Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association current issue

Getting Our Ideas Across: Three Very Different Views

Glick, R. A. — 2008-05-30

Analyst as Teacher / Teacher as Analyst: A Confusion of Tongues?

Skorczewski, D. — 2008-05-30

An ad hoc volunteer force, psychoanalytic educators must make do with little formal preparation in teaching methods before they enter the classroom. When they inevitably encounter common pedagogical problems, they often attribute their difficulty to a personal failure or the recalcitrance of candidates, but rarely to a lack of instruction in the craft of teaching. Given this situation, how can analysts who spend most of their time with patients learn to lead productive classroom discussions? How can they enhance participation when discussions become stale and strained? Most important, how can they determine whether candidates actually learn something in their classes? It is only slight exaggeration to say that the answers to these questions cannot be found in the thousands of pages that the profession has devoted to the subject of psychoanalytic education. A supplementary literature of psychoanalytic education is proposed that would directly address pedagogical issues through close attention to the goals and outcomes of courses and through case studies of moment-to-moment interactions in the classroom.

Access To Psychoanalytic Ideas in American Undergraduate Institutions

Redmond, J., Shulman, M. — 2008-05-30

To determine the prevalence of teaching about psychoanalytic ideas in the undergraduate curricula of 150 highly ranked colleges and universities, a software-based search was conducted to find references to psychoanalytic content in published course catalogues. Results showed that psychoanalytic ideas were represented somewhere in the curricula of most (though not all) of these schools, and that overall there were many times more courses featuring psychoanalytic ideas outside psychology departments than within them. The data also suggest that there are regional differences in the likelihood an undergraduate will encounter psychoanalytic ideas at these schools. Though psychoanalytic ideas are available in some form in most of these schools' psychology departments, the average number of courses per school is small. At the same time, psychoanalytic ideas have found applications in many areas of the humanities and social sciences. The nature of the presentation of psychoanalytic ideas in these areas, however, may often be unfamiliar to clinically oriented analysts, as seen in examples of the courses that were found. Challenges and opportunities of the current academic climate vis-à-vis organized psychoanalysis are described and various suggestions made regarding how analysts can engage the academic world to its benefit.

"Why Is It That I See Everything Differently?" Reading a 1933 Letter From Paula Heimann To Theodor Reik

Rolnik, E. J. — 2008-05-30

A letter from Paula Heimann to her training analyst, Theodor Reik, written shortly before her emigration from Berlin to London, sheds light on some of the technical controversies and personal animosities that shaped psychoanalytic clinical discourse in the early 1930s, as well as on Heimann's subsequent development as a clinician. A close reading of this letter highlights several distinctive aspects of psychoanalytic training and demonstrates the transgenerational transmission of psychoanalytic ideas.

Is There Life After Enactment? The Idea of a Patient's Proper Work

Friedman, L. — 2008-05-30

All talking therapies profit from a patient's deliberate work in treatment, for a number of reasons, each of which deserves separate study and reflection. This is as true for psychoanalysis as for other psychotherapies. But in psychoanalysis the idea of a patient's deliberate work is paradoxical and problematic, bringing special overt and covert benefits, but also risking countertransference hazards like those associated with the notion of therapeutic alliance. Many analysts today use the implicit idea of a patient's proper, deliberate work as a contrast in defining an enactment, and the idea of this proper work serves both parties as an image of aspiration when they are trying to climb out of an enactment. As always in these matters, that sort of usefulness carries the hazard of unrealistic and unpsychoanalytic expectations.

Screen Memory: Its Importance to Object Relations and Transference

Reichbart, R. — 2008-05-30

A screen memory of an obsessive and narcissistic man, reported early in psychoanalysis, both represented and disguised the patient's oedipal conflict, incestuous wishes, and sibling rivalry. It symbolized for him his relationship with his mother and was treated by him, in a repetitive and fetishistic manner throughout treatment, as the reason for his bitterness toward life, his sense of entitlement, his narcissism, and his distrust of women. In the transference, the memory—far from being inert— constantly played an active role in his wishes and disappointments regarding the analyst, and in his fantasied oedipal triumph over him. As the analysis progressed, and after years of treatment, the encapsulated nature of this memory began to give way to the patient's growing awareness of his oedipal wishes, the full range of his feelings toward his mother, and his sense of abandonment by her. The nature of screen memory is explored, including how it relates to a patient's personality and use of the past in general, how it may figure in the development of a person's object relations, and the decisive role it may play throughout a treatment.

The Fall of Fantasies: A Lacanian Reading of Lack

Ruti, M. — 2008-05-30

The purpose of this article is to explain to a non-Lacanian audience the broad philosophical foundations of Lacanian theory, particularly the relationship that Lacan draws between the human subject's ontological lack and his or her creative capacities. In an effort to explain Lacan's distaste for psychoanalytic approaches aimed at strengthening the ego, the article outlines the manner in which Lacan connects ego-driven fantasies to the constriction of the subject's psychic world. Lacan suggests that narcissistic fantasies are misleadingly seductive because they—in occluding the internal rifts and antagonisms of the subject's being—alleviate his or her anxieties about the contingent basis of existence. However, the illusory sense of plenitude and self-presence that such fantasies provide prevents the subject from effectively discerning the "truth" of his or her desire, thereby holding him or her captive in socially conventional psychic paradigms. In consequence, it is only the fall of the subject's most cherished fantasies that empowers him or her to pursue a degree of subjective singularity. The article also considers the clinical implications of Lacan's theory of lack, including the ways in which the analyst's lack enhances the patient's capacity to claim an increasingly autonomous and multidimensional mode of encountering the world.

The Interplay of Genes, Environments, and Psychoanalysis

Hauser, S. T. — 2008-05-30

Depression and Internally Directed Aggression: Genetic and Environmental Contributions

2008-05-30

This study uses behavior genetic (BG) methodology to investigate Freud's theory of depression as aggression directed toward the self (1930) and the extent to which genetically and environmentally influenced aggressive tendencies contribute to depressive symptoms. Data from the Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden (TOSS) is used to demonstrate how, in estimating shared and unique environmental influences, BG methods can inform psychoanalytic theory and practice, particularly because of their shared emphasis on the importance of individual experience in development. The TOSS sample consists of 909 pairs of adult twins, their partners, and one adolescent child per couple. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (Radloff 1977) was used to measure depressive symptoms and the Karolinska Scales of Personality (Schalling and Edman 1993) to measure internally directed aggression. Genetic analyses indicated that for both men and women, their unique experiences as well as genetic factors contributed equally to the association between internally directed aggression and depressive symptoms. These findings support Freud's theory that constitutionally based differences in aggression, along with individual experiences, contribute to a person's depressive symptoms. Establishing that an individual's unique, not shared, experiences and perceptions contribute to depressive symptoms and internally directed aggression reinforces the use of patient-specific treatment approaches implemented in psychoanalytic psychotherapy or psychoanalysis.

Psychoanalytic and Musical Perspectives on Shame in Donizetti's Lucia Di Lammermoor

Nagel, J. J. — 2008-05-30

Two disciplines, psychoanalysis and music, are synthesized here with an eye to the origins and vicissitudes of shame and guilt as seen in the emotional disintegration of the eponymous heroine of Donizetti's opera Lucia di Lammermoor. Lucia's affects and her intrapsychic and interpersonal dynamics are heard in the music itself. A psychoanalytic and musical analysis of the opera, taking Lucia's dynamics as a quasi-substitute for clinical material, illuminates the intersections between certain theoretical aspects of the two disciplines. Both manifest and latent themes are expressed through the music of Donizetti's score.

Panel Report: The Action in Therapeutic Action: Nonverbal Interventions

Evans, H. M. — 2008-05-30

Panel Report: Unattainable Goals in Psychoanalysis

Nagel, J. J. — 2008-05-30

Panel Report: When Analysis Makes Patients Worse: The Negative Therapeutic Reaction Revisited

Grabel, S. — 2008-05-30

Panel Report: Multiple Models in Clinical Practice: Bane or Blessing?

Panzer, D. E. — 2008-05-30

Panel Report: How Much Can Analysis Be Discovery, Not Suggestion?

Colombo, D. — 2008-05-30

Book Review: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND MIND REVOLUTION IN MIND: THE CREATION OF PSYCHOANALYSIS. By George Makari. New York: Harper Collins, 2008, 613 pp., $32.50

Wurmser, L. — 2008-05-30

Book Review: PSYCHODYNAMIC DIAGNOSTIC MANUAL. By The PDM Task Force. Silver Spring, MD: Alliance of Psychoanalytic Organizations, 2006, 857 pp., $45.00 hardcover, $35.00 paperback

Dunn, P. B. — 2008-05-30

Book Review: FRATRICIDE IN THE HOLY LAND: A PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEW OF THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT. By Avner Falk. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004, 300 pp., $35.00

Alderdice, T. L. — 2008-05-30

Book Review: THE FUTURE OF PREJUDICE: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE PREVENTION OF PREJUDICE. Edited by Henri Parens, Afaf Mahfouz, Stuart Twemlow, and David Scharff. New York: Guilford Press, 2005, 256 pp., $70.00

Szajnberg, N. — 2008-05-30

Book Review: PRACTICAL PSYCHOANALYSIS FOR THERAPISTS AND PATIENTS. By Owen Renik. New York: Other Press, 2006, 179 pp, $24.00

Benson, R. M. — 2008-05-30

Book Review: ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS: ON TERMINATING PSYCHOTHERAPY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS. By Herbert J. Schlesinger. Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press, 2005, 256 pp., $59.95

Munich, R. L. — 2008-05-30

Book Review: CRAFT AND SPIRIT: A GUIDE TO THE EXPLORATORY PSYCHOTHERAPIES. By Joseph D. Lichtenberg. Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press, 2005, 216 pp., $47.50

Friedman, H. J. — 2008-05-30

Book Review: MOTHERLAND OF PSYCHOANALYSIS. By Thomas Freeman. Edited by John Finlay and Richard Ingram. London: Whurr Publishers, 2005, 100 pp., $50.00

Downey, T. W. — 2008-05-30

Book Review: JOHN SLOAN'S WOMEN: A PSYCHOANALYSIS OF VISION. By Janice M. Coco. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2004, 135 pp., $45.00

Kuspit, D. — 2008-05-30

Book Review: EXPLORING THE INVISIBLE: ART, SCIENCE, AND THE SPIRITUAL. By Lynn Gamwell. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002, 344 pp., $49.95 hardcover, $35.00 paperback

Harrison, A. M. — 2008-05-30