The American Journal of Psychoanalysis This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

Better Late than Never: The Reparative Therapeutic Relationship in Regression to Dependence by Lorraine Price, Routledge, Abingdon and New York, 2018, 216 pp.
(Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis)
Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - February 18, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Encounters with the Irrational: My Story by Andr é E. Haynal, with an interview by Judit Mészáros, International Psychoanalytic Books, New York, 2017, 173pp.
(Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis)
Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - February 18, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

The W.R. Bion Tradition: Lines of Development, Evolution of Theory and Practice over the Decades , edited by Howard B. Levine and Giuseppe Civitarese, Routledge, Abingdon and New York, 2018. 514pp.
(Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis)
Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - February 18, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Working with religion: often neglected aspects of transference and countertransference
AbstractThe author contends that psychoanalytic theory has generally presented religious beliefs as developmentally immature or pathological. This viewpoint has resulted in a neglect of religion on the part of psychoanalysts and an avoidance of their religious life by patients. Even though there has been an evolution from the traditional Freudian foundational approach to religion as an “illusion” to the inclusion of psychoanalytical training within some Christian institutes and attributions that psychoanalysis, itself, is a religion, religious beliefs should be included in psychotherapy because they can become involved...
Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - February 13, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Aggressive enactments: containing the “no” in clinical work with survivors of abuse
AbstractIdentity development depends on the ability to say ‘no.’ Setting limits enables a relationship between two separate individuals to develop. Early trauma can leave the individual so vigilant to others’ demands that internal prohibitions against intrusion remain silenced, which we conceptualize as a ‘no’ that could not be sufficiently articu lated to keep the person safe. For those who have not been able to assert this fundamental limit, the consulting room provides a potential anchoring point to formulate and work through unconscious meanings. Being able to articulate and register the legitimacy of one’s...
Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - February 13, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

A long-term case study with sadistically-tinged countertransference elements
AbstractThis case report sketches the psychoanalytically-informed supportive psychotherapeutic treatment of a single man through his life challenges over a twenty-year period. The decades-long challenges arise from obsessive compulsive disorder, pathologic self-effacement with insatiable and unusual erotic components, and severe visual impairment leading to blindness. Sadistically-tinged impulses arising in the countertransference are described. (Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis)
Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - February 13, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

On dreams, imaginative knowing and not knowing: Appearance, identity, and shame
AbstractThis paper explores the relation of concepts of the unconscious to notions of the imagination, and both to the dynamics of shame. In this discussion dreams occupy a central place, since they are so intimately related to human relationships and to the human imagination. What is seen, not seen, concealed, relied upon for others not to understand, and what is imagined in the responses of others and of oneself —these are essentially shame dynamics, since our identity is determined by relationships. (Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis)
Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - February 12, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Marianne Horney Eckardt, M.D. February 12, 1913 –August 31, 2018
(Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis)
Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - February 12, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Female anatomy and hysterical duality
This article attempts to add another layer to our understanding of the phenomenon of hysterical duality. The author postulates that hysterical duality can be explained based on the dual-aspect model of feminine sexuality, which exhibits two initially contradictory paths: one derived from primary vaginal sensations and the other from clitoral pleasure. At first, these two paths create a fundamental split between representations of internal space, containment and motherhood and representations related to auto-eroticism and the effacement of the Other ’s presence and needs. The author argues that this manifest contradiction...
Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - February 7, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Doublings between bewilderment and enlightenment: reading freud with heine on the troubled identity of hirsch –hyacinth
AbstractThe present paper examines Freud ’s collapse of Heine’s poignantly observed multi-cultural narratives in discerning the joke’s mechanism of doubling as it progresses from initial bewilderment to momentary enlightenment. In so doing, Freud opens the door to examination of the complex Jewish cultural identity he and Heine share , as represented by the fictional character, “Hirsch-Hyacinth”. Hirsch–Hyacinth is a caricature of the “marginal man” in his doubled orientation between and within conflicting aspects of self, a condition reflecting oscillation between idealization, derogation, awareness and di...
Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - February 7, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Thoughts on the limits of a mutual technique*
AbstractFerenczi ’s appreciation of the inherently mutual nature of the analytic encounter led him, and many who followed, to explore the value of mutual openness between patient and analyst. Specifically, Ferenczi saw the analyst’s openness as an antidote to his earlier defensive denial of his failings and ambi valence toward the patient, which had undermined his patient’s trust. My own view is that, while the analyst’s openness with the patient can indeed help reestablish trust and restore a productive analytic process in the short term, it also poses long-term dangers. In certain treatments it may en courage “...
Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - November 19, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

First florence ferenczi special issue
(Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis)
Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - November 15, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Suicide: a patient ’s wish to kill off “bad” introjects and thus achieve rebirth*
AbstractBenedict came for treatment because he experienced severe self-deprecating feelings that tortured him. He felt commanded —by what he characterized as internal demons—to kill himself. When he did not do so, he felt humiliated for having been a coward. Simultaneously, he reckoned that if he died his demons would be killed off, but that he would arise brand new. Because Benedict had already “killed off” several e arlier therapists, he needed someone who could feel his pain, but would neither die from his emotional storms, nor give up on him. With considerable mutual work, he began to identify with my dogged de...
Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - November 13, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

The lonely passion of the “people”*
AbstractThis paper explores the psychological sources of support for a leader, and unwavering belief in the illusions he promotes, which persists despite confrontation with reality. Lonely passion is an oxymoron. It is passion because of the intensity of the supporters ’ longing which is partially shaped by fear and loss. Their passion is lonely because they appear to be left empty with their love unrequited, having given their selves up and only having an illusion in return. It explores the effects of socio-economic disruption in creating or contributing to the development of a “social character” and threatening the...
Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - November 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Political Divide in the Consulting Room*
AbstractThis paper addresses a treatment relationship that tests the analyst ’s capacity for empathy within an impinging political context. It involves a Ferenczian “relaxation of technique” within the analytic frame, while the analytic couple attempts to negotiate a polarized transference and countertransference. Specifically, within a long-term treatment imbued with positive transference, my patient becomes openly outraged by my insensitive anti-Trump remarks. Increasing confrontations around the expression of political views illuminate our otherness. He complains of psychic ostracism within a liberal cultural cont...
Source: The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - November 7, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research