Male Analyst Research Articles

Double father trouble: a daughter's struggle with paternity

In this article I will consider the complexity of the relationship between a daughter and her father within the context of the wider family constellation, and how working with a male analyst evoked both transferential and countertransferential material. When we are attachment figures to our clients, we can be particularly evocative of the same-sex parent because of the ways in which the transference is embodied in the flesh. In this case, the male analyst became over identified with my client's father in ways that were problematic for her and for the work.

The Elusiveness of “The Feminine” in The Male Analyst: Living in Yet Not Being of The Binary

The author explores the feminine/masculine binary and what is meant by being “in” this binary versus “of” it. He considers Freud’s views on female “otherness” in light of today’s changing theories and practices regarding sexuality and gender. Newer ideas are seen to supplement rather than replace traditional ones; it is noted that binary dichotomies remain present in each individual’s psyche but can yield to more complex and nuanced ways of thinking about gender differences. Concepts such as primary femininity, core gender identity, binary logic, male primordial vulnerability, and gender fluidity are discussed, along with their implications for psychoanalytic thinking and practice. In particular, the male analyst’s psychic bisexuality or bigenderality – including the “feminine” interior within every male born of a woman – is examined as it relates to his clinical functioning and efficacy. Finally, a brief clinical vignette is presented to illustrate some of these points.

The heuristic value of autobiographies for gender studies: comparing the theoretical results of Russian and foreign studies

Heuristic value of autobiographies for specialists in gender and female studies (based on the comparison of theoretical results of Russian and international autobiographical studies). The article discusses the qualitative changes in the study of autobiographies in historical works. The author focuses on the importance of gender studies in the field of complex relations between various approaches, including the philosophical, psychological, and linguistic way of analyzing life histories, in general, and women’s autobiographies, in particular (which comprises using the theory of female writing created by French feminist philosophers), as well as old and recent literature in the field of autobiographical research. The gender approach to the analysis of documents makes it possible to conclude that men report less about their family and private life and tend to give this life a different meaning and place in the system of value hierarchies. The second conclusion when comparing male and female autobiographies is the individualized and independent representation of the ego in life stories. Analysts point out that when collecting material about men’s lives, it is the gender of the story collector that is important. When talking to a female interviewer, the narrator presents the same life events in a different way than to male interviewer. When reading an egotext, a male analyst immediately forms a male community and, at the same time, hierarchies typical of relations between men. Keywords: autobiography, women, gender, gender history, history methodology, biographi- cal research, memory psychology, historiography

Who is Queer Around Here? Overcoming Rigid Thinking and Relating in Patient and Analyst

What does a psychoanalytic inquiry into the interactions between the patient's and analyst's gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity look like? To answer this question, the author examines the relationship between a white gay male analyst and his straight female patient of color through the dual lens of queer theory and interpersonal/relational psychoanalysis. The article describes the psychoanalytic process of moving beyond dissociated, binary modes of perceiving one's self and the other. This interpersonal process involves acknowledging the shame- and guilt-riddled aspects of patient's and analyst's experiences of privilege and marginalization. The author maintains that a playful, curious, and soul-searching engagement in enactments can lead to the emergence of a transitional space in which the sexual and ethnic similarities and differences between patient and analyst can be acknowledged, challenged, and negotiated.

‘Hopelessly devoted to you’: An examination of Winnicott’s concept of primary maternal preoccupation in the identity and practice of male group analysts

The rationale for this study is to explore whether or not the Winnicottian concept of primary maternal preoccupation fits into the identities and features in what male group analysts reflect on and resonate with upon ‘giving birth to’ and conducting a group. A qualitative, individual case-study approach was employed to attempt to discover and understand how male group analysts make sense of Winnicott’s fundamental concept. Wondering and thinking about how a male group analyst ‘holds’ both the maternal and paternal function in a group is also being thought about to ascertain the impact of these features on clinical practice. Exploring the concept of primary maternal preoccupation lends towards a strong focus on the relationship between mother and baby, mirrored in and seen as a metaphor for the relationship between the group analyst and the group members. Doron argues that in disclosing her depth of feeling towards the changing group membership in the group she was conducting, she identified strongly with the state of primary maternal preoccupation. This study will explore the range of feelings associated with the primary maternal preoccupation male group analysts associate with. Three qualified group analysts with five years’ minimum post-qualification experience, with whom there were no boundary issues, were interviewed in a semi-structured interview format to ascertain and develop this understanding. A phenomenological research method was chosen to analyse the collated data from the three individual interviews. Following completion of the three interviews, the participants’ texts were analysed resulting in five overall themes being developed. Potential wider scopes and application of the question, potential clinical implications of the topic under discussion and the potential for developing a theoretical discussion in group analysis on what might be coined ‘paternal preoccupation’ were illuminated and discussed.

Please (Don't) Want Me

In certain clinical situations, desire and arousal are significant components of the intersubjective field. In these cases, the analyst's wish to bear witness extends to both mind and body. This article will explore the impact of absent, violent, or otherwise unavailable fathers on their heterosexual sons and the resulting longing for male attention, admiration, and love, which often includes a need to be admired physically and romantically in ways their fathers could not provide. When this desire emerges in the treatment, the male analyst who experiences an erotic countertransference response and can manage potential anxiety and shame is in a unique position to provide the patient with these necessary supplies. Two case examples will be considered.

»Wir sind kein Paar« - Zum Prozess der Integration einer Wahrnehmung von Realität

»We are not a couple« - On the integration of reality perception One year after completing her psychoanalytic psychotherapy the author reports that she felt the need to resume work with her analyst for a limited number of sessions - this time specifically concentrating on certain aspects of transference. She describes in detail the steps of introspection and self awareness that followed, leading to an in-depth understanding of the process of emotional separation that had already been initiated during the termination phase of her analysis. In order to be able to distinguish clearly between legitimate feelings and unrealistic expectations, she applies a method of analyzing and disentangling the different emotional traces in the psychoanalytic relationship and their origins from ego-syntonic and ego-dystonic sources respectively. The author's considerations concentrate particularly on the negative body-images of ageing woman and the painful insights that arose in the context of working with a male analyst

To Have and to Hold: Psychoanalytic Dialogues on the Desire to Own

This paper is an investigation into the psychodynamic and cross-culturally determined underpinnings of the desire to own and be owned as they manifest in our clinical work. We explore these issues in two voices: a female Israeli analyst and her male Israeli patients living far from their original homes, and also an American-born, Jewish male analyst with strong ties to, criticisms of, and longings for his ancestral homeland. Broadening our scope, we look beyond nationality and reflect on additional ways in which owning, very often related to gender and sexuality, serves as a means for processing personal, cultural, and mythological trauma, often the result of profound loss. Sharing the experience of co-writing this paper, we raise the question of how two people can create a “third” and still feel ownership both of their original ideas and the joint product. Can two parents equally own one baby? Can two nations equally own one land? We hope that an examination of these clinical, internal, and interpersonal struggles will help clarify patients' experiences in and out of treatment and clinicians' transference–countertransference responses around the desire to own and be owned.

“This Strange Disease”: Adolescent Transference and the Analyst’s sExual Orientation

The treatment of adolescents by gay analysts is uncharted territory regarding the impact of the analyst's sexuality on the analytic process. Since a core challenge of adolescence involves the integration of the adult sexual body, gender role, and reproductive capacities into evolving identity, and since adolescents seek objects in their environment to facilitate both identity formation and the establishment of autonomy from primary objects, the analyst's sexual orientation is arguably a potent influence on the outcome of adolescent development. However, because sexual orientation is a less visible characteristic of the analyst than gender, race, or age, for example, the line between reality and fantasy is less clearly demarcated. This brings up special considerations regarding discovery and disclosure in the treatment. To explore these issues, the case of a late adolescent girl in treatment with a gay male analyst is presented. In this treatment, the question of the analyst's sexual orientation, and the demand by the patient for the analyst's self-disclosure, became a transference nucleus around which the patient's individual dynamics and adolescent dilemmas could be explored and clarified.

Damned If We Do, Damned If We Don't: On the Pragmatics of a Postmodern Psychoanalytic Stance

Bringing the Plague highlights the relation between postmodern theory and technique. I explore Layton's application of postmodernism's concern with the analyst's subjectivity and subject relation position in her discussion of a male analyst's treatment of a female patient. Arguing for a pragmatic therapeutic approach, I dispute the efficacy of being excessively transparent in certain instances. After outlining implicit tenets of relational and postmodern theories, I highlight the importance of ensuring that theoretical belief systems do not blunt our sensitivity to patients' therapeutic needs.

Roundtable Discussion on Sexuality in Development and Treatment II: Clinical Application

Through the detailed presentation and consideration of psychoanalytic work between a male analyst and female patient, this panel continues an earlier conversation (Slavin et al., 2004) on “dialogues” of sexuality in development and treatment. The present discussion focuses on the complex interaction between, on the one hand, the patient's unfinished developmental sexual and gender conflicts and struggles and, on the other, the analyst's equally gendered and sexual agency in promoting, as well as provoking, the process and outcome. Panelists and audience address the navigation of poles of seduction and growth, safety and danger, and the nature and development of sexual agency in women and men.

Gay Patient, Gay Analyst: Is It All About Sex? Clinical Case Notes from a Contemporary Freudian View

ABSTRACT This paper charts a portion of the psychoanalytic therapy of a gay male patient with a gay male analyst. The therapist discloses his sexual identity at the time of referral but otherwise works within a contemporary neutral framework. The case material shows how a patient uses the disclosure of the analyst's sexuality to fortify stereotypical views of what it means to be a gay man, and to avoid the potentially traumatizing exploration of their differences. Analysis of the patient's defense strategies eventually allows him to accept a more complex view of himself, of his relationships and of what it means to be a gay man.

Groups and Gender: The Effects of a Masculine Gender Deficit

Should analysts consider gender distribution when forming a group, or should they assume that the sex of the participants and therapist will not significantly affect group process? This question has received little attention in the psychoanalytic literature despite the fact that it provokes considerable thought and discussion among psychotherapists. This article explores the effects of a specific gender distribution in an analytic group: one male analyst conducting a group of women. This gender configuration complicates the working-through of psychic bisexuality. It can set the stage for genital and especially pre-genital fantasies deleterious to the process by a phallic regression of the group towards a struggle for control and power. Unless an all female or all male group is favoured, an even gender distribution seems necessary to allow for the free expression of masculine and feminine, maternal and paternal, identifications.

Gay patient, gay analyst: Is it all about sex? Clinical case notes from a contemporary Freudian view

ABSTRACT This paper charts a portion of the psychoanalytic therapy of a gay male patient with a gay male analyst. The therapist discloses his sexual identity at the time of referral but otherwise works within a contemporary neutral framework. The case material shows how a patient uses the disclosure of the analyst's sexuality to fortify stereotypical views of what it means to be a gay man, and to avoid the potentially traumatizing exploration of their differences. Analysis of the patient's defense strategies eventually allows him to accept a more complex view of himself, of his relationships and of what it means to be a gay man.

The Development of Masculine Power in Sandplay

This case study describes a 23-year-old man, suffering with depression. He is unable to verbalize his thoughts or feelings. Through 12 sandtrays, the process shows the emerging feminine, the balance of the masculine and feminine and the developing androgyny of the energy. Significant miniatures are used. The snake holds renewal and healing; the frog rebirth and the dark life; and the tree, the earth/sky connection. The Russian stone woman and old man, hold the polarity of the balancing opposites. The work of the sandplayer with the witness in the therapist, along with the work of his male analyst, provided the containment for this individual to find renewed health.

On Being a Male Analyst: The Reluctant Discovery of a Troublesome Goldmine

Abstract On Being a Male Analyst: The Reluctant Discovery of a Troublesome Goldmine. Int Forum Psychoanal 1992; 1:20-28. ISSN 0803-706X This autobiographical account of the experiences of the author, a male psychoanalyst, focuses on aspects of his work relevant to his masculine identity. A distinction is made between sexual identity and gender identity. The former refers to biological attributes of maleness and the latter to psychological characteristics acquired in the course of socialization. While no definitive conclusions can be drawn from this single case, the account is intended to suggest hypotheses for future investigation.

Patients’ Reactions to the Birth of a Male Analyst's Child

After the author informed his patients he planned to be absent for one week, approximately one month hence, nearly all his patients correctly assumed that his wife was pregnant. The birth of the analyst's child revived conflicts concerning younger siblings. Male patients seemed to respond to the reactivation of oedipal conflicts by a transference intensification of their paternal identifications. Female patients reacted more negatively and more dramatically. For them, the birth of the analyst's child signified a defeat of both their positive and negative oedipal wishes. The author compares and contrasts his findings with the literature on the pregnant analyst.

Analysis of a Woman’s Homosexual Strivings by a Male Analyst

Clinical material is presented describing how analysis of the homosexual aspects of a woman patient's transference to a male analyst unfolded. Comparison and contrast is made to previous case reports and discussions of the impact of the analyst's actual gender on analytic work.

The female psychoanalyst in the movies.

The last five decades of the American cinema have produced a remarkably consistent stereotype of the female analyst. In films such as Spellbound (1945), Knock on Wood (1954), Sex and the Single Girl (1964), They Might be Giants (1971), and The Man Who Loved Women (1983), women analysts are swept away by countertransference love that leads them to become sexually or romantically involved with their male patients. In stark contrast to the data from studies of patient-therapist sexual involvement, there are more than twice as many films portraying unethical sexual behavior on the part of a female analyst as there are films depicting similar countertransference acting out by a male analyst. Moreover, a stable relationship with a man and a successful analytic practice never coexist for any woman analyst in the cinema. Neither does a female analyst ever successfully treat a male patient in the American cinema unless she falls in love with him. On the contrary, the male patient is more likely to cure his female analyst. Clinical reports from cross-gender analyses are useful in understanding these cinematic myths.

Melanie Klein: Her World and Her Work (review)

REVIEWS 329 The tone Stevens adopted in his later poetry was a crucial development in his mythology of self, and in his life as a man. This meditative voice is his ultimate persona . The wistful superman of "The Poem that Took the Place of a Mountain," as he moves rocks and trees around and picks his way among the clouds, finally recognizes in the potent abstraction of his own poetry "his unique and solitary home." In seeing the thrust of a militantly private man's work as that of "transcending biography," Milton Bates is able to go to the core of the interest Stevens's life and art have for us. Frank J. Lepkowski Oakland University Phyllis Grosskurth, Melanie Klein: Her World and Her Work. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986. 515 pp. $12.50. Because women were the insiders and men the outsiders in Melanie Klein's life, it is understandable that her biographer, Phyllis Grosskurth, sees Klein best, and most sympathetically, through other women's eyes. Women were Klein's best friends, her confidantes, allies, and collaborators. Her closest friend as a young woman was Klara Vagó who gave Klein the tenderness and love which she did not get from either her parents or husband. As she matured, it was again women who helped expand her horizons . For example, Alix Strachey played a vital role in introducing her to England, and Strachey's description of Klein and the hat she was to wear when first addressing the British Psycho-Analytic Society gives a precise portrait of a little appreciated psychoanalytic pioneer: It's a vasty, voluminous affair in bright yellow with a huge brim and a cluster, a whole garden, of mixed flowers. . . . The total effect is that of an overblown tearose . . . . She looks like a whore run mad—or, no—she really is Cleopatra ... for through it all, there's something very handsome and attractive in her face. She's a dotty woman. But there's no doubt whatever that her mind is stored with things of thrilling interest. And she's a nice character (p. 136). In England from the thirties to the fifties, Melanie Klein revolutionized psychoanalysis by pushing its frontiers further backward in time to the very beginnings of human psychological development. In her work on the infant's phantasy world of beloved and persecuting internal figures, of envy, greed, jealousy and hate, and of devastating emotional turmoil, women such as Joan Riviere and Paula Heimann were her closest coworkers. Finally, in her political struggles to maintain her position and power within the psychoanalytic movement, it was these same women who were her allies. Klein was a tenacious advocate of herself and her own theories; in fact, like other great analysts including both Freud and Jung, she was an embodiment of her own theories . Just as classical psychoanalysis works wonders in explaining Freud's life, and analytical psychology provides a fine understanding of Jung's development, so Kleinian psychoanalysis, focused as it is on mother-child disharmony, provides deep insights into Klein's relations with her mother, her daughter, her closest women friends, and ultimately with herself. Grosskurth says that Klein's heresy against psychoanalysis was that in her work "the mother was replacing the father as the seat of neuroses" (p. 116). As men were at the periphery of her personal and professional life, so they were in her theories. Nothing could have been a greater apostasy; Freud, himself, had declared that the child's 330 biography Vol. 11, No. 4 greatest need was for a father's protection. Klein insisted that the infant's initial bond with the mother was of far greater importance in human destiny than children's less intimate interactions with their fathers. While most psychoanalysts seemed comfortable in accepting Freud's role as patriarch and the centrality of the father in psychoanalytic theory, they were not willing to tolerate the ascendancy of a woman. Klein's work met with blatantly sexist criticism; for example, a male analyst, John Padel, moaned that, " 'This is a system which, used unmodified, could imprison both patient and analyst in a matriarch world' " (p. 270). One woman with some power was, at least in...