Blighted phenomena: Learning to work with the dark.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 41(2), Apr 2024, 98-103; doi:10.1037/pap0000504Blighted phenomena are understood as derivatives of dark, lonely, injured experiences—those that are often difficult to put into words. These phenomena can manifest in innumerable configurations in patients’ presentations and in the specificity of their developmental struggles and language. The present article aims to describe ways of working with the darkness of blighted experience, through three case studies. These vignettes are interwoven with temporally encountered theoretical concepts and language-research informing their approach in ord...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - April 8, 2024 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Review of Psychoanalysis under occupation: Practicing resistance in Palestine.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 41(1), Jan 2024, 60-64; doi:10.1037/pap0000497Reviews the book, Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine by Lara Sheehi and Stephen Sheehi (see record 2022-06526-000). A liberatory psychoanalysis, such as that employed in Psychoanalysis Under Occupation, has much to contribute to this decolonial project. Lara and Stephen Sheehi do so within the specific context of the historical development of psychoanalysis in Palestine before and since the birth of Israel. Psychoanalysis Under Occupation challenges readers who identify with Israel as the Jewish people’s homeland...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - February 1, 2024 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Review of Clara M. Thompson’s early years and professional awakening: An American psychoanalyst (1893–1933) and Clara M. Thompson’s professional evolution and legacy: An American psychoanalyst (1933–1958).
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 41(1), Jan 2024, 53-59; doi:10.1037/pap0000491Reviews the books, Clara M. Thompson's Early Years and Professional Awakening: An American Psychoanalyst (1893–1933) by Ann D'Ercole (2023) and Clara M. Thompson's Professional Evolution and Legacy: An American Psychoanalyst (1933–1958) by Ann D'Ercole (2023). Dr. Ann D’Ercole has done a great service to Interpersonal–Relational psychoanalysis and to the William Alanson White Institute in writing this exhaustive two-volume biography of Clara Mabel Thompson, MD. D’Ercole resoundingly establishes Thompson’s place in the history of Americ...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - February 1, 2024 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Opacities of race and the sexual.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 41(1), Jan 2024, 50-52; doi:10.1037/pap0000499Reviews the book, Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia by Saketopoulou Avgi (2023). Sexuality Beyond Consent is a very timely book for psychoanalysis. Published in Routledge’s Sexual Cultures series, it returns to the topic some would consider to be psychoanalysis’s true innovation—the focus on the centrality of sexuality in human subjective formation, conscious and unconscious. Sexuality Beyond Consent is also an important intervention because it attends to the relationships between sexuality, psychoanalysis, and culture by ...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - February 1, 2024 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Agency via speech: A Lacanian perspective on the process toward agency in psychoanalytic therapy.
We examined if Gorlin and Békés’s (2021) “agency via awareness” framework—hypothesizing that agency is a key goal across therapeutic orientations and can be stimulated via increased awareness—aligns with Lacanian psychoanalysis1 and how so. We agree with Gorlin and Békés (2021) that stimulating agency is a key goal in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, though we advocate for another approach of agency—one that neither belongs to a self-conscious, intentional agent nor is considered an illusion of the ego. Building on Lacan’s (1969–1970/2007) Seminar XVII, and more specifically his concepts of “knowledge,...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - February 1, 2024 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Intimate partner violence: Narratives of attachment relationships and linguistic analysis of emotional schemas through a quali-quantitative approach.
This study investigates attachment classifications among women survivors of IPV referred to antiviolence centers, as determined by the Adult Attachment Interview and compare them with a control group. Additionally, this study aims to discern variations in linguistic and narrative styles, utilizing referential process linguistic measures, between the IPV and control groups. Twenty-eight female survivors of IPV and 28 controls completed a sociodemographic questionnaire and the Adult Attachment Interview. The analyses revealed that 25% of the women in the IPV group exhibited a secure attachment style, in contrast to 78.5% of ...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - January 18, 2024 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Review of Reading French Psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 41(2), Apr 2024, 104-107; doi:10.1037/pap0000500Reviews the book, Reading French Psychoanalysis edited by Dana Birksted-Breen, Sara Flanders, and Alain Gibeault (2010). In this essay, the author discusses eight reviews of Reading French Psychoanalysis. The reviews considered are Cheshire (2010) in the British Journal of Psychotherapy, Forde (2010) in the Revista de Psicoanálisis, Glassgold (2014) in the Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Lefer (2011) in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, Reed (2012) in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Ruth and Kahn (2011) in...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - December 25, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Mother’s disintegrative responses in the context of infant care: Clinical and empirical evidence of the role of empathy and parity.
In this study, we aimed to present a clinical case study demonstrating this process as revealed in therapeutic sessions with a new mother, followed by an empirical study examining the contribution to maternal disintegrative responses of background variables and maternal empathy-related components, that is, perspective-taking, empathic concern, fantasy, and personal distress. Israeli mothers (n = 415) whose child was up to 12 months old completed self-report measures tapping maternal disintegrative responses, sociodemographic characteristics, and empathy. We found that higher levels of the empathy components of fantasy and ...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - December 25, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
The allure of the patient’s objects: Countertransference pitfalls and possibilities.
This article will explore these reactions through the concept of countertransference to the patient’s objects and will illuminate how this aspect of countertransference can be particularly elusive. When this facet of countertransference is unanalyzed, countertransference collusions can form. This article will discuss ways for identifying these collusions so that countertransference to the patient’s objects can facilitate rather than impede the analytic work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology)
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - December 21, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Somatic retreats: Seeking refuge in your own body.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 41(1), Jan 2024, 36-44; doi:10.1037/pap0000494In this article, the author attempts to look at the concept of “autistic objects” and “autistic shapes” formulated by Frances Tustin from the perspective of contemporary trends in both psychoanalysis and the psychiatric understanding of autism spectrum disorders. The author highlight the theoretical modifications introduced by Tustin and propose a perspective that has the potential to bring Tustin’s views into alignment with both psychoanalytically oriented developmental psychology and with neurodevelopmental understandings of autism spe...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - December 7, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Breastfeeding, mutual gratification, and emotion self-regulation: Bridging gaps across object relations, drive- and attachment-based psychoanalytic theories.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 41(1), Jan 2024, 27-35; doi:10.1037/pap0000495Like all mammals, human beings are born vulnerable and dependent on the care of another in order to survive and navigate embodied emotionality, and through most of human history and across cultures (Stuart-Macadam & Dettwyler, 1995), breastfeeding has served to this end. While emotion self-regulation (ESR) is unequivocally considered a major developmental achievement, less is known about how and why emotion regulation takes place. Drawing on object relations, drive- and attachment-based theories, we speculatively address these underexplored questi...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - December 7, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Review of When suicide beckons: A psychoanalyst’s memoir.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 40(4), Oct 2023, 377-379; doi:10.1037/pap0000484Reviews the book, When Suicide Beckons: A Psychoanalyst's Memoir by Bhaskar Sripada (2022). According to the reviewer, the book has multiple possible uses. Anyone thinking of going into analysis and imagining analysis as an intimidating, alien enterprise could read this book and learn what it is really like. The book is a portal into the secret world that is shared by analysts and patients. A college course providing an introduction to psychoanalysis could rely on this book. The book would also be invaluable for students training to become psych...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - October 23, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Review of Working with parents in therapy: A mentalization-based approach.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 40(4), Oct 2023, 373-376; doi:10.1037/pap0000477Reviews the book, Working with Parents in Therapy: A Mentalization-Based Approach by Norka Malberg, Elliot Jurist, Jordan Bate, and Mark Dangerfield (see record 2023-37128-000). According to the reviewer, the reviewed book is the definitive text on applying mentalization-based treatment's (MBT) principles to clinical work with parents. The book is clear, comprehensive, and pragmatic, informed by a thoughtful integration of MBT and psychoanalytic principles. Distinctive features of the book include a focus on parenting as a developmental process,...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - October 23, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Commentary.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 40(4), Oct 2023, 266-269; doi:10.1037/pap0000488Common themes are noted in the previous contributions, including the importance of appreciating the historical context of the current Ukrainian resistance to Russian invasion, the chronic and acute effects of trauma, the prevalence of moral injury, the effects of war on the psychoanalytic frame, the value of witnessing and symbolizing, and the need for mutual support among therapists. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology)
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - October 23, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Translating psychoanalytic texts into Ukrainian: Discoveries and further steps.
This article explores the significance of translating classical and contemporary psychoanalytic texts into Ukrainian. It substantiates the existing distinction between natural sciences and humanities by considering their respective use of language as a means of describing the world. By applying the phenomenological conception of language as an existential fact, essential to the constitution of a world conducive to self-understanding for individuals and communities, the article demonstrates the importance of language in creating a shared intersubjective world. This world emerges through communication between diverse culture...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - October 23, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
