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PubMed1988

[Psychoanalysis and engagement: Otto Fenichel and the political Freudians].

This essay is a critique of Russell Jacoby's The repression of psychoanalysis: Otto Fenichel and the political Freudians (New York, Basic Books, 1983), translated into French by P.U.F. Jacoby depicts Fenichel and his circle of colleagues as political Freudians whose early years were decisively colored by radical youth movements, leftwing politics, the early inspiration of the Russian Revolution, a serious immersion in Marxist culture, a commitment to either socialist or communist parties, and a desire to integrate classical psychoanalysis into a a broader framework of Marxist social theorizing. He centers his book around the archival discovery of the Rundbriefe, 119 circular letters written during Fenichel's exile from 1934 to 1945. He discusses the impact of Wilhelm Reich's ideas and career on the Fenichel circle. Fascism and exile from Europe shattered the lives and commitments of the political Freudians. This essay focuses on Jacoby's use and abuse of the concepts of Americanization, medicalization, the competition from the neo-Freudians, and the apparent silence and "self-repression" of this group's past and leftwing identity once in America. It concludes with a critical analysis of Fenichel's psychoanalytic ethic, which, while engagé, was not Marxist. Fenichel was oriented toward contributing to both psychoanalytic practice and theory. His ethic precluded the intrusion of politics into clinical work, supervision, and teaching.

Austria↗

PubMed1993

[The "Wolf Man" or the problem of biography and autobiography in the history of psychoanalysis].

In the field of biography and autobiography, the "Wolf Man" constitutes a particularl problematic case for the historian of psychoanalysis. The central problem concerns the widespread circulation outside of the Freudian corpus of the fictitious name chosen by Freud to designate a patient. The diverse metamorphoses of this circulation are analyzed here in different texts by authors of varied backgrounds. Components of the "Wolf Man" as a historical case include an analytical account, a testimony, a partial autobiography and a partial biography, as well as autobiographical interviews. In all of these writings, under the biographical guise, a patient is made to talk about himself, but not in his own name. The author does not intend to propose a reinterpretation of the clinical case, but to question the process of "removal" of the patient, instituted by each of these texts individually, and as a whole. This examination is undertaken because it concerns indissociably the analyst and the historian of psychoanalysis.

Biographies as Topic↗

PubMed1993

[Historicity and the epistemological condition of psychoanalysis: filiation and orthopraxis].

The very particular epistemological condition of psychoanalysis (that of a "psychology" closely tied to "metapsychology") is well evidenced in the genesis and historical development of this "new science"; so intrinsically tied to Freud's personality that it requires a personal and guaranteed transmission: a "filiation". Indeed, from this epistemological situation, as well as from the clinical character of psychoanalytical interpretation, was been the deontological necessity for a societal institution that attests to the orthodoxy of psychoanalytical praxis: an "ortho-praxis". This yields a body of problems specific to the scientific historiography of psychoanalysis, to the extent that the diversity of heuristic conditions of historians, whether psychoanalysts or non-psychoanalysts, although effective, does not always ensure a privilege or natural advantage. The epistemological analysis of such a body of problems--starting from the notions of "chronicle" and "history" in general--lead, nonetheless, to the exclusion of relativism and historiographic solipsism.

Historiography↗

PubMed2003

Psychoanalysis--a phenomenology of language.

It is often said that there is an unbridgeable gap between phenomenology and psychoanalysis. But this is only half the truth. Starting from Merleau-Ponty's proposal of an objectivistic and an idealistic divergence of Freud's enterprise the paper tries to reconstruct two possible movements: the objectivistic divergence of Husserl's enterprise as a phenomenological shift towards psychoanalysis and the idealistic divergence of Freud's enterprise as a psychoanalytical shift towards phenomenology. It is shown that this approach is possible on the field of language and semiotics where psychic life, as the essence of our subjectivity, may be rendered as a uniform phenomenon of an articulation in the world of signs. This thesis is elucidated at the end of the paper by discussing first (to the phenomenological side) a certain interpretation of the use of Husserl's reduction as a method of investigation in psychiatry and second (to the psychoanalytic side) the importance of Lacan's difference between repression and foreclosure for a psychopathological understanding of psychosis.

Humans↗

PubMed1992

Inductive reasoning in clinical psychoanalysis.

It is argued that clinical observations can be used to test psychoanalytic theories. Psychoanalysis cannot use controlled experiments but it can use the standard canons of inductive reasoning to test the reliability of conflicting theories. Conflicting hypotheses concerning narcissism and object relations are analysed to identify crucial observations that can be used for testing. If these experiments in theory testing are reliable they show that psychoanalysis is not limited to being a hermeneutic discipline but rather has legitimate claims to be a natural science.

Adult↗

PubMed1992

[Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939) and psychoanalysis].

The relationship of Eugen Bleuler with psychoanalysis can be characterized as a history of overture and distance. In previous literature this relationship has been mainly studied from a historical and biographical point of view. In this article the authors review the history of Bleuler's attitude toward psychoanalysis from an ideengeschichtlich point of view. They distinguish and argue three periods. 1896-1906: the initial period was one of overt appreciation and positive rapprochement; 1906-1911: Bleulers initial positive attitude is more and more thwarted by fundamental theoretical disagreement and by his opposition against Freud's group building strategy; from 1912 on, Bleuler clearly dissociates himself from psychoanalytic theory and movement. An interpretation of this evolution is given in terms of personal and above all of theoretical incompatibility.

Freudian Theory↗

PubMed2004

The dream between neuroscience and psychoanalysis.

The dream is tackled sometimes from the neurobiological viewpoint, sometimes from the neuropsychological angle, or from the positions of experimental and psychoanalytical psychology. Interest in dreams started with psychoanalysis in 1900, and 53 years later the discovery of REM sleep by Aserinski and Kleitman, and subsequent psychophysiological findings took the dream into the realm of biology. The dichotomous model of REM and non-REM sleep is described, as a basis for thought-like activity (non-REM sleep) and dreaming (REM sleep). This led to Hobson and McCarley's theory of activation-synthesis, suggesting that the mind while dreaming is simply the brain self-activated in REM sleep. Psychophysiological research has shown that people dream in all phases of sleep, from falling asleep to waking, but that the characteristics of the dreams may differ in the different phases. Bio-imaging studies indicate that during REM sleep there is activation of the pons, the amygdala bilaterally, and the anterior cingulate cortex, and disactivation of the posterior cingulate cortex and the prefrontal cortex. The images suggest there is a neuroanatomical frame within which dreams can be generated and then forgotten. Psychoanalysis studies the dream from a completely different angle. Freud believed it was the expression of hallucinatory satisfaction of repressed desires. Today it is interpreted as the expression of a representation of the transference in the hic et nunc of the session. At the same time it also has symbol-generating functions which provide an outlet by which affective experiences and fantasies and defences stored as parts of an unrepressed unconscious in the implicit memory can be represented in pictorial terms, then thought and rendered verbally. From the psychoanalytical point of view, the dream transcends neurobiological knowledge, and looks like a process of internal activation that is only apparently chaotic, but is actually rich in meanings, arising from the person's affective and emotional history.

Animals↗

PubMed1989

The future of psychoanalysis.

We have tried, in a necessarily kaleidoscopic and highly condensed manner, to highlight our perspectives on the foreseeable future of psychoanalysis, along a number of interrelated but clearly distinct dimensions. Our discussion has dealt with the nature of our field as a science and also as a discipline, the nature of the training for it, the nature of its research, and the nature and scope of its professional practice. In all of these areas, matters seem both more complex and less clear-cut than they were in the immediate post-World War II period when we entered the field, which is now forty years ago in the approximately one-hundred-year-old history of psychoanalysis. We did not discuss in any detail the International Psychoanalytical Association or the American, its component through which we have our international membership. We have, however, via the IPA Newsletter, given voice to the organizational struggles of the International: the April 1989 issue of the Newsletter carries our account of the organizational changes within the IPA during the last four years and what we think they mean in relation to some of the issues discussed in this article. The fuller story of how our changing psychoanalytic life and identities are reflected in our institutional structures, as well as a more detailed specification of the future directions we have tried to chart in our inquiry, all deserve separate extended treatment and more complete justification.

Forecasting↗

PubMed1988

One psychoanalysis or many?

This paper describes the historic development of psychoanalysis, the singular product of the genius of one man, Sigmund Freud, and which he made such strenuous efforts through his lifetime to maintain as a unified enterprise, defining out dissidents (like Adler, Jung, etc.), into what has become in the almost half-century since his death a science and a discipline characterized by an increasing diversity or pluralism, of theoretical perspectives, of linguistic and thought conventions, and of distinctive regional, cultural, and language emphases. I discuss both the understanding of this theoretical diversity and what, in the face of it, holds us together as common adherents of a shared psychoanalytic science and profession. My thesis is that what unites us is our shared focus on the clinical interactions in our consulting rooms, the phenomena encompassed by the 'present unconscious' (the Sandlers) or the 'clinical theory' (George Klein). When we look beyond that to an explanatory structure within which to conceptualize the genetic-developmental process, normal and abnormal mental functioning, psychopathology and its reversal (cure) i.e. the realm of the 'past unconscious' or the 'general theory', we posit our various theoretical, linguistic or thought perspectives, i.e.--at this stage of our historical development--our metaphors or our various explanatory symbolisms. Some implications of this viewing of our various theoretical perspectives in psychoanalysis (ego psychological, object-relational, self-psychological, Kleinian, Bionian, Lacanian, etc.) as but metaphoric expressions, are reviewed.

Austria↗

PubMed1984

The influence of Cervantes on the future creator of psychoanalysis.

Our work is intended to recreate the origins of the 'future creator of psychoanalysis'. Cervantes had a decisive influence on Freud. Don Quixote occupied a central place during a period which we consider to be crucial in the creation of psychoanalysis; we refer to the summer of 1883 during which Freud confessed to Martha that he had become more interested in this book than in brain anatomy. In this work, Cervantes delves in-depth into problems which he had set out in The Colloquy of the Dogs, read by Freud in his adolescence when he was learning Spanish and which confronted some of the great psychoanalytic themes such as reality-fantasy, language, instinct and reason, traumatic situations, 'family romance', etc. These themes appear in a psychoanalytically structured dialogue in which one of the dogs, Berganza, tells his life story (in the form of catharsis) to the other dog, Cipión, with whom Freud identified himself. Basically, it is the psychotherapeutic model that Freud used with his own hysterical patients. Another dialogue which was essential for Freud was that of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, due to the following major reasons (as well as others): For the clear discrimination between reality and fantasy as well as their interplay. Because madness is presented as a complex phenomenon, but intelligible in terms of human motives. For the penetrating description of the transition in Don Quixote from mania to depression. Because at that moment of his life, Freud himself was living through a personal conflict between his dreams of carrying out some scientific feat and the demands of attending to his mundane necessities.

Austria↗

PubMed1982

[Psychoanalysis and hypnosis in theory and clinical practice (Sigmund Freud)].

After a brief note on Sigmund Freud's connection with hypnosis, the subjective and objective reasons behind Freud's rejection of the technique are listed. The psycho-dynamics of the psychoanalytical session are then compared with reference to the culture and psychological resistance to hypnosis and psychoanalysis. The significance of psychoneurosis and the concept of cure in psychoanalysis are also examined. It is concluded that therapy should make every effort to avoid rigid dogmatism.

Austria↗

PubMed1983

Freud's 'thought-transference', repression, and the future of psychoanalysis.

Psychoanalysts since Freud have largely neglected his important, paradigmatic ideas on the possibility of 'thought-transference' (telepathy) as an influence in mental life. A chance recording of two dreams which proved to coincide in some detail with distant reality events again suggests evidence in favour of the telepathy hypothesis. On interpretation, one of these dreams reveals even greater correspondence with the reality event and shows the mechanism of transformation of the repressed wish from latent dream content into manifest dream, utilizing a number of elements of the dream instigator, an apparently telepathically received day residue. Working with this material proceeded against very strong resistance, most evident in repeated forgetting of one or another bit of the clinical data. This has been the fate of ideas pertaining to the occult since Freud's first formulations, as is documented here by references to the early history of psychoanalysis. The issue now and for the future is whether psychoanalysis will continue to ignore the crucial question of validity in regard to the telepathy hypothesis. The psychoanalytic method is uniquely qualified to investigate so-called parapsychological phenomena and has the same obligation to do so as with other mental events. We need to examine the evidence in spite of the threat posed to our conventional understanding of the limits of the mind by the very act of acknowledging the question. If we can overcome our resistance to undertaking this task, we may find that, once again, Freud pointed the way towards discovery of a new paradigm in science.

Attitude to Death↗

PubMed1982

Presidential address: normal in psychoanalysis.

This paper is an attempt to spell out some of the usages of 'normal' in psychoanalysis in respect to the concepts lying behind such usage, and to attempt to see how various of these usages and concepts have been and can be employed in present day psychoanalysis. This started out as a seemingly simple exploration of the meaning of a term but turned into a puzzling exposition, the dimensions of which were not anticipated, and perhaps, were not fulfilled in the course of this presentation. In the final section, the author returns to the concept of normality as progressing over time and links this with the concept of average and expectable. This concept, as defined by research and experience, is the most operationally useful one when applied to the individual. From this point of view, the same seems to apply to psychoanalytic societies and groups.

Adult↗

PubMed1980

On "action language" in psychoanalysis.

The main tenets of action language are summarized in an attempt to discern the direction in which psychoanalysis might go if action language becomes the "new metapsychology." The principal roots of action language are traced to the different linguistic/language and personality-and-culture models of anthropology and to the neobehaviorist currents of academic psychology. The authors' findings support the hypothesis that action language is a form os psychoanalytic behaviorism having idealism, logical positivism, and radical empiricism as its philosophical underpinnings. Its adoption would confound the entire motivational aspect of psychoanalysis. Specifically, the authors suggest that action language falls under the aegis of Wittgenstein's family of language games. When the action language game is said to be brought to a successful resolution, the language game disappears and, supposedly, so do the patient's conflicts.

Humans↗

PubMed1995

Bernfeld's "The facts of observation in psychoanalysis": a response from psychoanalytic research.

In his 1941 article, "The Facts of Observation in Psychoanalysis," Siegfried Bernfeld wrote that observing the sequence of events leading up to and following the patient's confessing a secret is important for psychoanalytic theory. The patient's confessing a secret is important for psychoanalytic theory. The patient's confessing a secret may follow a comment by the analyst that clears away the obstacles to the patient's confessing by creating an encouraging atmosphere and reducing the patient's shame or distrust. Bernfeld believed that the study of this sequence would be fruitful for the development of psychoanalysis. His article now seems prescient. Members of the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group have used formal empirical methods to study Bernfeld's thesis, and we have found strong support for his assumptions.

Humans↗

PubMed1996

External reality: the elusive dimension of psychoanalysis.

Current psychoanalytic thinking reflects important differences concerning external reality. It is absent from the theories of the hermeneuticists, and it is excessively present in self psychology. Those treating victims of "real" trauma frequently believe that psychoanalysis is not appropriate for their patients. This has led to the unacceptable separation of individuals: those who are traumatized and those who are neurotic. I believe that a review of the role of external reality in psychic functioning is overdue, and the present work is an attempt to reassess our knowledge of this important dimension and to find its proper place in psychoanalysis.

Guilt↗

PubMed1996

Sandor Rado and Adolf Meyer: a nodal point in American psychiatry and psychoanalysis.

Previously uncited archival material, principally letters between Adolf Meyer and Sandor Rado, is used to document the importance of a relationship between two influential figures in american psychiatry and psychoanalysis at a fateful moment in the evolution of both. Although Meyer and Rado have each fallen into relative neglect, their interaction not only was a crucial part of the schisms in American analysis in the 1930s and 1940s, but represented an important juncture in the history of the relationship between medicine, academic psychiatry and psychoanalysis in North America. Meyer's powerful influence was thus an essential component of Rado's attempts to rewrite psychoanalytic theory and terminology wholesale. Moreover, Rado specifically integrated the results of a radically integrationist agenda he had consolidated in his contact with Meyer into the organisation and educational programme of the psychoanalytic institute he founded at Columbia University in the early 1940s.

History, 19th Century↗

PubMed1997

Child and adolescent psychoanalysis: research, practice and theory.

In the last fifteen years, there have been three major developments in child and adolescent psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy. After briefly reviewing what is clear and unclear about the nature of child psychoanalysis, the author describes and critiques three recent trends: (1) a greater differentiation of aetiological factors that involves an enhanced understanding about developmental influences and how they may be utilised therapeutically; (2) a shift in child analytic theory to a more equitable balance between internal and external factors, with more attention being paid to the external; and (3) a significant increase in the psychoanalytically informed, empirical study of development as well as the process and outcome of treatment. Changes in these three overlapping domains are examined and their relevance to clinical practice discussed. It is suggested that the increase in the systematic and empirical study of the child psychoanalytic process has been the most significant recent development in the field; it is this that has the greatest potential to minimise rhetoric, to support discovery and to clarify what is unique about psychoanalytically informed work with children and adolescents.

Adolescent↗