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Biomedical subjects

H P Blum

Publications and source records attributed to H P Blum.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Pychoanalysis and art, Freud and Leonardo.

Freud was the first to apply psychoanalysis to art, choosing for his subject the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci. Observing Leonardo's partly fused image of the Virgin and St. Anne, he inferred that the artist had depicted his two mothers, his biological mother and his stepmother. This very early analytic discourse on parent loss and adoption changed the course of the interpretation of art. Freud explored the psychology of art, the artist, and aesthetic appreciation. Confronting the age-old enigma of the Mona Lisa, he proposed a daring solution to the riddle of the sphinxlike smile of this icon of art. His paper prefigures concepts of narcissism, homosexuality, parenting, and sublimation. Lacking modern methodology and theory, Freud's pioneering insights overshadow his naive errors. In this fledgling inquiry, based on a childhood screen memory and limited knowledge of Leonardo's artistic and scientific contributions, Freud identified with this Renaissance genius in his own self-analytic and creative endeavor.

Art↗
PubMed2001

Freud's private mini-monograph on his own dreams. A contribution to the celebration of the centenary of The interpretation of dreams.

A virtually unknown brief commentary by Freud on the characteristics of his own dreams is described and discussed. Freud's mini-monograph, discovered after some 80 years, has autobiographical, theoretical and organisational significance in the enigmatic context of the early development of psychoanalysis. Found among papers of Alfred Adler, this extraordinary document adds to our knowledge of psychoanalytic history, including the significance of dreams in the evolution of psychoanalytic thought. Freud's commentary permitted the identification of a particular dream as his own. This dream had been presented in anonymity to the fledgling Vienna Psychoanalytic Society for interpretation. The dream was later inserted, again anonymously, into The Interpretation of Dreams with Freud's own remarkable pre-oedipal interpretation. Freud's conflicted relationships with Adler and Jung are considered in historical context.

Dreams↗
PubMed2001

The "exceptions" reviewed. The formation and deformation of the privileged character.

The "exception" is one of the three character-types Freud (1916) identified in a now-classic early contribution to psychoanalytic character studies. The term has since been applied to various clinical entities with different theoretical implications. This paper explores and amplifies the concept of the "exception" and the "exception" as a special category of varied privileged characters. The paper re-examines Freud's and later formulations in the context of contemporary psychoanalytic thought.

Character↗
PubMed1999

The reconstruction of reminiscence.

The lifting of repression and of infantile amnesia was an original aim and goal of clinical psychoanalysis. Memory may be more or less reliable and authentic. However, it tends to be subjective, self-serving, and selective, and there are different memory modalities and systems. The recovery of repressed childhood memory has been largely subsumed under the analysis of unconscious conflict and fantasy. "Hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences," and these reminiscences interweave with and contribute to reconstruction, which is intrinsic to psycho-analysis. Memory and reconstruction are subject to the influence of special interests, transference, and countertransference. Since open questions remain concerning preoedipal, and particularly preverbal, reconstruction, external confirmation may further both the analytic process and analytic research. The process of reconstruction integrates and transcends memory, facilitating personality reorganization.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Clinical and developmental dimensions of hate.

Bridging concepts of aggression, affect, and attitude, hate emerges during the process of separation-individuation concurrent with ego development and persisting intrapsychic conflict and fantasy. Rage precedes hate developmentally, though later the two are amalgamated both developmentally and clinically. Hate is the negative pole of ambivalence and is a component of all self- and object representations and object relationships. When excessive and unmodulated, hate interferes with object relations and personality development. Paradoxically, hate may also subserve adaptation and personality organization. Transference hate is often a greater problem for the psychoanalyst or psychotherapist than is transference love. Transference hate threatens the analyst's narcissism and neutrality and tests the analyst's tolerance and patience. The patient's intense hate is often experienced as a direct assault on the analytic relationship and the analytic process. Countertransference hate and the need to defend against it are of great clinical importance. Because it runs counter to analytic ideals and values, the analyst's hatred of the patient may be denied, minimized, rationalized, enacted, or vicariously gratified and may occasion great resistance to analytic self-scrutiny. Countertransference hate is often an unrecognized determinant in cases of analytic and therapeutic impasse. A classic contribution by D.W. Winnicott to the recognition and elucidation of countertransference hate is reevaluated.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Seduction trauma: representation, deferred action, and pathogenic development.

Seduction trauma refers to a range of phenomena currently described under the rubric of child abuse. Freud elucidated the fantasy distortion and elaboration of traumatic experience and retained the importance of actual trauma. Psychic trauma is associated with the alteration of self and object representations and ensuing new identifications, e.g., with victim and aggressor. The "deferred action" of psychic trauma is an antiquated concept and psychic trauma has immediate effects as well as far reaching developmental consequences. Prior trauma predisposes to later traumatic vulnerability and to trauma linked to phase specific unconscious conflict. The pathogenesis of child sex abuse and the enactment of oedipal incest extends before and after the oedipal phase, is often associated with other forms of abuse, and has a history of pathogenic parent-child relationship.

Child↗
PubMed1994

The conceptual development of regression.

Concepts of regression have evolved over time. Regression originally referred to a process of functional dedifferentiation and retreat to archaic forms of organization and function. Libidinal regression described a return to an earlier instinctual phase codetermined by fixations to prior points of developmental weakness. Within structural theory, ego and superego regression were also noted, without fixation points. Regression could be normal or pathological, differential or global, controlled or uncontrolled, and variably reversible. Historical emphasis on regression in pathogenesis was complemented by concepts of regression in the service of the ego, serving development and serving adaptation. Flexible regression may be contrasted with resistance to regression. Regressive and progressive tendencies are in continuous flux. There are new considerations of regression in the analytic process, and in relation to ego development and object relations. It is doubtful that regression per se promotes the resumption of arrested development.

Ego↗
PubMed1994

The confusion of tongues and psychic trauma.

'The confusion of tongues' characterised the polarised dimensions of the closing Ferenczi/Freud communication, and extended to problems of psychoanalytic formulation and publication. There were manifest and latent issues which remain of historic importance. Ferenczi was dying and assumed Freud was dying when he wrote this classic essay, so relevant to contemporary psychoanalytic thought and controversy. Denying and sometimes acknowledging his progressive, fatal illness, Ferenczi made enduring contributions to the understanding of child abuse and trauma while severely traumatised. Concepts of trauma and countertransference were amplified and expanded. Freud remained remarkably creative while physically declining with oral cancer; Ferenczi manifested progressive and regressive trends, fostering both sublimated innovation and wild analysis. Psychoanalysts tended to avoid, for half a century, confronting the problems of the ill, impaired, and dying analyst. The clarification of 'The confusion of tongues' continues in contemporary psychoanalytic discussion and debate. The paper presaged a widened interest in the analyst's analysing functions, unconscious communication, countertransference, and the interplay of reality and fantasy inside and outside the psychoanalytic situation.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Dora's conversion syndrome: a contribution to the prehistory of the holocaust.

The culture and society in which patient and analyst live and work may silently impinge upon the analytic situation. The Dora case exemplifies the influence of pervasive sociocultural anti-Semitism on the patient's personality development and psychological problems. Identifications with aggressor and victim were significant clinical and social issues. In its cultural and historical dimensions, the Dora case reflects some pathogenic roots of the Holocaust.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Psychic change: the analytic relationship(s) and agents of change.

Psychic change, the agents of change, and the theory of technique have gradually changed pari passu with other changes in the field. Rather idealized concepts of structural change have been supplanted by current emphasis on experience-near clinical and functional change. There are varied processes and agents of change, but interpretation and insight are crucial to psychoanalysis. Attention to noninterpretive agents of change includes contemporary theoretical and technical interest in the analytic relationship(s). As analyses become much longer, the real relationship expands, and may impede the analysis of inter-weaving transference and countertransference ramifications. The ambiguous concept of 'new object' primarily refers to the analyst's analytic attitude, role, and analysing functions. Analysis progresses with internalization of the analytic process, but internalization of the analytic relationship and experience may also contribute to psychic change. The analyst should have a stable analytic attitude and identity, and be able to change with new knowledge and experience.

Ego↗
PubMed1991

Freud and the figure of Moses: the Moses of Freud.

Moses was a lifelong preoccupation of Freud, representing a double and idealized self and object. Freud identified with different aspects of Moses during different periods of development, from concrete hero to abstract ideal. He turned to Moses in the concluding phase of his relationship with Fliess and his self-analysis, and then at other times of crisis. The Moses recreated by Freud is important to the evolution of the concepts of the superego, and his Moses studies simultaneously illuminate the developmental significance of internalization, identification, and abstract symbolic thought. Latently autobiographical, the Moses motif is related to the analysis of unconscious conflict and trauma and to issues of Jewish identity and analytic ideals.

Bible↗
PubMed1990

The development of autonomy and superego precursors.

Superego precursors appear in the latter part of the first year, concomitant with the behavioural control necessitated and made possible by ego development, particularly of intentionality, communication, and mobility. During the second year of life wilful strivings intensify, complicated by the power struggles of the rapprochement crisis. A subtle process of negotiation accompanies the learning of parental rules and regulations, and the infant also learns that some rules and limits are non-negotiable. The development of the superego depends not only on 'identification with the aggressor' and self-directed aggression, but on positive identifications and internalizations of approval. While the real attitudes of the caregiver are communicated and are important, superego precursors, because of the infant's drives, defences, and ego immaturity, may be far removed from the reality of the caregiver's attitudes and intent. The parents' and infants' inter-identifications and empathy for each other contribute to the capacity for self-criticism, guilt, and remorse, attributes of the developing superego.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Freud, Fliess, and the parenthood of psychoanalysis.

This paper focuses upon the roles of procreation, fatherhood, and identification with the fertile mother in Freud's creation of psychoanalysis. Fatherhood and motherhood, pregnancy and birth, children and siblings, figure prominently in Freud's self-analysis and in his relationship with his prototransference object, Wilhelm Fliess. Although Freud attributed his self-analytic interest and revived oedipal conflict to the death of his father, becoming a parent himself was also a significant determinant. Birth as well as death reactivated his childhood and stimulated his creative ferment.

Europe↗
PubMed1989

The concept of termination and the evolution of psychoanalytic thought.

Termination is a post-Freud contribution to the psychoanalytic process, which is never complete. The concept is illuminated in its analytic history and development. A formal well-defined terminal phase led to a tripartite psychoanalytic process which derived from and contributed to advances in psychoanalytic theory and knowledge. The terminal phase is a valuable addition and conclusion, but may be invested with irrational expectation and analytic myth. Various features and formulations of the terminal phase are explored, and the limitations of termination are noted.

Freudian Theory↗