Psychoanalytic Thinking Research Articles

Bringing Psychoanalytic Thinking to a Contemporary Clinical Psychology Training Programme: A Personal Perspective on a Dynamic Process

Bringing Psychoanalytic Thinking to a Contemporary Clinical Psychology Training Programme: A Personal Perspective on a Dynamic Process

Psychoanalysis and homosexuality: The relevance of homophobia and shame for all sexualities

This article will describe some contemporary developments in psychoanalytic thinking about sexuality, from a post‐heteronormative standpoint. Psychoanalytic theorising of homosexuality had been generally homophobic for decades, reflecting society stereotypes. Previously, many analysts prescribed treatment to convert “the homosexual patient” to “healthy heterosexuality”, which Freud had regarded as likely to be unsuccessful. The author argues that psychoanalysis, having been part of the “disease” of homophobia, and the lengthy shadow cast by shame, can also contribute to its “cure” by promoting a broader understanding of the conscious and unconscious nature of desire and identity. The author considers the central role played by the superego in maintaining shame’s dominance and explores the impact of shame on time and temporality, including shame’s unique après coup nature. The struggle for acceptance of non‐heteronormative sexuality is discussed and contemporary developments in theorising desire, internalised homophobia, and Oedipus are explored. Drawing on fictional composite clinical vignettes, the author describes current challenges that clinicians face in relation to homophobia and shame, illustrating the central importance for clinicians to address where shame and homophobia lie within their own internal worlds and object relationships.

Finding Integration in a Splintered World: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Thoughts on Clinical Work.

Practitioners interested in the process of helping people change are confronted today with such a burgeoning array of perspectives, theories, and treatment modalities that even the most diligent can feel overwhelmed by the number of choices. This plethora of approaches calls into question whether there is anything that can tie them together. Asking if the psychoanalytic field is destined to be splintered into fragments that defy cohesion or if it is possible to generate a way of thinking and working that is more inclusive, this paper takes a historical and integrationist approach, grounded in a clinical focus on mental organization and Leo Rangell's total composite theory. It discusses trends in the development of psychoanalysis and argues for the importance of integration of the findings from neuropsychology and neuropsychoanalysis into psychoanalytic clinical work.

War and Attacks on Thinking: Reflections on the Psychoanalysts’ Responses to the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine

ABSTRACT This paper presents the author’s considerations of how Russia’s war against Ukraine impacted the ability to think and the capacity to empathize among psychoanalytically oriented practitioners. She first describes and discusses the observed patterns among external psychoanalytic responses to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Secondly, she reflects on these patterns through the prism of her own reactions to the 2014 Russian invasion of Eastern Ukraine and the Crimea annexation. Lastly, she offers her considerations about the limits and possibilities of psychoanalytic thinking, practice, and training in the context of wars. Overall, the author proposes associating the psychic responses to war with (a) the war mode of psychic functioning and related defenses against it, (b) psychoanalytically informed propaganda influence, and (c) peculiarities of psychoanalytic training and practice, which set a specific type of thinking.

Architecture as cause: Outlines for a psychoanalytic approach to atmosphere via film noir

AbstractThis paper offers a series of propositions concerning how our affective sensibilities are shaped and unshaped by architectural space. We will examine the connections between our pre‐reflective sense of atmospheres and other kinds of apprehension, including the psychoanalytic. The potentiality of spaces to influence feelings is what is meant by atmosphere. Our conceptual framework, then, will center on the question of how felt space can give rise to affectivity, thought and, more controversially, action. References to film noir (especially Fritz Lang's psychoanalytic thriller Secret beyond the Door [1948]), the paradigmatic genre of atmosphere, will frame the contention that our disposition to the world comes first, before any cognitive assessment, and, as such, possesses the force to inspire affective states. It will be suggested that the ways we test and evaluate atmospheres through the imagination are potentially the inspiration for violence, an idea echoed by architects such Bernard Tschumi and psychoanalytic thinkers such as Marcuse. The goal here is to present multiple entry points for a rich discussion concerning if, or the extent to which, notions of atmosphere admit psychoanalytic interrogation, and how or whether analytic assumptions shift as a result of such an investigation.

Democratic engagements with negativities in education and public school

In this article, I argue that the neoliberal order and its close link to the notion of educationalisation make education—and public schools more specifically—an instrument for political problem-solving and labour market agendas; this, then, makes it difficult for educators to act like public intellectuals with the freedom to create spaces in which one can think, talk and act in ways that are not framed by dominant and instrumental policy. Inspired by Rancière’s and Mouffe’s political work, psychoanalytical thinking and by means of educational examples that stem from (trans)national policy documents (one from the OECD and two from the Danish Government), I describe and analyse how the neoliberal order, including the notion of educationalisation, frames today’s education and can prevent democratic engagements from being a part of Danish public schools. One of the reasons is the strong focus on producing a productive and skilled labour force that successfully secure national economic growth and deliver what the neoliberal labour market desires. This focus contradicts both educators’ and students’ intellectual freedom on a daily basis, which is (still) regarded as vital to supporting education in general and in public schools in particular. Failure seems inevitable. However, failure can be a success for democracy, meaning that some ‘failures’ must be embraced because they are a condition for a living and flourishing democracy.

A call for an expanded self psychology: Incorporating socio–cultural perspectives in teaching and clinical practice

ABSTRACT Recognizing that psychoanalysis needs to change to meet the challenges described by the Holmes Report on American Psychoanalysis, the authors describe their journey to include socio-cultural perspectives in their teaching activities. To widen the lens of course content, they include topics of race, racial trauma, and inequality by bringing additional voices into their Self Psychology course materials including Beverly Stoute and Franz Fanon. Further, they discuss these authors’ contributions in relation to Heinz Kohut’s foundational ideas about development and clinical practice. They describe the features of an anti-racist pedagogical approach to teaching which supports encouraging and appreciating the contributions of all participants in the learning process. They provide several vignettes from their teaching experiences and argue that self psychologically-informed clinicians are particularly well-suited to meet the challenge of expanding psychoanalytic thinking to incorporate socio-cultural perspectives.

Affiliation vs. Alienation

ABSTRACT Contemporary psychoanalytic thinking has been marked by a “social turn” – a shift in emphasis from internal and endogenous process to those that prioritize the social and political context in which psychological life is shaped. In this discussion of Rozmarin’s work, the concept of “belonging” is considered as a bridge between the individual and the community. The entities to which one belongs and the dynamics that underline the choices attendant to belonging are considered as constituents of both identity and unconscious processes. An individual’s unconscious is viewed as nested within the broader historical and social configurations of life and structured by these forces. Reference is made to the work of Erich Fromm and Erik Erikson as aides in understanding the power of the social to shape both identity formation and social affiliation. The dynamics of conflict between affiliation and alienation are considered as a constituent of contemporary movement toward authoritarian political structures.

Rethinking the concepts of the unconscious and analytic time

ABSTRACT The author proposes ways of rethinking the concepts of the unconscious and time in the analytic setting, including the very existence of the unconscious. Freud (1915) stated that the success psychoanalytic thinking has in making inferences about the patient’s unconscious makes the existence of the unconscious “incontrovertible.” The author submits that this success does not establish the existence of the unconscious; rather, the inferences we think we make about the unconscious are inferences about consciousness itself – the totality of our experiences of thinking, feeling, sensing, observing, and communicating with ourselves. The author then offers thoughts about a second analytic concept, the experience of time in the analytic setting. He conceives of there being two inseparable sorts of experiences of analytic time that stand in a dynamic relationship with one another: diachronic time (clock time) and synchronic time (dream time). In diachronic time, time is sequential; one thing leads to another. In synchronic time, all time is contained in the present. In analysis, childhood trauma is experienced for the first time (in synchronic time) in the co-created subjectivity of patient and analyst.

The influence of innate perceptual and motor factors on Oedipal realisations in young children on the spectrum

ABSTRACT The assumption that primal phantasmatic activity stems from bodily functions is widely accepted in developmental and psychoanalytic thinking. This article attempts to give more specific meaning to this abstract assumption. It examines the influence of sensory, perceptual, and motor capacities on the consolidation of typically differentiated erotogenic experiences relevant to pre-Oedipal and Oedipal organisations. It then proceeds to examine the impact of innate deficiencies in these capacities on the development of phantasmatic organisation in children on the autistic spectrum who often manifest atypical erotogenic organisation. Additionally, it pays attention to non-symbolic therapeutic communication and the unconscious transference-countertransference relationship stemming from such a problematic matrix. The paper is clinically derived from a description of the early-Oedipal organisation of a child with low cognitive and functional capacities and proceeds to the manifestations of the Oedipal constellation of a high-functioning autistic child.

Psychoanalysis and its discontents: A view from India

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the ways in which psychoanalytic perspectives may have been limited by the Western cultural context in which they originated and explores the potential of the Indian cultural imagination to broaden psychoanalytic thinking about ego formation, the nature of Eros, bisexuality, and individuation. The case is made for the need to retain the diverse perspectives offered by the cultural imaginations of different civilisations despite the globalization of ideas.

Manifesto for infrastructural thinking: Living with psychoanalysis in a glitch

This paper is a manifesto for an infrastructural turn in psychoanalysis, proposing to look at institutions ‘slantwise’. It theorises psychoanalytic infrastructural thinking, pondering on its qualities as a particular kind of orientation to action, and showing its capacity to consider multiple transferences and ambivalence, as well as new fantasies on gain, accumulation and redistribution. It articulates the relationship between infrastructural thinking and a postural theory of the subject, centred on considering inclinations, orientations, and disorientations in relation to objects. Drawing on ethnographic and archival material, it constructs a ‘scene’ for observing infrastructural thinking at work, in psychoanalytic free clinics in Brazil, in the 1970s, and up to our times. It looks at the infrastructural creativities of the free clinics, which promise to renew the relationship of psychoanalysis with itself and with its others. Exploring the intersection of psychoanalysis and phenomenology, it traces the work of infrastructural thinking in postural moments, glitches, disorientations, or slips of the tongue.

The Enjoyment of Being Had: The Aesthetics of Masquerade in The Confidence-Man

Impostors, confidence artists, and artful deceivers seem to have achieved a strange kind of popularity and even prestige in our contemporary political landscape, for reasons that remain elusive, especially given how harmful and socially unwanted such behaviors ostensibly are. Herman Melville’s 1857 novel, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, helps us shift our perspective on this seemingly irrational phenomenon because it points out how being susceptible to dupery is linked to the enjoyment of fiction itself. This insight also highlights the importance of epistemological failure in the recent “return to aesthetics” in literary studies, where the positive dimension of unconsciously “willing one’s dupery” directly links aesthetic form to politics. The logic that connects aesthetics to unconscious enjoyment is then elaborated in the work of psychoanalytic thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Helene Deutsch and others to raise particular questions about how and why the enjoyment of being duped has been associated with feminine sexuality. Reading Melville’s novel while considering psychoanalytic concepts such as the “as if” personality, imposture, and interpassivity illuminates how confidence games play upon the ruses of sexuality, which have profound implications for why the public remains in thrall to the workings of known deceivers.

Testing Anthropocentrism: Lacan and the Animal Imago

In an effort to complicate the human subject, this article considers the critical insights of psychoanalytic thinker Jacques Lacan, focusing in particular on his essay, “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I As Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience” (1949). ‘The Mirror Stage’ explains how we break from nature, differentiate ourselves from the animal and graduate from primordial subsistence as psychically folded into the first lightning strike of recognition that arrives with/as self-reflection. Curiously however, in sustaining his argument about the human specificity of the mirror stage phenomenon, Lacan relies upon ethological research on nonhuman self-recognition. This reliance of his argument on the figure of the animal has largely been interpreted in two ways: as an inconsequential detail, undeserving of theoretical exploration, or, as confirmation of Lacan’s self-evident anthropocentrism. For instance, Buse (2017) and Ziser (2007) have noted the significant discrepancies within ‘The Mirror Stage’ between Lacan’s understanding of primate self-recognition, and that of his main source, Wolfgang Köhler. Although, both thinkers hold the position that Lacan’s treatment of the animal in ‘The Mirror Stage’ provides sufficient textual evidence for a reading that endorses human exceptionalism. Departing from this prior research, I focus on these same textual irregularities within ‘The Mirror Stage,’ yet see something quite different taking place in these moments. In order to preserve the complexity of Lacanian material, in a detailed examination utilising close reading, I pick apart long passages of both Lacan and his sources and conclude that Lacan’s position on the animal is both ambivalent and ambiguous in character. This culminates in a lack of clarity regarding how to understand Lacan’s position on both the animal, and correlatively the human. In turn, acknowledging this uncertainty provides a novel way to approach this seminal text, and a justification to revise accusations of anthropocentrism, alongside dominant interpretations more broadly.

‘And Losing Thus the Boundary / Of the Finite Me, / Diffusing Outward, I Approach / The Edges of Infinity’ (Plath, 2020: 133) – The Two Dimensions of Extimacy in Contemporary Psychoanalytic Thought

The article investigates the meaning and value of Jacques Lacan’s term ‘extimacy’. It argues that there are two competing notions of extimacy at work in the literature, a negative one (which dominates the literature) and a positive (nascent) one, which is not yet fully worked out in the literature and to which this contribution offers a form of development through the recourse to the instance of the (love) letter in the unconscious. The author associates the positive ‘valence’ of extimacy with what Paul Cilliers calls ‘a certain slowness’ which is inextricably tied up with reflection as one of the fundamental features of any successful psychoanalysis, namely an analysis that passes through the Act. The author shows how the writing of a love letter – as an instance of slow reflection – not only exposes a (repressed) positive dimension to extimacy, but also (and perhaps because of this) qualifies as an instance of more or less successful self-analysis – what the author associates with a psychic progression of sorts.

Language Plurality and Practices of Translation in Sigmund Freud's Work: Another Chapter in the History of Multilingualism in the German-Speaking Lands

abstract: By bringing together various examples of multilingualism in Freud's work, this article addresses the question of how experiences of linguistic diversity and translation might have affected the development of psychoanalytic language thinking. In a historical perspective, by conceiving of humans as essentially polyphonic and every language as ambiguous, Freud's theory stands in remarkable opposition to the romantic conception of a unique mother tongue and the long-standing cultural devaluation of multilingualism in the German-speaking lands. It therefore deserves to be reassessed and integrated into current research on the history of cultural and literary forms of multilingualism.

Operasionalisasi Ego, Superego, Dan ID Tokoh Rodion Raskolnikov Dalam Novel Kejahatan Dan Hukuman Karya Fyodor Dostoevsky

The purpose of writing this journal is to analyze the psychological subject of Raskolnikov, the main character in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment from the perspective of psychoanalytic theory. This journal outlines an in-depth psychological analysis of the characters and context of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment". This novel tells the story of a poor student named Rodion Raskolnikov, who decides to plan the murder of an old woman, which he thinks is an event that can bring social benefits. Throughout the story, Raskolnikov experiences inner conflict and is overcome by feelings of guilt. This journal also outlines the ideas of psychological theory that can be applied to understanding Raskolnikov's character, including the concepts of desire, inner conflict, and moral conflict. The author also examines the impact of psychological concepts such as psychoanalytic thinking and wisdom on human behavior in the context of this journal. The results of the analysis show that this novel is a deep reflection on the complexity of human psychology, depicting the tension between desire, morality and common sense considerations. Overall, the novel invites readers to reflect on the nature of crime, punishment, and human wisdom through a deep psychological lens.

Relational Psychoanalytic Sessions as Large Group Therapy with Two Representatives: Theoretical and Technical Issues of the “Group Turn” in Relational Psychoanalytic Thinking

This paper offers theoretical formulations and technical considerations in the hope of facilitating a “group turn” in the relational psychoanalytic field. My approach, respecting relational foundations, extends them through the group lens. More specifically, I view relational psychoanalytic sessions as a “large group” process with two multi-objectified/subjectified representatives, the analyst and the analysand, interacting in a multilayered world of group attachments. I suggest that the dynamics and difficulties of certain types of patients can be understood further and more fully as multiple objects/subjects in this expanded model. In particular, patients with intergenerational traumas and/or accumulated traumatic attachments, patients who come from extended families, and patients with multiethnic identities can be helped with a “large group” perspective.

Necessary conjunctions: Hawkspur Camp and the transdisciplinary roots of therapeutic community

PurposeThis paper aims to tell something of the story of the “Hawkspur Experiment” (1936–1941), a therapeutic camp organised early in the modern history of therapeutic community as an intervention into the lives of young men who were viewed to be at risk of delinquency (Wills, 1967). Although it was to have a remarkable influence on group and therapeutic community practice and theory, the authors argue that its influence is not as well-remembered nor incorporated into contemporary therapeutic understanding and discussion as it should be.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is a historical reflection based on systematic examination of the clinical and administrative records of Hawkspur Camp for men, and supporting documents held in the Planned Environment Therapy Archive. In addition, the authors use published primary and secondary sources.FindingsHawkspur Camp was a cross-disciplinary enterprise which brought together psychoanalytic thinking, social work, an interest in groups, political activism, a concern with the dynamics and working of democracy and the application of emergent social science methods. It was overtly an intervention into the criminal justice system but was also an intentional exploration of the therapeutic benefits of community living and of a “pioneering” lifestyle; a rigorous experiment in how psychoanalytic ideas might be used in group residential settings; and a politically grounded exploration of participative democracy as a fundamental therapeutic principle.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper presents the first findings from a systematic study of the records of Hawkspur Camp.

‘Something Better than a Cure’ in Times of Mental Health Crisis

In this paper, I turn to Adam Phillips’ recent discussion of the vexed nature of cure in psychoanalysis to consider the structural differences between mental and physical health. I examine how psychoanalytic thinking raises questions for naturalistic ways of thinking about mental health and for broader crisis narratives that are becoming prevalent in Western modernity. In the latter half of this paper, I draw a comparison between thinking about matters of health and ways of thinking in the philosophy of education. I suggest that the lure of cure can be detected in statements of universalist aims and ends for education (which themselves have come to invoke conceptions of wellbeing and mental health in modern times). I also explore Phillps’ account of psychoanalysis as ‘something better than a cure’ and consider its implications for future thinking in the philosophy of education.