Big moves toward integration: Sheldon Bach’s framework for the treatment of narcissistic disorders.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 40(1), Jan 2023, 20-24; doi:10.1037/pap0000440It’s a pleasure to write this article to honor Shelly Bach and his immense contribution to psychoanalysis. For us—as psychoanalysts who came into the field in the late 80s and early 90s—Bach’s ideas about understanding and treating narcissistic disorders have been immeasurably helpful and influential. This period in American psychoanalysis—known as the relational turn—emphasized perspectivalism—the influential role of the analyst’s subjectivity on the treatment process—as well as the effort to integrate different theoretical pers...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - February 6, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Disturbances of primary integration, subjective awareness, and objective self-awareness.
This article outlines developments from primary ego integration in infancy through developments of subjective awareness and objective self-awareness in toddlerhood and explores the effects and treatment of disturbances of early integration and later integration that emerged in two case examples. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology)
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - February 6, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Listening, hearing, heeding: An essay in honor of Shelly Bach.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 40(1), Jan 2023, 11-13; doi:10.1037/pap0000444My article is an essay on psychoanalytic listening, hearing, and heeding in honor of my experience in supervision with Shelly Bach. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology)
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - February 6, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
For Shelly.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 40(1), Jan 2023, 8-10; doi:10.1037/pap0000441This is a memoir in poetry in honor of Sheldon Bach. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology)
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - February 6, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
A personal reflection on the life and work of Shelly Bach.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 40(1), Jan 2023, 2-7; doi:10.1037/pap0000442This essay is on the life and work of Sheldon Bach. It aims at showing how his background, talents, education, and life experience informed his theoretical thinking, his writings, and his work as a clinician. He lived over nine decades actively committed to his chosen profession. As a keen observer of the immense changes in psychoanalysis since Freud, his writings and clinical works speak to his significant contributions to evolving psychoanalytic thinking and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology)
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - February 6, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
A note about the special issue in honor of Sheldon Bach.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 40(1), Jan 2023, 1; doi:10.1037/pap0000439This brief note introduces the special issue in honor of Sheldon Bach, which was edited by Steven Ellman, John Rosegrant, and Neal Vorus. The note lists the different authors who contributed to this special issue, all of whom are psychoanalysts whose work was deeply impacted by Dr. Bach’s contributions to psychoanalysis. The note also mentions the concluding essay to this special issue, written by Drs. Ellman and Vorus, that integrates the various contributions to this volume. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Psy...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - February 6, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Review of Emotional Inheritance: A Therapist, Her Patients, and the Legacy of Trauma.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 40(2), Apr 2023, 137-140; doi:10.1037/pap0000434Reviews the book, Emotional Inheritance: A Therapist, Her Patients, and the Legacy of Trauma by Galit Atlas (2022). In this book, Atlas reasserts the phenomenon of intergenerational transmission of trauma for the psychoanalytic community and introduces the concept to the public. In the tradition of clinicians who address mainstream audiences, the book comprises engaging and poignant treatment tales designed to entice readers into the therapeutic relationship. Atlas’s theme is the working-through of intergenerational trauma, which she packages ...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - January 12, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Review of The authority of tenderness: Dignity and the true self.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 40(2), Apr 2023, 134-136; doi:10.1037/pap0000433Reviews the book, The Authority of Tenderness: Dignity and the True Self by Paul Williams ( 2022). The chapters in this book shift among autobiography, discussions of the nature of solitude, accounts of the raw realities of minds destroyed by neglect and violence, clinical stories, and descriptions of “the authority of tenderness” in the treatment of severe psychic distress and disintegration. The chapters are not presented in any obviously linear sequence. In fact, I found myself initially taken aback by the structure of the book. But with ...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - January 12, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
The utility of the Self–Other Narrative Evaluation Scale (SONES) for assessing internal representations in interpersonal narratives.
This article introduces the Self–Other Narrative Evaluation Scale (SONES), which elicits respondent ratings for how they feel interpersonal events in a narrative impacted their representations of self and others. The purpose of this article is to explore the psychometric adequacy, convergent validity, and construct validity of this newly created scale. In two studies, participants provided autobiographical narratives of interpersonal interactions and rated them with the SONES. Experts independently rated all narratives with the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale–Global Rating Method. Participants also rated th...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - January 12, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
A look at COVID-19 and transgender youth through a psychoanalytic lens.
This article applies Winnicott’s concepts of mirroring and the author’s constructs of the true gender self, false gender self, and gender creativity to information gleaned from survey studies and clinical observation. These data were then used to analyze why some TGD children and adolescents experienced the shutdown phase of the pandemic as an opportunity to consolidate their gender self, while others experienced the shutdown as a significant environmental impingement and threat to their gender self and overall well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology)
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - January 9, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
From childhood emotional maltreatment to disordered eating: A path analysis.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 40(2), Apr 2023, 90-98; doi:10.1037/pap0000438Childhood emotional maltreatment (i.e., emotional abuse and emotional neglect), attachment, reflective functioning (RF), defense styles, and disordered eating (DE) are associated with each other. However, no study has yet investigated all these variables simultaneously. The present study aimed to test the mediating role of attachment, RF, and defense styles in the relationship between childhood emotional abuse and neglect and DE. Self-report questionnaires were completed by 769 Italian adults (48.1% females; mean age = 28.89; SD = 7.28). DE, child...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - January 9, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
“Bye, click, and gone”—A qualitative study about the experiences of psychotherapists and adolescent patients on remote treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 40(3), Jul 2023, 190-198; doi:10.1037/pap0000427Due to the high risk of infection during the COVID-19 pandemic, direct contact between patients and their therapists, which is usually considered crucial, became a potential threat. In order to prevent the disruption of psychotherapeutic treatment, many psychotherapists switched to different forms of synchronous remote video or telephone communication. However, the implementation of remote treatment was quite abrupt and led many therapists to question how the therapeutic process might continue using this technology-based communication, especiall...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - January 2, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
The parallel pandemic: The impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of children with neurocognitive impairments.
This article will examine the specific impact of the pandemic on young learners with the most common types of neurocognitive disorders and provide recommendations for intervention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology)
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - December 22, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Reflections on my backyard office.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 40(3), Jul 2023, 168-171; doi:10.1037/pap0000437During the COVID-19 pandemic, I found Zoom to be an unsatisfying tool for treating young patients. I was able to create a backyard “office,” inviting children and preteens to continue their play therapy sessions outdoors. I review how working outside changed the therapeutic frame. I noticed shifts in boundaries and treatment. Case examples, including a composite patient with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), demonstrate some of the themes that arose in the new setting. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserve...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - December 22, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on pregnant and postpartum women: Where is the village?
This article describes how a group of psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic therapists in a community outreach initiative, the SPRING Project, worked to meet these mental health needs by providing affordable psychotherapy at this critical time. Two case reports highlight the ways the pandemic magnified postpartum distress as well as the relevance and efficacy of a psychodynamic clinical approach in resolving such distress. In addition, the author chronicles how early in the pandemic the SPRING Project launched support groups for pregnant women. Participants in this virtual village helped offset the painful isolation of these w...
Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - December 8, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
