Psychoanalytic Contributions Research Articles

The Social and Political Life of Shame: The U.S. 2016 Presidential Election

The social, economic, and political context of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and Donald Trump’s ascendancy to the presidency provides a fertile opportunity for the examination of the social and political life of shame in the United States. Trump’s transfer of the shame of poor and lower middle-class Whites to immigrants, refugees, and people of color was an ingredient in his ability to build a base of support to help engender his electoral success. Deserved shame is differentiated from undeserved shame. Confrontation with feelings of shame is necessary in working and living across normalized social, economic, and racial borders. Psychoanalytic contributions on the metabolization of deserved shame are needed at social, political, and psychological levels of organization. Psychological practitioners need to cultivate a willingness to work with their own deserved shame so that psychosocial accompaniment can become a more common form of practice.

Trump World: What Do Women Want?

Feminism and the role and rights of women became a central theme of the 2016 presidential election. Trump, since taking office, has acted in ways that directly and adversely affect women. One issue that unites both the women who voted for and those who voted against Trump is the conviction that the world has become a threatening, dangerous, and treacherous place. What is, or could be, the unique contribution of psychoanalysis to this dangerous political climate? What we do have to offer is our expertise as listeners, our ability to hold opposing and even contradictory views in mind simultaneously and our ability to maintain an attitude of neutrality. As such, we are in a position to facilitate dialogue between groups and individuals who have become polarized. Without dialogue, splits become even more extreme and those on the “other side” are increasingly vilified, their views exaggerated.

Towards psychoanalytic contribution to linguistic metaphor theory.

This paper lays out a formulation of the psychoanalytical contribution to linguistic metaphor theory. The author's main argument is that psychoanalysis can help enrich and shed light on linguistic metaphor theories, since these have focused on the cognitive aspect, to the exclusion of the role played by affect. Based on the tight link between metaphor and symbol - both configurations of figurative language - the author shall apply ideas sourced from some of the key psychoanalytic symbolization theories, focusing in particular on Klein, Winnicott, and Ogden. The course of exploration will serve to trace the unconscious emotional aspects that participate in the metaphor's mechanism, just as they participate in the symbol's workings. The study leads to the main conclusion that the intersubjective transitional space is of substantial importance to metaphor's constitution, particularly in regard to novel metaphors. Expanding the understanding of metaphor's modus operandi has important implications in conceptual clarification and for an in-depth analytical work, and is of immense significance when it comes to analytical work with patients who suffer impairment of their metaphoric ability.

Teoria psicanalítica, sexo e gênero: articulações em uma perspectiva anti-essencialista

O presente artigo discute contribuições psicanalíticas aos estudos sobre sexualidade e gênero. A teoria psicanalítica freudiana recebeu diversas críticas por parte dos teóricos de estudos de gênero que reconheceram, nas hipóteses aventadas por Freud, atitudes reducionistas e deterministas. Todavia, Freud foi um dos primeiros autores a propor leituras sobre a sexualidade que, justamente, evitavam tanto o reducionismo no entendimento de certas práticas sexuais – deixando de considerá-las sob uma perspectiva psicopatológica –, quanto a consideração segundo a qual haveria uma pré-determinação na sexualidade e nos gêneros, em termos biológicos. Com base no estudo histórico-epistemológico sobre o tema da sexualidade na psicanálise e na análise de um caso clínico freudiano, propõe-se uma leitura anti-essencialista que evita reducionismos no entendimento de questões referentes à subjetivação e privilegia o entendimento da subjetividade inscrita no domínio sociocultural.

A Psychoanalytic Contribution to Understanding the Lack of Professional Involvement in Psychotherapeutic Work with Families where there is Psychosis

I offer some psychoanalytic perspectives and hypotheses to contribute to understanding why family interventions are rarely offered in psychosis. This is despite decades of evidence that family difficulties often predate onset of psychosis and that skilled family interventions are at least as effective as medication in reducing relapse rates. I contend that it is often unbearably disturbing for some families to even consider the possibility of having contributed to the vulnerability of a member to psychosis and that professionals fear accusations of ‘blaming’. Multisystem defences, involving both families and professionals, shift explanations for psychosis, reducing them as a disorder of brain chemistry and somewhat exclusively allowing the logical consequence that only pharmacological interventions ‘make sense’. I summarize the unfortunate consequences of these defences and suggest that there is denial of the important difference between describing possible family environmental contributing factors in psychosis and attributing ‘blame’. Whole team training that involves families and social networks in a highly respectful and humane manner overcomes some of these obstacles. Several decades of increasingly successful research in the Finnish psychodynamically orientated ‘need‐adapted approach to psychosis’ resulting in recent more global interest in open dialogue indicate an effective way of engaging families and of achieving superior outcomes in returning individuals to social engagement as students or to employment.

Keynote Speeches by Grayson Perry and Patrick Casement Edited by Dr Robin Tipple

Grayson Perry Dr Jill Westwood introduced the delegates to Grayson Perry. She drew attention to the work that Grayson had produced, and his observations, all of which she felt had “extraordinary reach”. In his making of pots, pictures, books, dresses, tapestries, motorbikes and now houses, Grayson draws on autobiography, works with the emotional and with the experience of psychotherapy. Grayson was also the winner of two BAFTA awards for his TV programmes presenting social and art-driven observations on class, taste, culture gender and identity. Addressing Grayson Jill said “You are in a unique position….and we are very happy for you, who is mischievous at the centre, to connect to us who is mildly maverick on the margins”. Grayson shared his creative journey through slides, talk and discussion with the conference delegates. He explored identity and the development of a sense of self. He emphasised the way in which the material culture provided support for self explorations and expression. He gave an account of journeys he had made and the inspiration that he gained from exchanges with others. Learning from others, Grayson suggested, was central to his understanding of creativity, a creativity which he felt was also central to the therapeutic endeavour. Patrick Casement Dr Robin Tipple introduced the delegates to the psychoanalyst Patrick Casement, author of Learning from the Patient (1985), Further learning from the patient (1990), and Learning from mistakes (2002), the later receiving a Gradiva award for its contribution to psychoanalysis. Robin felt that all these books together represented psychoanalysis at its best, a psychotherapy that was not dogmatic, but open and honest in relation to communication with the patient. He said that the books were formative in developing his own therapeutic practices, and he was delighted when Patrick agreed to speak at the conference. Robin ended his introduction by observing how Patrick, in his youth, developed an extraordinary ability in diving, in plumbing the depths and holding his breath.

The absent follower: Identity construction within organisationally assigned leader–follower relations

This article seeks to add to our understanding of processes of identity construction within organisationally assigned leader–follower relations through an exploration of the role of the absent, feminised follower. We situate our work within critical and psychoanalytic contributions to leader/ship and follower/ship and use Lacan’s writings on identification and lack to illuminate the imaginary, failing nature of identity construction. This aims to challenge the social realist foundations of writing on leader–follower constellations in organisational life. We examine our philosophical discussion through a reflective reading of a workplace example and question the possibility of a subject’s identity construction as a follower. If a subject is unable to identify him/herself as follower, he/she cannot validate others as leaders, rendering the leader–follower relationship not only fragile but phantasmic. We highlight implications of our exploration of the absence of follower/ship and endless, unfulfilled desire for leader/ship for future research and practice.

Pichon Rivière's psychoanalytic contributions: Some comparisons with object relations and modern developments in psychoanalysis

Enrique Pichon Rivière's work, fundamental to Latin American and European psychoanalytic development, is largely unknown in English‐language psychoanalysis. Pichon's central contribution, the link (el vinculo), describes relational bonds in all dimensions. People are born into, live in, and relate through links. Psychic structure is built of links that then influence external interaction. Links, expressed in mind, body and external action, continuously join internal and external worlds. Links have two axes: vertical axis links connect generations through unconscious transgenerational transmission; horizontal axis links connect persons to life partners, family, community and society. For Pichon, treatment constitutes a spiral process through which interpretation disrupts existent structures, promoting new emergent organizations at successively deeper levels. Psychic and link structures evolve over time unless repetitive cycles stunt growth. For Pichon, transference is constituted in the here‐and‐now‐with‐me because of the analytic link. Pichon also undertook family and group psychoanalysis where individuals become spokespersons for unconscious links and family secrets. He developed operative groups that apply psychoanalysis to both analytic and non‐analytic tasks. After describing Pichon's major contributions, the paper compares Pichon Rivière's ideas with those of Klein, Fairbairn, Bion, Winnicott and Bowlby, and contemporary writers including Ogden, Kaës, and Ferro whose works echo Pichon Rivière's thought.

Working with and ‘seeing through’ the sexual transference in the psychotherapy of an adolescent boy

This paper explores the challenges and developmental opportunities of working with the sexual transference in psychotherapy with adolescents. Psychoanalytic contributions investigating the nature of adolescent sexuality and the developmental move from a narcissistic organisation to a capacity to form intimate relationships are reviewed, and the question of what happens when there is a lack of containment in infancy is addressed. The way in which unintegrated sexual impulses and phantasies can invade the therapeutic relationship is further discussed through the account of the weekly psychotherapy of a 16-year-old boy who formed a powerful sexual transference to his female therapist. The paper highlights how working through the sexual transference enabled this young man to face his developmental paralysis and begin to use the therapy as an opportunity for psychic growth.

Psychoanalytic Contributions to the Understanding of Vulnerable Populations: A Case Illustration

Psychoanalytic Contributions to the Understanding of Vulnerable Populations: A Case Illustration

The emotional turn in higher education: a psychoanalytic contribution

ABSTRACTThis article contributes to contemporary debates about the significance of emotions within Higher Education. Using a psychoanalytic lens we analyse the ways in which experiences of anxiety and tension are essential for learning. The anxiety associated with learning can stimulate meaningful and reflexive outcomes but ‘learning inaction’ [Vince, R. 2014. ‘What Do HRD Scholars and Practitioners Need to Know About Power, Emotion, and HRD?’ Human Resource Development Quarterly 25: 409–420] is also possible. In adopting a psychoanalytical lens we assert the agency of both learners and teachers in scholarly relationships and we draw attention to the emotions of educators as well as students. This has important implications for teacher education and academic formation activities.

Reflexiones psicoanalíticas acerca de la justicia, la ley y la legalidad en el Perú de hoy

This article proposes a reflection on the irrational aspects of justice and legality that remain veiled in the debate on the difficulties of judicial reform processes in our region and which are expressed harshly in gender violence. Psychoanalytic contributions on culture state that the existence of the unconscious (the instinctual life of the subject) is that which enables the establishment of the law. From this perspective, conflict is inherent in human beings and the anxieties it arouses cannot be bypassed or denied. Therefore, the establishment of limits and a healthy expression of aggression depend on the internal construction of legality in the subject. On the intersubjective level, the mismatch between the expectations of the population and justice operators is associated with the confusion between social reality and the real (Lacan), generating a basic misunderstanding to be solved. As a method, fundamental psychoanalytic concepts are employed and situations of violence against women from Peruvian rural communities are discussed. The paper concludes that it is essential to any process of change or reform to work around the elaboration of anxieties that block the task in institutions and groups. This work facilitates access to justice, while generating new knowledge in this field.

Psychoanalytic phenomenology of schizophrenia: Synthetic metacognition as a construct for guiding investigation.

A review of psychoanalytic writings reveals a vibrant but overlooked history of descriptions of the phenomenology of schizophrenia. In this paper we suggest that neglect of these important psychoanalytic contributions to the understanding of alterations of self-experience in schizophrenia is at least partially due to an absence of sufficient operational definitions by which to study these constructs. We then detail an emergent line of research from the neurosciences investigating processes, referred to as metacognition, by which persons develop, evolve, and reflect upon mental representations of self and others. The findings from this growing line of research are convergent with psychoanalytic descriptions of self-experience in schizophrenia, and may provide a method to guide investigation of concepts found in psychoanalytic literature. This convergence presents a number of implications for both contemporary understandings of schizophrenia, future research, as well as psychoanalytically and nonpsychoanalytically informed treatments of schizophrenia.

Group Analysis and the Different Approaches: The Portuguese Contribution. A Tribute to E.L. Cortesão

The development of psychoanalysis itself and, in particular, the publication of the so called Freud’s anthropological works led to the appearance and growth of group psychotherapy, namely, of their psychoanalytic approaches. Their general characteristics are described and some of their particular aspects (Slavson, Wolf and Schwartz, Ezriel, Bion) referred. The importance of the contributions of Ego psychology, ORT and self-psychology in this evolution are particularly stressed. The use of philosophical (existential) models, though complemented by psychoanalytical and behavioural contributions (Yalom) are also referred. The point of view and basic conceptions of group analysis, the most diffused of analytical group psychotherapies in Europe, are particularly described and, in their context, the points of view of Trigant Burrow, Foulkes and Cortesão compared. Cortesão’s points of view are particularly developed and, among them, the conceptions of group-analytic process (developed in analogy with Bibring similar point of view established in the psychoanalytic setting), group-analytic pattern and matrix, changing levels of experience and interpretation, specific aspects of group-analytical transference, commutative interpretation, aesthetic balance and its importance in the group analytic process. The working through of the group transference neurosis becomes a nuclear step in this approach. Finally, Foulkes’ and Cortesão’s approaches in group-analysis are compared and the similarities between them underlined, in spite of some apparent contradictions.

Dignity in Three Acts

The author develops three distinct senses of “dignity” that materialize in Drozek’s paper. Dignity as intrinsic worth invites the question of whether the implicit notion of dignity in contemporary psychoanalysis is best viewed as Kantian and, if so, how we are to accommodate the rationalism that inheres in it. Dignity as a state of mind leads the author to sketch the view that dignity is imperiled by absence (of vitality, of realness), contrasting it with Drozek’s emphasis on badness. Dignity as a relational provision summons inquiry into the distinction between “valuing” and “recognizing” in the encounter between subjectivities. Recognition, it is suggested, not only begets love, but also serves as the most compelling analytic instantiation of the Kantian Formula for Humanity—to treat the other as an end. By spelling out these interrelated significations, we not only discern our debts to the concept of dignity but also reveal potential psychoanalytic contributions to the broader conversation about dignity’s essence.

Cultural competence as a core emphasis of psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Psychoanalytic theory has been criticized for decontextualizing individual development. While recognizing the historical neglect of sociocultural context in psychoanalytic theory, this article raises attention to psychoanalytic contributions to the exploration of sociocultural issues in psychotherapy and calls for a systematic inclusion of cultural competence as a core area of emphasis of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The article includes a brief review of cultural competence in professional psychology, and both a critique of psychoanalysis regarding the neglect of sociocultural context in psychotherapy and a discussion of psychoanalytic contributions to a complex understanding of sociocultural issues in psychotherapy. Specific approaches to cultural competence that extend existing psychoanalytic theory concerning sociocultural context are presented. These include the recognition of historical trauma and neglect of sociocultural issues, indigenous cultural narratives, role of context in the use of language and expression of affect, influence of experiences of social oppression and stereotypes on therapeutic process and outcome, and the dynamic nature of cultural identifications.

A psychoanalytic child psychotherapy contribution to generic assessments.

Psychoanalytically trained child and adolescent psychotherapists have applied psychodynamic thinking to family work, consultations and brief work for some time. Findings from a research project in which the author investigated the processes involved in generic assessments undertaken by herself and what actually takes place are presented. A description of some skills and techniques used by the author are also described.

Teologia de Psicoanálise: Proposta de Campo de Pesquisa a Partir da Psicanálise e Teologia Cristã

It is a reflection that seeks interdisciplinary links between Christian Theology and Psychoanalysis, with the aim of investigating possible conceptual similarities between the proposed fields and propose a field of reflection we call Psychoanalytic Theology. Methodologically, it is a theoretical and conceptual review, which conjures up theoretical and epistemological contributions that we deem relevant to such an approach (Paradigm of Complexity and Fundamental Psychopathology), plus the contribution of O. Pfister. The goal is to provide a clinical know-how where the patient/believer becomes subject of his discourse, subjectivity and therefore its pathos , where his belief becomes important to understand their suffering and healing, and where one emerges theology aired by psychoanalytic contributions in ways that constitute a new and fruitful interdisciplinary field in the humanities.

Psychoanalysis and development: contributions, examples, limits

This article examines the contributions of psychoanalysis to international development, illustrating ways in which thinking and practice in this field are psychoanalytically structured. Drawing on the work of Lacan and Žižek, the article will emphasise three key points: (1) psychoanalysis can help uncover the unconscious of development – its gaps, dislocations, blind spots – thereby elucidating the latter’s contradictory and seemingly ‘irrational’ practices; (2) the important psychoanalytic notion of jouissance (enjoyment) can help explain why development discourse endures, that is, why it has such sustained appeal, and why we continue to invest in it despite its many problems; and (3) psychoanalysis can serve as an important tool for ideology critique, helping to expose the socioeconomic contradictions and antagonisms that development persistently disavows (eg inequality, domination, sweatshop labour). But while partial to Lacan and Žižek, the article will also reflect on the limits of psychoanalysis – the extent to which it is gendered and, given its Western origins, universalisable.

Concepções sobre álcool e outras drogas na atenção básica: o pacto denegativo dos profissionais de saúde

O objetivo do presente estudo foi analisar as concepções de profissionais de saúde de nível superior que atuam na Estratégia de Saúde da Família acerca da atenção em saúde a usuários de álcool e outras drogas. A coleta de dados envolveu o emprego de um roteiro semiestruturado de entrevista junto a 12 participantes, sendo quatro médicos, quatro enfermeiros e quatro psicólogos. Os dados obtidos foram submetidos à análise temática de conteúdo e interpretados à luz de aportes teóricos psicanalíticos. Os resultados apontam que os participantes possuem concepções acerca dos usuários permeadas por preconceitos e estigmas, o que gera dificuldades para o empreendimento de ações de saúde e os leva, na maior parte das vezes, a apenas realizar encaminhamentos. Tais resultados sugerem o engajamento dos participantes em um pacto denegativo, ou seja, uma aliança inconsciente que implica na renúncia destes em relação aos usuários de álcool e outras drogas. Novos estudos são necessários para que se possa compreender as concepções de profissionais de saúde inseridos em outros níveis de atenção e, assim, identificar eventuais outros obstáculos à efetivação das políticas públicas.