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PubMed2002

Diversity of learning psychoanalysis and analytical psychology.

As the subject of this Conference is 'Diversity and its Limits: New Directions in Analytical Psychology and Psychoanalysis', I would like to investigate some aspects of education at our Institute--the East European Institute of Psychoanalysis--from the point of view of the meeting of West and East. I will look at the influence of this diversity on the formation and development of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology in Russia.

Humans↗
PubMed1982

Psychoanalysis as a human science: critique and reformulation.

This paper continues the debate opened by Will (1980), concerning the scientific status of psychoanalysis. A critique is made of Will's paper, on the grounds that it misrepresents the scientific method, and fails to consider appropriate criteria for evaluating psychoanalysis. A defence of Popper, and the importance of prediction as a tool in structuring understanding, is sketched out, and an alternative view of the scientific process which can more adequately encompass the enterprise of psychoanalysis is suggested.

Humans↗
PubMed1999

Biology and the future of psychoanalysis: a new intellectual framework for psychiatry revisited.

The American Journal of Psychiatry has received a number of letters in response to my earlier "Framework" article (1). Some of these are reprinted elsewhere in this issue, and I have answered them briefly there. However, one issue raised by some letters deserves a more detailed answer, and that relates to whether biology is at all relevant to psychoanalysis. To my mind, this issue is so central to the future of psychoanalysis that it cannot be addressed with a brief comment. I therefore have written this article in an attempt to outline the importance of biology for the future of psychoanalysis.

Adrenal Cortex Hormones↗
PubMed2000

Buried but not dead: resuscitating psychoanalysis in the twenty-first century.

This paper argues that psychoanalysis is not dead, but in the process of being revived in a more cogent and less erroneous form so it may thrive in the twentieth century. The weak adaptive position is seen as the key error in mainstream psychoanalytic theory. Erroneous concepts, like the primacy of inner fantasies and memories in emotional life and the role of so-called transferences in psychotherapy, have been derived from this base. Affording current psychoanalytic thinking a strong adaptive position that sees coping with environmental impingements as the primary task of the human emotion-processing mind sets straight many existing misconceptions. Revising psychoanalysis in light of a strong adaptive position brings it into line with the theory of evolution, the basic theory of biology. It also clarifies the nature of dreams and leads to the creation of a quantitative, mathematically based, formal science of psychoanalysis replete with laws and regularities. Also explored is the neglect of the emotion-processing mind and efforts to overshadow mental concepts with ideas about the brain from neuroscience. The dangers of this loss of mind are reviewed. The paper concludes with a discussion of the role played by existential death anxiety in the perpetuation of the errors rife in classical psychoanalytic thinking. Lessening our use of denial mechanisms in response to death anxieties is a key requisite for advancing psychodynamic theories in the next one hundred years.

Humans↗
PubMed2000

The older patient in psychoanalysis.

The demographic shift toward extended longevity has led to a commensurate increase in the length of the working and productive years, and with it an increase in the number of so-called "older" patients who come into psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic psychotherapy. This led the Psychoanalytic Research and Development Fund to support a four-year study by a small group of experienced psychoanalysts of "the older patient in psychoanalysis." Aging and old age are considered to be the final developmental crisis of the successive epigenetic phases of the life cycle. Eleven case presentations and various briefer clinical vignettes informed us that older and even old individuals, who seek treatment themselves or who are appropriately referred, respond in a positive and effective fashion to psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. As do younger patients in analysis, such older people, motivated by the wish to make the most of what time is left, become interested in understanding their pasts with respect to the present and the future. The life stories of two older men who undertook analysis, and the courses and outcomes of their analyses, illustrate our findings and impressions. In both cases conflicts and difficulties from earlier developmental phases, extending back even as far as the oedipal and preoedipal years, were revived during their older years. And although these conflicts might have been beyond definitive resolution, what is salient is the extent to which they were ameliorated: sufficiently that they did not impede a satisfactory adaptive solution of the final crisis of the normative sequences of the life cycle.

Aged↗
PubMed2002

Where's the text? The problem of validation in psychoanalysis.

Whatever their differences, the various schools of psychoanalysis all subscribe to the case study, based on clinical vignette and anecdote, as the "text" of psychoanalysis. Because the typical case study presents not the actual analytic dialogue but a reconstruction based on the analyst's selective memory, the use of such a text renders problematic the validation of an analyst's case formulation, and has traditionally diminished the epistemological status of psychoanalysis. Pristine clinical data, as would be provided by verbatim transcripts of audio-recorded analytic sessions, are rarely created and even more rarely made public. Study of the psychoanalytic process is thereby made impossible, whether by clinical exegesis, qualitative analysis, or quantitative statistical analysis. Yet the analytic community, highly resistant to this public documentation, continues to marshal five common arguments against it. These arguments are reviewed and responded to in the belief that such documentation would enhance the field's intellectual status by allowing the problem of clinical validation to be addressed in ways that move beyond appeals to the authority of private clinical experience.

Confidentiality↗
PubMed1988

The psychoanalysis of art: some ends, some means.

The psychoanalysis of art has been a lively activity for virtually a century, ever since Freud first likened certain findings of his self-analysis to certain turns of plot in Oedipus Rex and Hamlet. Yet over this time a lack of clarity has persisted with respect to the kind of knowledge applied psychoanalysis achieves and its means of justification. Starting with the observation that clinical and applied psychoanalysis are, in every respect, radically different endeavors, this paper goes on to identify some ends and means of the psychoanalytic study of art and to suggest a few criteria of adequacy for the outcomes of such study.

Art↗
PubMed1991

On the efficacy of psychoanalysis.

In this study we critically review the formal research literature pertinent to the outcomes of psychoanalysis and the factors influencing these outcomes. Our inquiry was conducted from a psychoanalytic perspective. We found the research yield consistent with the accumulated body of clinically derived psychoanalytic knowledge, e.g., patients suitable for psychoanalysis derive substantial therapeutic benefit; analyzability and therapeutic benefit are relatively separate dimensions and their extent is relatively unpredictable from the perspective of initial evaluation among seemingly suitable cases. The studies all contain clinical and methodological limitations which are no more substantial than in other forms of psychotherapy research, but they have not substantially advanced psychoanalytic knowledge. This raises challenges for the further development of formal research strategies native to psychoanalysis.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Deterministic chaos and the sciences of complexity: psychoanalysis in the midst of a general scientific revolution.

A combination of new concepts and the enormous powers of computation now available have created the beginnings of a major new scientific revolution. It does not have to do with psychoanalysis per se, but with some basic assumptions among the sciences generally. The result is already showing in new visions of nature variously called "deterministic chaos," "nonlinear dynamics," or "sciences of complexity." For the first time it is possible to study complex systems in process, over time. This paper, especially attending to issues of separation and integration, focuses on two components of the new understandings, fractal geometry (part of the mathematics of topology) and deterministic chaos (the tendency of nonlinear systems to oscillate toward and away from absolute chaotic disorganization). In a diverse group of intellectual disciplines, it is now possible to describe systems in operation in detail, in terms of nonlinear differential equations. From these, computer models of multiple variables in interaction can be produced. In turn, this allows experimentation on the models by altering variables. At this time, psychoanalysis can only use deterministic chaos and fractals metaphorically, but in the future, especially if psychoanalysis is seen in terms of process or organismic theory, it is likely that such models can be produced.

Computer Simulation↗
PubMed1997

A century after Freud's project: is a rapprochement between psychoanalysis and neurobiology at hand?

In his 1895 "Project for a Scientific Psychology" Freud attempted to construct a model of the human mind in terms of its underlying neurobiological mechanisms. In this endeavor "to furnish a psychology which shall be a natural science," Freud introduced the concepts that to this day serve as the theoretical foundation and scaffolding of psychoanalysis. As a result, however, of his ensuing disavowal of the Project, these speculations about the fundamental mechanisms that regulate affect, motivation, attention, and consciousness were relegated to the shadowy realm of "metapsychology." Nonetheless, Freud subsequently predicted that at some future date "we shall have to find a contact point with biology." It is argued that recent advances in the interdisciplinary study of emotion show that the central role played by regulatory structures and functions represents such a contact point, and that the time is right for a rapprochement between psychoanalysis and neuroscience. Current knowledge of the psychobiological mechanisms by which the right hemisphere processes social and emotional information at levels beneath conscious awareness, and by which the orbital prefrontal areas regulate affect, motivation, and bodily state, allows for a deeper understanding of the "psychic structure" described by psychoanalytic metapsychology. The dynamic properties and ontogenetic characteristics of this neurobiological system have important implications for both theoretical and clinical psychoanalysis.

Austria↗
PubMed1999

Toward a postmodern realism for psychoanalysis.

The current status of psychoanalysis is explored in the light of the postmodern critique of forms of knowledge. Analysts have tended to respond by redefining psychoanalysis in the language of the exact sciences or by finding a language that includes both (Kuhn, Rorty), thereby falling either into a reductive "scientism" or the fallacies of the "strong program" in postmodern thought. However, psychoanalytic theories do not meet the probative requirements of science. Neither is the serious problem of competing theories and interpretations adequately addressed by hermeneutics. Philosophical realism (Putnam 1981, 1988) offers some helpful ways to look at this problem. Following Lacan, we define psychoanalysis as a clinical discipline which has as its unique object of study the human subject, an indeterminate and language dependent entity. Concepts and rules specific to our field make an internal realism of psychoanalytic inquiry possible. An extended case vignette accompanies this philosophical discussion.

Humans↗
PubMed1999

On the scientific standing of psychoanalysis.

This paper speaks for the claim that psychoanalysis qualifies as a scientific enterprise. It will derive from the conceptual and evidential structure of psychoanalysis a causal empirical hypothesis that admits of scientific intraclinical testing. Relevant topics from the philosophy of science (especially the nature of causal explanation and the work of Grünbaum) and the psychoanalytic theories of pathogenesis and therapeutic action are discussed in a preliminary way to create a framework for the demonstration. The dynamic unconscious is examined as the core causal concept of psychoanalysis. Taken together with an account of the structure of the mental apparatus, a coherent picture of mental causation (the propagation of an unconscious impulse) comes into view. This leads to the formulation of a set of clinical propositions that unite to generate a causal empirical hypothesis based solely on data from the analytic setting--namely, that the transferences and symptoms that appear in free association in the analytic situation possess an interrelational structure that is theoretically implied and can be statistically confirmed.

Cognition↗
PubMed1986

On the differences in the historical development of psychoanalysis in the United States and Canada.

Psychoanalysis developed differentially in Canada and the United States. In the United States it was geared to the model of having only physicians train in psychoanalysis, which was followed from the very beginning but in Canada the standard of the International Psycho-Analytic Association was used allowing the training of some lay analysts as well as physicians. In Canada, though very Freudian, a more integrated view of many different schools of psychoanalysis was taught as adjuncts to the Freudian view, this being based to a large degree on the British psychoanalytic model. The American Psychoanalytic suffered many splits on the issues on social factors and to some degree on political issues in the twenties and the thirties. This was avoided by the Canadian societies and institutes. The main similarities and differences in historical development are outlined and discussed.

Academies and Institutes↗
PubMed2001

The birth of psychoanalysis from the spirit of technique.

The author aims to demonstrate, through a textual analysis of Freud's work, how the creation of psychoanalysis as a plausible set of understandings of the human mind has a methodological origin that has sometimes been overlooked: in the Greek concept of techne. Freud, an acknowledged pupil of Brentano, was well versed in Aristotelian rhetoric, and selected this instrument of investigation, dependent on language, from the outset of his efforts to describe, understand and treat the world of the unconscious mind. Working in the tradition of techne Freud actually rehabilitated 'guessing' (zu erraten)--although it became a largely overlooked concept in Freud's work--and so sought to place conjectural reason as the definitive form of knowledge for the investigation and treatment of the mind. This explains why the 1895 'Project' could not succeed and why technique became irreplaceable as the via regia in 'The Interpretation of Dreams'. Its model is founded in Aristotelian rhetoric, whose conception of language was first rediscovered by Nietzsche and was used therapeutically by Freud. Freud's view is apparent in his 1923 definition of psychoanalysis which is compared to the current IPA definition, a definition which, the author suggests, gives a misleading prominence to 'theory' and which shows how far a questionable rationality has removed conjectural reason from the field, to its detriment. From this point of view it is argued that the 'precious conjunction' (Freud) between investigation and treatment has been abandoned, and the concept of historical truth and its significance for psychoanalysis obscured.

Austria↗
PubMed2004

Beyond illusion: Psychoanalysis and the question of religious truth.

In this paper the author critically examines the nature of the positive, reconciliatory attitude towards religion that has become increasingly prevalent within psychoanalytic thinking and writing over the past 20 years. She shows how this positive attitude rests on a change in the nature of the prototype of religion and its reassignment to the realm of illusion, thus making irrelevant an issue most central both to psychoanalysis and to traditional Judeo-Christian belief--the passionate search for truth. The author demonstrates how the concern with truth, and specifically with the truth of religious claims, lies at the basis of the opposition between psychoanalysis and religion but, paradoxically, also provides the common ground for dialogue between the two. She argues that, as Freud developed his ideas regarding the origin of conviction in religious claims in his Moses and monotheism (1939), the nature of this common ground was expanded and the dialogue became potentially more meaningful. The author concludes that meaningful dialogue emerges through recognition of fundamental differences rather than through harmonisation within a realm of illusion. In this light, the present study may also be seen as an attempt to recognise fundamental differences that have been evolving within psychoanalysis itself.

Attitude↗
PubMed1999

The logic of play in psychoanalysis.

The paper puts forward the idea that play is at work all the time in psychoanalysis. The play element functions continuously to sustain a paradoxical reality where things may be real and not real at the same time. This paradox is what allows the work of psychoanalysis to take place. The concept of play covers different activities with complex interrelations, and general definitions may be misleading. The essential element is the framework that makes the paradoxical reality possible. The logical structure of the play framework is investigated, and the paper clarifies the relations between the play frame, transference and enactment. Play and humour are compared. Spontaneity is the essence of both, and the criterion for analytic validity in both cases is whether they deepen the analytic process. The tragic and ironic aspects of psychoanalysis are related to the intrinsic connection between play and loss. The relation between play and games is discussed. The rule-bound quality of games can block more exploratory kinds of play, but it may be necessary to accept this, in order for analysis to feel safe enough. Clinical material illustrates the importance of the play framework, both in a case marked by prolonged hostile and negative states of mind, and in others where more straightforward playfulness was possible.

Hostility↗
PubMed1999

The importance of capacities in psychoanalysis and the language of human development.

The author explores the human capacity to contain or hold experience--for self and other--by analysing the word capacity itself. Underlying the discussion is the proposition that hidden in the word capacity is a particular perspective on mental mechanisms fundamental to object-relations theory and that specific consideration of the word may, therefore, add to an understanding of these mechanisms. The author suggests that the term may have entered the language of psychoanalysis 'by mistake'. He then looks at its meaning in terms of its etymology, grammatical 'flavour', metaphorical significance and conceptual use, in particular by Bion and Winnicott. It is argued that psychoanalysis is part of, and makes a significant contribution to, a long tradition of learning from experience, in which development is understood as the progressive emergence or evolution of capacities. The underlying meaning of the word suggests that development is expansive rather than linear, step-by-step or cyclical (unlike, for example, stage, level, phase, position or loop). The author suggests that the notion of capacities may provide a framework for applying insights from the theory and practice of psychoanalysis in other organisational and societal contexts.

Humans↗
PubMed2006

The crisis of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytical training: the suffering of the candidate on the long road towards qualification.

The author assesses the impact of the so-called 'crisis of psychoanalysis' on the training of candidates, and on those who accompany them through the course. Different causes of the most relevant symptom of the crisis, i.e. the difficulty of finding patients for a four-sessions-weekly analysis, are considered. According to the author, analysts themselves must bear some of the responsibility for it. She draws attention to a number of interrelated phenomena, such as: trainees' tension in their encounters with potential analysands, due to awareness of their own needs as trainees; the necessity to accept very disturbed patients whose selection might arouse criticism from the training committee; analyses in which trainees seem to become patients' hostages because of ever-present fears of interruption; the difficult construction of a psychoanalytic identity in trainees who also are in full-time psychiatric practice; trainees' profound uncertainty about the future both of psychoanalysis in general and their own careers in particular. In agreement with Kernberg, the author stresses the importance of considering the 'crisis of psychoanalysis' as a phenomenon whose development may be influenced by the analysts themselves.

Appointments and Schedules↗