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Biomedical subjects

Richard D Chessick

Publications and source records attributed to Richard D Chessick.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

The human mind in the contemporary world.

The author examines conflicting conceptions of human mentation and human mental development, an area representing an overlapping interest in psychoanalysis and philosophy. Focus is on the question of whether there is any essential aspect to the mind or whether everything is relative, intersubjective, and formed by the culture in which one lives. The irrational and noncognitive aspects of mental life are outlined from the thought of Freud, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer and their views of the essential springs of psychic activity. The ramifications of these various conflicting conceptions for the practice of psychoanalytic therapy are outlined. The question is addressed of whether it will ever be possible, as in the Enlightenment dream, to improve the human condition and put an end to human violence. The answers to this question are shown to differ depending on the various conceptions of human mentation and human mental development involved. No conclusions are reached; the issues remain unsettled in our time.

Cognition↗
PubMed2005

What can psychoanalysts learn from the development of literary theory?

It is no accident that literary theorists and academicians have become very interested in psychoanalysis. There is a remarkable parallel between the development of literary theory from its origins to the present day and the development of psychoanalysis from the time of Freud to now. The same concerns that have troubled critics of art and literature about how to go about evaluating an artwork are the ones most controversial today in the field of psychoanalysis. The questions, for example, of whether beauty resides in the work of art or in the mind of the audience and its parallel in psychoanalysis, whether the material produced by the patient is essentially from the patient or the product of an interaction between patient and analyst, or even whether it is ever possible to interpret any patient material or artwork all the way down to some basic qualities remain unanswered and polemical today.

Humans↗
PubMed2005

What grounds creativity?

"Developmental or ordinary creativity" is distinguished from "genius creativity." The former offers pleasure or distraction. The latter sometimes offers this, but tarrying before the product of genius also brings a new understanding of one's culture, one's self, and even an experience of transcendence. The concepts of Heidegger and of Gadamer are applied to this distinction. All serious artists are seen as manifesting one or more of three aspects: (1) driven by creative genius from the biological furnace of the individual, (2) temporary regressions and exhaustion of ego function, and (3) an anxiety-driven process resting on a constitutional ability to shift levels of ego activities and compromise formations. Falling in love is discussed as another example of creative imagination based on the need to solve psychological discomfort either due to developmental or pathological problems. Creativity in psychoanalytic work is an important factor that needs to be explored in addition to the fact that every country seems to create the approach to psychoanalysis that it needs. Emotional illness is demonstrated as hindering and constricting creativity, not enhancing it as is the popular idea. Some seriously psychopathological artists are able to wall off the pathology and sublimate their conflicts into the production of art, but creativity requires a relatively intact ego; when the ego deteriorates, so does the creative product. An important spring to genius creativity is the nonrecognition of the extremely talented child, which leads to solitary activity and an immersion in ideas and fantasies that, if the person has the requisite talent, is manifested in the expression of truth and beauty through art.

Creativity↗
PubMed2004

The silence of Socrates.

This paper emphasizes the humanistic and phenomenologic approach to the mind (soul, self) and contrasts it to the "era of the brain" that is so idealized by psychiatry today. It describes the debate between those who expect science to explain everything sooner or later and those who believe there are certain essential aspects of the world, such as the qualia of consciousness, that cannot be reduced to material factors. Plato's dialogue Timaeus is taken as the historically first example of this debate. The connection between it and what has been labeled "neuroism" in contemporary psychiatry is established and the relevance of this debate to the practice of psychoanalysis and dynamic psychiatry is discussed. Finally the wider consequences of the scientific or materialistic approach to the world as forecast already by Nietzsche are indicated.

Humans↗
PubMed2004

Psychoanalytic supportive psychotherapy of a terrified communist: report of a 37-year treatment.

This is a case report of a 37-year treatment of a victim of the Holocaust. It illustrates the use of psychoanalytic based supportive psychotherapy to enable a severely damaged person to pull himself together and live a respectable life. The case is of special interest because a careful evaluation of the patient's ego functioning was important all through the treatment, and revealed an unusual set of defences. He was able to deal with his rage by taking an extreme Maoist Communist political position, ranting and raving about it, including his hate of America, etc., but at the same time he encapsulated this and focused it in the psychotherapy sessions. In contrast to many such fanatical individuals, he was able to keep himself from acting out these political feelings in any way or to engage in any destructive behavior. This seemed to form an intermediate position that enabled him to function and adapt to our society, get married, find long term respectable employment, and finally retire with savings and a pension. Understanding these ego operations empathically made it possible for the author to tolerate his views without either challenging them or agreeing with them and enabled him to come regularly and utilize supportive psychotherapy.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Psychoanalytic peregrination. V: The Zollikon Lectures.

This article is to prepare the reader, along with the previous peregrination, for the article that follows by Professor Lang. It introduces the thinking of Heidegger at the Zollikon Seminars, conducted by the Swiss psychoanalyst Medard Boss, founder of Daseinanalyse and presented to a group of Swiss psychiatrists. Heidegger opposed Freud's scientific Weltanschauung and his hydraulic system of metapsychology, objecting that it dehumanizes the patient. He emphasized the importance of the therapist's "presence" and openness to the patient. He utilized phenomenology to prevent relating to the patient as an "other" or "thing" and advocated a hermeneutic approach instead. This approach involves the use of questions and answers to gain a gradual explicit understanding of the unique communications from the individual patient. He opposed the approach of the drug companies that impel psychiatry to use classification of disorders through manuals such as DSM-IV and then subject the patient to the recommended drug for that disorder, which he maintained was a form of domination of the patient as the "other."

Humans↗
PubMed2002

Psychoanalytic peregrinations I: Transference and transference neurosis revisited.

The various meanings of transference and transference neurosis are reviewed with special attention to the various roles transference plays in the psychoanalytic process. A study of the provenance of transference is offered with some remarks on the crucial emphasis on understanding and interpreting the transference in psychoanalytic treatment. The danger of using other types of interventions as being manifestations of countertransference is suggested.

Defense Mechanisms↗
PubMed2002

Psychoanalytic peregrinations. II: Psychoanalysis as science and art.

The foundations of psychoanalytic clinical practice involve the role of fantasy, creativity, and imagination as well as the natural science aspects of psychoanalysis. There is a common ground for psychoanalytic technique and we should not in a "politically correct" manner, as is so popular today, abandon the philosophical or Platonic foundationalism that lies at the basis of Freud's psychoanalytic practices. Although it is a "politically incorrect" view, a reasonable degree of objectivity and scientific validity is attainable by the relatively neutral psychoanalyst, using both natural science observations as well as introspection and hermeneutics. Furthermore, since psychoanalysis is fundamentally a creative activity, the roots of creativity require exploration and careful study. Subjective and first person methodologies such as Freud's psychoanalysis and phenomenology cannot be ignored in our search for the core of the self of each of our patients.

Creativity↗
PubMed2002

Psychoanalytic peregrinations. III: Confusion of tongues, psychoanalyst as translator.

A variety of problems cause a confusion of tongues between the psychoanalyst and the patient. In this sense the psychoanalyst faces the same problems as the translator of a text from one language to another. Examples are given of confusion due cultural differences, confusion due translation differences among translators, confusion due translator prejudice or ignorance, confusion due ambiguous visual cues and images, and confusion due to an inherently ambiguous text. It is due to this unavoidable confusion that the humanistic sciences cannot in principle achieve the mathematical exactness of the natural sciences and should not be expected to do so or condemned because they do not.

Communication Barriers↗
PubMed2002

Psychoanalytic peregrinations IV: what is phenomenology?

This article proposes to clarify the use of phenomenology as a complementary approach to the psychoanalytic process. Because phenomenology is defined and used differently by many different authors, it is here specifically juxtaposed to the DSM-IV approach for purposes of comparison and elucidation. Phenomenology attempts to complement the objectivation and mathematization of reality by the sciences with allowing things to speak for themselves. This requires an attitude of acceptance of whatever appears from the patient in the consulting room without filtering it through judgements or presuppositions that we are all taught in our training. So, for example, such concepts as "empathic linkage," the "infectiousness" of anxiety, the "feel" of the schizophrenic ambiance as described by various authors come across more directly in an encounter based on the phenomenologic approach. This can be used in addition to DSM-IV and other approaches to gain new information. A brief review of how phenomenology arose and the use of it by certain well-known thinkers is presented.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disord↗