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Biomedical subjects

R M Waugaman

Publications and source records attributed to R M Waugaman.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Analytic time.

"Analytic time" refers to the unique qualities of the patient's experience of time in the context of treatment. Transference regression revives earlier developmental levels of temporal awareness, especially its intimate connections with separation experiences within the symbiotic dyad. Analytic time also alludes to the clinical observation that significant childhood events, such as the birth of a sibling, sometimes come to the fore when the "age" of the analysis matches the child's age when the event took place. Analytic time refers as well to other temporal aspects of treatment, onto which unconscious conflicts and fantasies can be displaced. The temporal structure of each session can evoke the same associations as does the temporal structure of the entire analysis. Recognition of the various possible meanings of the time structure of treatment may play a useful role in formulating reconstructions. Analytic time is one important component of the analytic frame. As such, its importance can easily be overlooked when the analyst becomes preoccupied with content, and ignores the more silent aspects of treatment.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Patients' reactions to the birth of a male analyst's child.

After the author informed his patients he planned to be absent for one week, approximately one month hence, nearly all his patients correctly assumed that his wife was pregnant. The birth of the analyst's child revived conflicts concerning younger siblings. Male patients seemed to respond to the reactivation of oedipal conflicts by a transference intensification of their paternal identifications. Female patients reacted more negatively and more dramatically. For them, the birth of the analyst's child signified a defeat of both their positive and negative oedipal wishes. The author compares and contrasts his findings with the literature on the pregnant analyst.

Countertransference↗
PubMed1990

On patients' disclosure of parents' and siblings' names during treatment.

The patient's spontaneous disclosure of a parent's name is frequently associated with appearance of core conflicts, especially genetic and transference themes of incest, other oedipal derivatives, and separation anxiety. Using a parent's first name has the unconscious implication of incest, since one is doing something which one's other parent but not oneself is allowed to do. In some primitive cultures, saying aloud the names of one's parents was strictly forbidden. Disclosing a parent's name to the analyst may parallel the developmental step during childhood when the patient learned the parent had a first name. The child's acquisition of language, including proper names, fosters object constancy and the internalization of the parents, from whom language is learned. For patients who do not usually refer to a sibling by name, disclosure of the sibling's name may also reflect the concurrent emergence of central conflicts. In particular, such disclosure may accompany associations about an earlier closeness with the sibling giving way to subsequent estrangement. Naming the sibling may also mark an intensification of a sibling transference to the analyst.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Falling off the couch.

The patient's therapeutic regression intensifies certain unconscious meanings of the analytic couch. In addition to representing the analysis or the analyst in general, the couch can represent the unconscious, or it may take on the symbolic significance of the analyst's or mother's arms, lap, breasts, or womb. When the genetic roots of the patient's transference include substantial experiences of disappointment, narcissistic injury, and mistrust, the theme of falling from the couch may emerge as a dream, an association, or even an enactment. This theme usually implies the presence of a deepening but mistrustful transference, based on earlier disappointments by the patient's primary objects. Falling off the couch may be associated with being dropped as an infant, rolling out of bed as a child, birth, miscarriage, castration, death, termination, defending against passive wishes, punishment for sexual or aggressive transgressions, escaping an attack, descending into the unconscious, or wanting to be picked up and comforted.

Accidental Falls↗