this problem is to return to the classical concept of “human nature”. The article uses Robert Sсhuett's book “Political Realism, Freud and Human Nature in International Relations”. Psychoanalytic understanding of this problem makes it possible to clarify key ideas of political realism, including the expansionist behavior of states on the world stage, their desire for security, and the negative attitude of realists towards the use of universal values in international relations. As shown in the article, the key authors of realism were not only influenced by Freud's ideas, but also used his legacy to create their own theory. For example, the idea of the founding father of political realism Hans Morgenthau about the egoistic nature of man is based on the psychoanalytic understanding of love and destructive aspirations. The reasoning of classical realists about the causes and role of nationalism in the formation of international relations is also in close connection with ideas of psychoanalysis. Representation of realists about the elitist essence of power practically repeats Freud's words about the irrationality of the masses and the key role of enlightened rulers.

What We Think Today on the Interpretation of Dreams, Forgotten and Double Senses

There are more than a hundred years since the publication of Sigmund Freud’s work “the interpretation of dreams”. How can we take today the ideas that Freud exposes in that text? What can we think of the interpretation of dreams, forgetfulness and double meanings? That is, the ways in which the unconscious is present in the discourse. The following work summarizes the Freudian idea about the storage of memory and about dreams and their rereading in the light of current findings in neuroscience about implicit memory, the re-consolidation of labile memories and the sleep activity that they validate in part and modify Freudian ideas in another.

Interpretation as Freud's specific action, and Bion's container‐contained

Translations of summaryThis is a paper showing how a concept central to the work of Wilfred Bion, and one of Klein's important recommendations concerning the practice of analysis with adults and small children, can both be seen in the light of Freud's earliest formulation of the origin of anxiety and the mother's first responses to her infant in distress. In the paper I suggest that these clinically influential concepts of Klein and Bion show an underlying consistency and affinity with Freud's early ideas about the management of anxiety in the mother‐infant relationship, described in two of his pre‐psychoanalytic writings, How Anxiety Originates (1894b), and The Project for a Scientific Psychology (1950 [1895]). The specific mode of operation of psychoanalytic interpretation is clarified by the comparisons made, with no attempt to suggest that Klein or Bion based their concepts upon these particular early formulations of Freud's.

Psychoanalytic Discourse of the 1920s-1930s Ukrainian Novellas

The article highlights the impact of Freud’s ideas on the Ukrainian prose between the Two World Wars. The analysis of the works by V. Pidmohylnyi and I. Cherniava shows that in literary texts, the erotic-death paradigm is one of the ‘modernist’ algorithms for plot development; in the novellas, this paradigm affects the process of conflict modeling and conflict development.
 It is rightly believed that V. Pidmohylnyi’s dominant literary interest was the ‘helplessness of human morality before the temptations of crime’. In the novella analyzed in this study, Pidmohylnyi adopts the perspective of the ontogenesis of the human soul at the age of puberty. I. Cherniava explores the theme of subconscious ‘temptation of crime’ a wicked and thoughtless children’s game is sure to unleash. The two stories have many features in common: they are thematically close; in both of them, the plot is based on the Freudian ideas; stylistically, they are realist-oriented works with certain elements of naturalism. The novellas belong to the same type of structurally modified literary works, in which the action is no more important than the resultant psychic changes in the characters.
 In both novellas, the plot is built around stable structural-behavioural patterns of human culture (in Vania, it is the initiation trial pattern; in The Execution, the perverse play pattern, the game of a trial transformed into a crime). Both works have rather specific expositions, which fulfill the function of ‘Vorgeschichte’ – they tell a reader about certain psychic inclinations of the characters and present the projection of the central theme. In both novellas, the plot type, which determines the development of action, is outlined in the prehistory. Structurally, the two novellas are based on parallelism of events. As to their style, both works bear the features of naturalism