Psychoanalytic Institute Research Articles

ECPs and Psychotherapy: Battling the Obstacles

ECPs and Psychotherapy: Battling the Obstacles

The Primal Scene in and about Psychoanalytic Institutions

ABSTRACTDrawing on notions of primal scene and Bion’s theorizing of groups, this essay looks at the elements in institutional groups where transgressions and corruption may appear and develop and examines the difficulties group members have in working through the violations and potential disruptions to the institution’s functioning.

Introduction

ABSTRACTThis essay develops several perspectives on Bion’s concept of primal scene and introduces a series of sex papers on aspects of the primal scene: its developmental implications, implications for thinking, a way of examining the forces of silence and transgression in psychoanalytic institutions, the mythic dimensions of the primal scene and its lens into considerations of race and racism.

Eric Berne and Loss

This article describes Eric Berne’s experience of loss in relation to three specific aspects of his life: the death of his father, his experience of anti-Semitism, and his rejection by the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute. The possible implications of these losses for both Berne and transactional analysis theory are considered with the aim of informing transactional analysis practitioners about the most important losses, turning points, and challenges he faced.

German students’ current choice of profession in the field of psychotherapy

The psychoanalytic societies in Germany as in many other countries are concerned by a decline in the number of candidates for full psychoanalytic training. While this situation is partly attributable to changes both in society and in educational and healthcare systems, it is questionable whether psychoanalytic training institutions have yet found adequate responses to it. Under the banner of ‘evidence‐based treatment’, behaviour therapy has come to be widely disseminated, with major implications for the teaching of different psychotherapy paradigms at universities. To investigate the determinants of this trend in the specific German situation, a large‐scale, multi‐method exploratory study supported by 's programme was undertaken, focusing on the reasons given by a population (N = 679) of German psychology, medical, and education students for embarking on training in psychoanalysis or behaviour therapy. The results suggest that behaviour therapy is more compatible with the prevailing scientific understanding and with current societal and cultural trends, owing in part to inadequacies or bias in university teaching of the various paradigms of psychotherapy. While most of the psychology students expressed a preference for behavioural training, the psychotherapy option proved less attractive for their counterparts in the fields of medicine and education. Semi‐standardized qualitative interviews were used to gain a deeper understanding of the students’ decisions for or against training in a specific paradigm, and led to the identification of seven decision‐making prototypes. Possible reasons for the students’ decisions are discussed, and concrete proposals and recommendations are presented.

Living Longer, Living Well

Living Longer, Living Well

On Becoming a Psychoanalyst in Japan

ABSTRACTThis special issue introduces psychoanalysis in Japan, its history, thoughts, and development, through the autobiographies of some Japanese psychoanalysts. I graduated relatively recently from a training course in psychoanalysis at the Japan Institute of Psychoanalysis and was certified as a psychoanalyst by the Japan Psychoanalytic Society (JPS). If I am to write about why I aimed to become a psychoanalyst in Japan and how I became one, not only my personal history but also the influences of Japanese culture and Japanese therapeutic culture will undoubtedly be important. In this article, by relating my life history, I trace the path I followed for becoming a psychoanalyst and explore the broader implications of my experience. The paper “An Autobiographical Study” by Freud (1925) is a famous autobiographical psychoanalytic essay, and a more recent paper “Learning from Life―Becoming a Psychoanalyst” by Casement (2006) is also well known. To publicize an autobiography, a psychoanalyst always includes the possibility of self-disclosure. Because I am still practicing psychoanalysis regularly, I hesitate slightly to write this article. However, writing an autobiography is also, in part, a process of self-analysis after becoming a psychoanalyst, and can be considered a part of a psychoanalyst’s interminable training (Okada, 2012).

Ghosts and Growth: Reply to Commentaries by Anthony Bass and Steven Kuchuck

In this reply to commentaries by Tony Bass and Steven Kuchuck’s discussions of “Finding Words: How the Process and Products of Psychoanalytic Writing Can Channel the Therapeutic Action of the Very Treatment It Sets Out to Describe,” Altstein proposes that Loewald’s reinvention of Freud’s Oedipus conflict to include the act of parricide is active in the relationship between candidates at psychoanalytic institutes and the teachers and writers they revere. Psychoanalytic writing is offered as a potential—and useful—vehicle for the destruction of, honoring of, and joining with one’s symbolic analytic parents.

Introduction: Dialogues in Multiculturalism and Psychoanalysis

In 2014 NYU Postdoctoral program’s created the CERCCL Multiculturalism and Psychoanalysis Award. The inaugural award-winning paper, written by Daniel Gaztambide, and two ensuing commentaries—one by Lew Aron and Karen Starr and one by Annie Lee Jones—are introduced. These papers are presented in the context of the “Whiteness” of most U.S psychoanalytic institutes. The need for ongoing scholarly conversations within psychoanalytic institutes on multiculturalism and psychoanalysis is discussed.

Robert S. Wallerstein (1921–2014)

This brief note introduces a memoir by Robert S. Wallerstein, M.D. Wallerstein’s essay reviews his career, beginning as an internist and soon as a psychiatrist–psychoanalyst. Wallerstein’s professional account of his development tracks the historical periods within which it unfolded. This reflects his own social and political awareness, which was expressed in the activist spirit that vitalized his work within established medical and psychoanalytic institutions.

Institutional, Financial, Legal, and Cultural Factors in a Distance Learning Program.

As psychoanalytic institutes evolve, adapting to the contemporary financial and social environment, the integration of new technologies into psychoanalytic education presents opportunities for expansion to candidates residing beyond the usual geographic boundaries. While the teaching of analytic content through distance learning programs appears to be relatively straightforward, factors including legalities, traditional mind-sets, and cross-cultural issues need to be considered as complicating the situation, as illustrated by one U.S. institute's distance learning initiative with a group in South Korea.

Sibling rivalry at work; from family to groups

Sibling relationships are ambivalent. They are full of love and hate, and therefore, our most basic wish cannot simply be to get rid of our siblings. Many of the conflicts we find ourselves in, either with friends or within institutions, may need a complex and subtle understanding of sibling dynamics. The famous Controversial Discussions that nearly destroyed the Institute of Psychoanalysis in the early forties could be partly attributed to the unacknowledged and unconscious dynamics of the sibling transferences that swirled around Melanie Klein, Anna Freud and Freud. One of the tasks of therapists is to explore how we all must live within a society, with our contemporaries. This difficulty involves observing that sometimes in therapy we are part of the nursery quarrel itself, rather than superior. And so in adult sibling conflict within an institution, there may be a need for an outside moderator, like a parent, to sort out the quarrel; for when sibling passions are revived at work or in the consulting room, they can knock one sideways with the unmeditated quality of the encounter.

Psychotherapy Supervision for Psychiatry Residents

Objective To review specificities of and difficulties in psychodynamic psychotherapy training for psychiatry residents. The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada requires a minimum of 32 weeks of the PGY2-PGY5 psychotherapy experience. Most of Canadian universities organize training in supportive psychotherapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy and long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy for psychiatry residents. At the beginning of the PGY3 year, residents will begin supervised practice in psychodynamic psychotherapy for a minimum of one year. Residents may perceive psychodynamic psychotherapy as too complicated and they may require a more directive approach in supervision and guidance regarding psychotherapy technique and psychotherapy process. This is understandable because they lack personal/didactic analysis. Supervisor trained in psychoanalysis needs to take into account differences in supervision as a part of psychoanalytic training and psychiatry resident supervision in psychodynamic psychotherapy. Unlike the psychoanalytic training organized by psychoanalytic institutes, training in psychotherapy as a part of residency training is much less defined in terms of standards and expectations from both residents and supervisors. The profile of psychodynamic psychotherapists who serve as supervisors for residents may vary significantly with regards to their training, experience and personal style in supervision. Criteria for assessment of resident performance and his/her progress in training are not well established. Residency training committees and psychotherapy training committees should work on developing training standards of psychotherapy supervisions for residents. In conclusion, psychodynamic psychotherapy supervision for psychiatry residents is a specific and modified type of psychotherapy supervision. There is a need for standardization of the long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy supervision.

Future Psychoanalysts and Memories of the Second World War

On Veterans Day, November 11, 1995, the year marking the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute organized the presentation of soldiers’ experiences from that war. The article is a transcription of the memoirs that the analysts delivered on that occasion. The presenters were NYPSI members M. Donald Coleman, Eugene H. Kaplan, Maurice S. Nadelman, and Howard M. Schlossman. During the war, Dr. Coleman was stationed with the 9 th Army Field Hospital. Drs. Kaplan and Nadelman served in combat with the 87 th Infantry Division. Dr. Schlossman was a Battalion surgeon in the 6 th Armored Division; like Drs. Kaplan and Nadelman, he served in General George S. Patton’s Third Army. All four presenters trained in psychoanalysis at NYPSI after the war.

Psychoanalysis in Spain: A Brief Account of the Transformative Pathways Between the Psychoanalysts and Their Institutions

Psychoanalysis in Spain has a plural history. Rooted in the Freudian and Kleinian traditions, it has developed in different directions and incorporated trends from contemporary psychoanalysis. The impact of socio-political factors forced several migratory movements that came back to Spain under the form of criticism to classical psychoanalysis, following ideas that were emerging from Latin America (e.g., Pichon Rivière) and North America (Cultural and Interpersonal Psychoanalysis, Self Psychology, and Intersubjective System theories) that enriched psychoanalytic thinking, and promoted new psychoanalytic institutions. Finally, Steve Mitchell’s relational perspective plays a crucial role among present developments.

Introduction

The half‐day conference in 2014 at which the following papers were presented was held as part of the Interdisciplinary Programme of the Psychoanalysis Unit at University College London, to mark the 70th anniversary of the series of 10 scientific meetings known as the Controversial Discussions held in the British Psychoanalytical Society between 1942 and 1944 (King and Steiner, 1991). The conference and its papers now published here aimed to develop further the detailed histories made available by King and Steiner together with their relevance for contemporary clinicians. The extraordinary resource provided by the gathering of the documents relating not only to scientific controversies, but to the training of candidates, institutional decision making, and the nexus of power relations in psychoanalytic institutes is a profound scholarly contribution for all concerned with the future of psychoanalysis and the place of its past in that future.

Resistances and Progress in Developing a Research Framework in Psychoanalytic Institutes

This article explores the resistances against a major research function as part of psychoanalytic education within contemporary psychoanalytic institutes. It stresses the essential function of research development to assure the future of psychoanalysis as a science and a profession, and the self-destructive consequences of the absence of a research framework as part of the psychoanalytic enterprise. This article explores the reason for the state of affairs, and suggests fundamental changes in psychoanalytic education as an essential part of the training of psychoanalysts and the mission of psychoanalytic institutions.

Teaching Psychoanalytic Concepts in the University Setting: Issues, Challenges, and Promises

Psychoanalysis has had a longstanding, but not always easy, relationship with scientific psychology and the university environment. Reasons for this tension include challenges related to empirical support for analytic concepts, the co-opting of analytic ideas by other theories without always citing the psychoanalytic foundations of these ideas, and difficulty teaching these ideas to students. Recently, there has been a call for closer scrutiny of teaching practices and advocacy for more research in psychoanalytic societies and institutes. Thus, conflict is both external against misperception by others outside of the psychoanalytic enclave and internal over longstanding attitudes about teaching and training analytic candidates. In this article, I focus on the way psychoanalysis is perceived and misperceived in academic psychology, relevance of empirical psychoanalytic research for educators, and what this means for the future of graduate education in psychology and psychoanalysis. I also present a sampling of creative teaching approaches beyond the traditional pedagogical strategies of lecture and examination for encouraging student learning of psychoanalytic concepts.

The Space Between

In the world of education the emotional life of the child has come in and out of focus. Psychoanalytic ideas and principles, including an emphasis on the individual, unconscious motivations, attachments, transferences, disavowed intentions, and feelings defended against, are in full operation within school settings. More recent developments in social-emotional skill promotion in schools and the emphasis on instilling skills such as perseverance and self-control have aims similar to psychoanalytic ideas of healthy ego functioning but use a more direct, didactic approach. We propose that the psychoanalytic school consultant can help bridge the gap between our wish to instill values and skills and some of the obstacles the individual student and school community might face. Through two case examples, one of a latency-age boy who struggled with aggressive impulses, and the other an adolescent caught in a "sexting" scandal, we delineate how the consultant using a psychoanalytic lens can intervene with the students, parents, faculty, and administration to facilitate the type of growth and education desired.

Eugenia Sokolnicka – A Contribution to the History of Psychoanalysis in Poland and France

This paper presents Eugenia Sokolnicka, a Polish analyst who belongs to the first generation of psychoanalysts. The article provides an overview of Sokolnicka's clinical and theoretical work, describes her contribution to psychoanalysis and portrays her as a brilliant clinician and a precursor of child analysis. As a student of C.G. Jung, S. Freud and S. Ferenczi, she played a significant role in the development and promotion of Freud's method in literary and medical circles. Sokolnicka unsuccessfully attempted to establish the Polish Psychoanalytical Society and participated in the process of forming psychoanalytical institutions in France. The analysis of her papers presents her contribution to various fields of theory and techniques of psychoanalysis. Furthermore, the research on letters written between S. Freud, S. Ferenczi, K. Abraham and O. Rank provides insight into Sokolnicka's life and personality.