Paul Roazen Research Articles

On Depression: Drugs, Diagnosis, and Despair in the Modern World by Nassir Ghaemi (review)

Reviewed by: On Depression: Drugs, Diagnosis, and Despair in the Modern World by Nassir Ghaemi David Herzberg Nassir Ghaemi. On Depression: Drugs, Diagnosis, and Despair in the Modern World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. ix + 215 pp. $24.95 (978-1-4214-0933-7). Nassir Ghaemi’s primer on existentialist psychiatry, On Depression: Drugs, Diagnosis, and Despair in the Modern World, is a thoughtful, ambitious, and flawed effort to persuade Americans (and their psychiatrists) that suffering is an important element of a meaningful life. The book begins in familiar territory with a critique of today’s expansive definitions of depression as illness. Ghaemi, a professor of psychiatry, director of a mood disorder program, and author of previous best sellers on madness and psychiatry, acknowledges that true depression (“depression disease”) is biological and should therefore be treated with medication. But, he argues, most depression—the kind that “is not episodic, that is chronic and admixed with anxiety”—does not have biological causes and is therefore not a disease (“depression nondisease”; p. 14). Moreover, he points out in a welcome (if brief) chapter on “Abnormal Happiness,” not all happiness is desirable either. Mania can be debilitating, and psychiatrists, he fears, may be fostering it by prescribing Prozac to people with nondisease depression (p. 41). Ghaemi prefers a skeptical approach that he frames as Hippocratic by way of Osler: prescribe “for diseases, not symptoms, and not even for all diseases” (p. 54). If most depression is not disease, what then should be done about it? Ghaemi answers this in the book’s best and most heartfelt section, called “Guides,” which offers a series of paeans to his intellectual heroes. Viktor Frankl taught him the importance of suffering, and of learning to suffer. Existential psychologist Rollo May translated this cosmic truth into the therapeutic encounter, which, he argued, should encourage awareness of suffering but also affirm existence in spite of it. Ghaemi’s former mentor Leston Havens and historian of psychoanalysis Paul Roazen demonstrated how to acknowledge both biology and “problems of living” in patients despite the apparent contradiction. And, finally, Karl Jaspers showed the necessity to “accept science as true” while recognizing its limits and thinking rigorously and seriously about the territory of faith that lies beyond it. Together, this mix of canonical intellectuals and personal figures is both affecting and effective at conveying Ghaemi’s argument that most depression is not biological disease but an existential challenge to which we must rise. Suffering and eventual death are real for all of us, and so are the anxieties and depression that they quite reasonably cause. “The only way out,” he concludes, “is to choose to live ... to find a way to decide that life is worth living” (p. 167). Many historians of medicine would likely be sympathetic to this reasoning, but Ghaemi alienates at least some such potential allies with a sustained but simplistic polemic against what he sees as the truth-denying, relativistic “postmodernists” who have “taken hold of all academia” (p. 63). This section of the book, called “Pretenders,” offers such un-illuminating jabs as the suggestion that postmodernists should “stop taking their antibiotics and avoid their vaccines” (p. 142), and the more serious charge that postmodernists’ “moral relativism” allowed “space [End Page 628] for the banality of evil that led to the Jewish genocide” (p. 60). He spends a whole chapter vilifying historian David Healy—a controversial figure to be sure, but hardly one lacking moral convictions or respect for empirical evidence. It is, frankly, depressing to read someone as smart as Ghaemi dismissing nearly a whole generation of humanistic scholarship because it does not share his proudly Whiggish faith in science. Interestingly, Ghaemi is able to preserve that Whiggish faith only by defining developments he dislikes as unscientific. The recent increase in use of ECT for depression, for example, does not count as science because it has happened “for ideological and economic reasons” (p. 78). The DSM-IV also represents a departure from science because it was shaped by “pragmatic, professional, economic, social considerations” (p. 84). And despite the wonders of modern science, on the all-important question of depression, Ghaemi, like many of the people he denounces...

Feelings of the therapist and the obligations of countertransference

The author discusses countertransference in relation to the impact of training institutions on the therapist as a person. The author claims that therapist's feelings and experiences determine the diagnosis of the personality. It is neither the behavior nor the psychopathological phenomena, which have a diagnostic value, but how the relationship is experienced in terms of the therapist's feelings. The author speaks about the problems connected to of “as if” personalities as a starting point. This concept originated with the psychopathological studies of Helene Deutsch, who associated it with schizophrenia. Later, Paul Roazen transported the concept to the social dimension of politics and to the personality of politicians. In this article, the author treats the “as if” personalities as a concept of unification, in contrast to current attempts to fragment diagnostic personality disorders, as in many psychoanalytic concepts in relation to the medicalization of psychoanalysis. Some clinical vignettes are briefly presented in order to sharpen this focus.

Fixing Freud: The Oedipus Complex in Early Twenty-First Century US American Novels

Representations of Sigmund Freud in early 21st century US American novels rely on and respond to the image of Freud that emerged from investigations by Paul Roazen ("Brother Animal," 1969) and Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson ("The Assault on Truth," 1984), which cast doubt on the validity of the Oedipus complex. Relying on Roazen, Brenda Webster's "Vienna Triangle" (2009) links Freud's oedipal thinking to paranoia and male masochism. Working with Masson, Selden Edwards's "The Little Book" (2008) takes Freud to task for abandoning the seduction theory in favor of the Oedipus complex. Jed Rubenfeld's "The Interpretation of Murder" (2006) rethinks the Oedipus complex as a projection of adults onto their children. All three novels seek to celebrate Freud's understanding of the human psyche, while shifting the focus of the oedipal structure away from the murderous and lustful child toward the adult.

A VERY FREUDIAN AFFAIR: ERICH FROMM, PETER SWALES AND THE FUTURE OF PSYCHOANALYTIC HISTORIOGRAPHY

Despite steadfast denials by Ernest Jones, Peter Gay and Paul Roazen (among others), a recent discovery by Franz Maciejewski renders it reasonably certain that Freud had an affair with his sister-in-law, Minna Bernays. While this discovery vindicates certain claims made by the controversial Freud scholar, Peter Swales, other claims of his vis-a-vis Freud's personality and ideas are open to doubt. Meanwhile, the reception of Swales's ideas, and indeed the whole controversy about Freud's love life, provide ample confirmation of many of Erich Fromm's prescient theses about Freud's personality and the politics and historiography of psychoanalysis.

Psychoanalysis eats its own: or, the Heretical Saint Roazen

The author attempts a "Roazenesque" interpretation of Paul Roazen's life and work, and situates his career vis-á-vis that of other revisionist critics of Freud. To these ends, the essay charts the highs and lows of Roazen's long career as a biographer-historian of psychoanalysis. His career is divided into four phases, the first of which is arguably the most important. It was also the most controversial, producing classic books on Victor Tausk and on Freud's followers. Roazen's later work fares less well, even undermining his standing among scholars. If there is a commonality to the work of all four phases, it is Roazen's fairly constant recourse to interviews he conducted in the mid-1960s with many people intimate with Freud. On the good side, these interviews provided him unique access to details about Freud's everyday life and practice. Roazen thus became known as the historian of arcane detail. On the bad side, Roazen came to rely too heavily on these interviews and on his own singular role as interviewer. As a result his work became increasingly self-regarding and nostalgic, and thus less original, interesting, or discerning. His legacy is therefore mixed, although secure enough that future scholars will not easily ignore his contribution in a handful of good books.

Paul Roazen

Journal of Analytical PsychologyVolume 51, Issue 1 p. 160-160 Paul Roazen Joe Cambray, Joe CambraySearch for more papers by this author Joe Cambray, Joe CambraySearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 February 2006 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0021-8774.2006.00578g.xCitations: 1Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume51, Issue1February 2006Pages 160-160 RelatedInformation

Freud: Political and Social Thought, 3rd ed.

Freud: Political and Social Thought, 3rd ed.

Review of Canada's king: An essay in political psychology.

PAUL ROAZEN Canada's King. An Essay Political Psychology Oakville, ON: Mosaic Press, 1998, 177 pp. (ISBN 088962-667-7, Cdn$18.95, Paperback) Reviewed by SCOTT GREER Paul Roazen's latest book, Canada's King. An Essay Political Psycholo, offers us an intriguing look at a set of psychiatric notes and files on Canada's longest-serving prime minister, William Lyon King. Roazen has certainly chosen a fascinating case, full of sensationalistic possibilities, yet this is a scholarly and cautious work. While not intended to be a full of King, Roazen does succeed shedding light on a dark corner of this man's dual life. In the end, the reader is bound to come away wondering, if they do not already, just what is going on Ottawa. Roazen presents as a man full of paradoxes, not the least of which is his distinguished but relatively unknown place history. Roazen illustrates this quite well, when on a visit to King's gravesite, Roazen stopped by the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery office to ask for directions. Not only did they not know where the site was, but they could not find the name Mackenzie King on their computer system. Yet, according to one recent survey, was voted by Canadian scholars to be the most successful prime minister history. In fact, served as prime minister for almost 22 years and as leader of the Liberal Darty for nearly 30. During his lifetime, his visits to mediums, holdings of seances, and hosts of supernatural predilections remained guarded secrets. naturally portrayed himself as the dutiful servant, skillful negotiator, and polished professional, with his private, spiritual/mystical side tucked in the closet. After his death, King's other side has slowly been revealed to the public. Roazen also recognizes this splitting of the public and private as artificial, and tries (very successfully, I believe) to unite these. In fact, one of the book's strongest points lies the way the information is woven together, making sense out of how the politician wac at the same time. also the mystic. In terms of historical method, Roazen is very thorough, and makes excellent use of his resources. The main focus of the text is on two key documents: King's diary and a set of psychiatric notes made by Adolph Meyer, an eminent and well-respected psychoanalyst, during sessions with 1916. Although it is not clear the exact number of sessions and Meyer had, King's association with the doctors at Johns Hopkins (including Meyer) was relatively brief, lasting from late October to early November 1916. As Roazen later acknowledges, these are far from ideal sources: the notes from Meyer are incomplete and sometimes incoherent or undecipherable, while King's diary (as we find out) is often unreliable; was apparently very adept at self-- deception. Roazen also makes clear the limitations of his endeavor we cannot diagnose King's disorder, even with a first-hand account of his symptoms from an expert such as Meyer. Nor can we reach any firm conclusions about the cause of King's symptoms, although there are numerous plausible explanations ranging from simple fatigue to more severe mental disturbances that interfered with his contact with reality. Roazen also eschews any presentism that we cannot use contemporary wisdom to clarify, elucidate, or, worse yet, explain a given historical or biographical subject. By looking at the state of psychiatry almost 85 years ago, where an infected tooth was seen as a plausible cause of mental disturbances, we might well find that another 80 years our contemporary science may look like so many stone knives and bearskins. One question that arises, however, is whether Roazen's book should be called a psychobiography or even a biography (it is referred to as both on the cover), since he does not proffer the kind nor certainly the degree of psychological interpretation that is usually found psychobiographies. …

How Freud Worked: First-Hand Accounts of Patients by Paul Roazen (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1995, pp. xxvi + 301)

<i>How Freud Worked: First-Hand Accounts of Patients</i> by Paul Roazen (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1995, pp. xxvi + 301)

Book Reviews

Book reviews in this article: Blind Alleys: Obstacles Along the Road to Intimacy by Gerald Alper. Freud Under Analysis ‐ Essays in Honour of Paul Roazen edited by Todd DuFresne. Love in a Time of Hate: Liberation Psychology in Latin America by Nancy Caro Hollander. On Hallucination, Intuition, and the Becoming of ‘O’ by Eric Rhode. Cult Fictions: C.G. Jung and the Founding of Analytical Psychology by Sonu Shamdasani. Freely Associated: Encounters in Psychoanalysis with Christopher Bollas, Joyce McDougall, Michael Eigen, Adam Phillips and Nina Coltart edited by Anthony Molino. For and Against Psychoanalysis by Stephen Frosh. Encounters with Autistic States edited by Theodore Mitrani and Judith L. Mitrani.

A psychology of difference: The American lectures

Journal of the History of the Behavioral SciencesVolume 34, Issue 1 p. 60-61 Book Review A psychology of difference: The American lectures Paul Roazen, Corresponding Author Paul Roazen York University, Toronto, CanadaYork University, Toronto, CanadaSearch for more papers by this author Paul Roazen, Corresponding Author Paul Roazen York University, Toronto, CanadaYork University, Toronto, CanadaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 07 December 1998 https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1520-6696(199824)34:1<60::AID-JHBS9>3.0.CO;2-NAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume34, Issue1Winter 1998Pages 60-61 RelatedInformation

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviewed in this article: The New Informants: Betrayal of Confidentiality in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy by Christopher Bollas and David Sundelson. If Someone Speaks It Gets Lighter: Dreams and the Reconstruction of Infant Trauma by Linda Share. The Narration of Desire: Erotic Transferences and Countertransferences by H.K. Wrye and J.K. Welles. Lost for Words: The Psychoanalysis of Anorexia and Bulimia by Em Farrell. Clinical Practice and the Architecture of the Mind by Robert Langs. Heresy: Sandor Rado and the Psychoanalytic Movement by Paul Roazen and Bluma Swerdloff. Oneself as Another by Paul Ricoeur (translated by Kathleen Blarney).

Geoffrey Cocks, Ed. The curve of life: Correspondence of Heinz Kohut 1923-1981. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994. 456 pp. $39.95 (cloth) (Reviewed by Paul Roazen)

Journal of the History of the Behavioral SciencesVolume 31, Issue 4 p. 412-414 Book Review Geoffrey Cocks, Ed. The curve of life: Correspondence of Heinz Kohut 1923-1981. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994. 456 pp. $39.95 (cloth) (Reviewed by Paul Roazen) First published: October 1995 https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6696(199510)31:4<412::AID-JHBS2300310414>3.0.CO;2-2AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume31, Issue4October 1995Pages 412-414 RelatedInformation

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviewed in this article: Psychoanalysis in Transition: A Personal View by Merton M. Gill. Essentials of Psychoanalysis by Herbert Strean. An Introduction to the Therapeutic Frame by Anne Gray. The Newborn in the Intensive Care Unit: A Neuropsychoanalytic Prevention Model by Romana Negri. Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse edited by Valerie Sinason. Patients as Victims: Sexual Abuse in Psychotherapy and Counselling edited by Derek Jehu. Doing Supervision and Being Supervised by Robert Langs. Mental Space by Robert Young. Meeting Freud's Family by Paul Roazen.

R. Andrew Paskauskas, Ed., The complete correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Ernest Jones 1908–1939, introduction by Riccardo Steiner. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. 836 pp. $39.95 (cloth) (Reviewed by Paul Roazen)

Journal of the History of the Behavioral SciencesVolume 30, Issue 4 p. 431-432 Book Review R. Andrew Paskauskas, Ed., The complete correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Ernest Jones 1908–1939, introduction by Riccardo Steiner. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. 836 pp. $39.95 (cloth) (Reviewed by Paul Roazen) First published: October 1994 https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6696(199410)30:4<431::AID-JHBS2300300420>3.0.CO;2-LAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume30, Issue4October 1994Pages 431-432 RelatedInformation

Paul Roazen, Meeting Freud's family. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993. 220 pp. $29.95 (cloth) (Reviewed by Todd Dufresne)

Journal of the History of the Behavioral SciencesVolume 30, Issue 3 p. 257-259 Book Review Paul Roazen, Meeting Freud's family. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993. 220 pp. $29.95 (cloth) (Reviewed by Todd Dufresne) First published: July 1994 https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6696(199407)30:3<257::AID-JHBS2300300315>3.0.CO;2-WCitations: 1AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume30, Issue3July 1994Pages 257-259 RelatedInformation

The therapeutic process, the self, and female psychology: collected psychoanalytic papers

Helene Deutsch was one of the most famous psychoanalysts to emerge from Freud's immediate circle in Vienna. Best known for her writings on female psychology, she was also one of the great teachers of psychoanalysis. As the founding president of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Training Institute, she confirmed her stature in the history of psychoanalysis by cultivating a whole younger generation of influential analysts. Deutsch was tolerant and open-minded, both as a theoretician and teacher, but, as Paul Roazen remarks in his introduction, independence and an absence of fanaticism can mean a temporary fading out of influence. For the first time, Deutsch's major professional contributions are brought together for permanent consideration. This volume documents her enduringly valuable exploration of the complexities of the psychology of women's experience. Deutsch remained essentially faithful to the Freudian canon. Nonetheless, and throughout these writings, she developed ideas on the subject of femininity that were often at odds with those of her mentor. Her use of Freud's theories aimed to encourage toleration of human diversity and to modify his model of sexuality according to the particular circumstances of women's lives. It was Deutsch who introduced motherhood as a central concern of psychoanalysis by stressing how the psychological dimension of reproduction was different for men and women and how this uniquely feminine capacity had its effects on the entire psychology of women. The same commitment to human diversity informs her much-misunderstood work on the clinical problems of female sexual dysfunction. While accepting the Freudian goal of sexual gratification, Deutsch argues that sublimation through work was a key value in its own right This is illustrated in George Sand: A Woman's Destiny, a brilliant early example of psychobiography. This volume of Deutsch's classic papers, several appearing in English for the first time, will be of interest to psychologists, intellectual historians, and women's studies specialists.

Ruth Leys and Rand B. Evans, Eds. Defining American Psychology: The correspondence between Adolf Meyer and Edward Bradford Titchener. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. 296 pp. $42.50 (cloth) (Reviewed by Paul Roazen)

Journal of the History of the Behavioral SciencesVolume 28, Issue 3 p. 266-269 Book Review Ruth Leys and Rand B. Evans, Eds. Defining American Psychology: The correspondence between Adolf Meyer and Edward Bradford Titchener. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. 296 pp. $42.50 (cloth) (Reviewed by Paul Roazen) First published: July 1992 https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6696(199207)28:3<266::AID-JHBS2300280315>3.0.CO;2-RAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume28, Issue3July 1992Pages 266-269 RelatedInformation

Sexuality, War and Schizophrenia: Collected Psychoanalytic Papers of Victor Tausk. Edited and introduced by Paul Roazen. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. 1991. £24.95.

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The Necessity of Choice: Nineteenth-Century Political Thought. By Louis Hartz. Edited by Paul Roazen. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1990. 215p. $24.95. - The Shaping of Liberal Politics in Revolutionary France: A Comparative Perspective. By Anne Sa'adah. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. 248p. $32.50.

The Necessity of Choice: Nineteenth-Century Political Thought. By Louis Hartz. Edited by Paul Roazen. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1990. 215p. $24.95. - The Shaping of Liberal Politics in Revolutionary France: A Comparative Perspective. By Anne Sa'adah. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. 248p. $32.50.