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In this paper I discuss John Riker's article, "A Critique of Stolorow's Erasure of Self Psychology and his Appropriation of Heigegger's Theory of Authenticity, plus the Possibility of an Intersubjective Self Psychology" a paper in which Riker sets out to evaluate Stolorow's intersubjectivity theory and its contribution to psychoanalysis. I attempt to add something to Riker's consideration of intersubjectivity especially as it relates to our shared mortality, a topic addressed by Stolorow in a lifetime of books and papers. I also comment on some of the similarities and differences between the ideas of Kohut and Stolorow, suggesting that to some extent these differences lie more in the distinctive languages coined by the two authors than in the ideas themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I discuss Magid, Fosshage and Shane's impressive overview of the contributions to Relational Self Psychology in the psychoanalytic literature, contributions they see as having emerged for the most part after Kohut's death and therefore as having been carried out almost entirely by Kohut's followers. But while the authors see Kohut's work as having hewed closely to a one-person psychology, I use my discussion to highlight what I see as the two-person themes in Kohut's own writings, suggesting that he may have been more relational in his thinking than initially meets the eye. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two principal resources will be used to discuss Darren Haber's paper Simulated Selfhood, Authentic Dialogue: An Intersubjective Systems Look at Treating Addiction. They are Intersubjective Self Psychology: A Primer and Narcissus in Wonderland: The Self Psychology of Addiction and its Treatment. Both of these resources provide a different and more complete way of understanding this excellent case presentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author outlines his understanding of self-psychology as an independent psychoanalytic treatment paradigm created by the late Heinz Kohut and initially geared toward the psychoanalytic treatment of narcissistic disorders. Since then, self-psychology theory and practice have been enriched by new theoretical and clinical considerations and have been introduced into other forms of psychotherapy, counseling, and education, for example. One important conceptual contribution to developmental theory was Heinz Kohut's differentiation of separate narcissistic and "object love" related developmental tasks. Today, new paradigms as i.e. relational analysis stress the value of human relationships and of the value of mutual recognition. This warrants a revisiting of the clinical value of the self-psychological understanding of narcissism. According to the author it lies in the nature of unattended narcissistic needs that when unattended they take primacy over relational aspects and demand adequate attention in order to open up the space for mutuality, reciprocity et cetera. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary is a response to Veronica Csillag’s exploration of the influence of historical and transgenerational trauma on the lives of immigrants, and on the psychoanalytic process (this issue). Dr. Csillag’s paper deepens our understanding of the intrapsychic life of immigrants who have suffered collective trauma pre-migration and continue to suffer from “ghosts” from the past. Her ideas are critical to examining not only the specific traumas incurred in Europe related to the Nazi Holocaust and totalitarian and socialist regimes but also to contemporary traumas related to social identity and position in the United States. In this commentary, I elaborate three primary areas within Dr. Csillag’s contribution: (a) the illusion of choice in traumatic migration, (b) secrecy and privacy, and (c) experience of the outsider and the insider. My discussion underscores the importance of engaging with historical and ongoing trauma in psychoanalytic psychotherapy as a path to healing within individual and collective dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To compare data based on computerized and paper versions of health status questionnaires (HSQs) for sampling patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in patients with fibromyalgia (FM). In addition, to examine associations between patient characteristics (age, education, computer experience) and differences between versions. Finally, to evaluate the acceptability of computer-based questionnaires among patients with FM.Method: The study population comprised female patients diagnosed with FM. All patients completed six HSQs: the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ), the Major Depression Inventory (MDI), the 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36), the painDETECT questionnaire (PDQ), the Coping Strategies Questionnaire (CSQ), and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Self-Assessment Questionnaire (GAD-10), both on paper and using a touch screen. One HSQ was tested at a time in a repeated randomized cross-over design. The two versions were completed with a 5-min interval and between each HSQ the participants had a 5-min break. Means, mean differences with 95% confidence intervals (CIs), medians, median differences, and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were calculated for all HSQs, including relevant subscales. Associations between patient characteristics and differences between versions were explored using Spearman's correlation coefficients.Results: Twenty women, mean age 48.4 years, participated in the study. Except for one item, ICCs between touch-screen and paper versions of the HSQs examined indicated acceptable agreement (ICC = 0.71-0.99). Overall, mean and median differences revealed no differences between versions. No significant associations were observed for patient characteristics. None of the participants preferred paper questionnaires over computerized versions.Conclusions: The computerized HSQs using a touch screen gave comparable results to answers given on paper and were generally preferred by the participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role do texts play in LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) parents’ experiences of disability service systems? In interviews with 15 LGBTQ parents of disabled children in Toronto, Canada, participants selected documents to be used as a focus for discussion. Parents considered how LGBTQ identity and other intersectional identities influenced their experiences of institutional texts including adoption certificates, intake forms, and assessments. Findings suggest that documentation practices can operate as forms of systemic gatekeeping. LGBTQ identity was sometimes very significant in parents’ accounts, and sometimes less central than other aspects of their families' identities and experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study assessed the degree of equivalence between paper and Internet administration of three measures of panic and agoraphobia-related cognition and behavior: Body Sensations Questionnaire (BSQ), Agoraphobic Cognitions Questionnaire (ACQ), and Mobility Inventory (MI). Participants were 110 people with panic disorder who had registered for an Internet-based treatment program in Sweden (n = 54) or Australia (n = 56). Participants were randomly assigned to complete the questionnaires via the differing administration formats in a counterbalanced order. Results showed broadly equivalent psychometric properties across administrations, with strong significant intraclass correlations between them, and comparable Cronbach's alpha coefficients. A significant mean difference between administration formats was found for the BSQ only. In contrast to previous research, Internet administration did not generate higher scores than paper administration. No effect was found for order of administration. The findings suggest that each questionnaire can be validly administered via the Internet and used with confidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of biomechanics has grown rapidly in the past 30 years in both size and complexity. As a result, the term might mean different things to different people. This article addresses the issues facing the field in the form of challenges biomechanists face in the future. Because the field is so diverse, strength within the different areas of biomechanics also varies. Although the term might not always appear in the curriculum, principles in biomechanics are felt to be highly integrated into the broader fields of kinesiology, exercise science, etc. The major challenges facing the field, as suggested in this paper, include the development of significant hypotheses, integration with other disciplines such as psychology and motor control, "cross training" our graduate students so they might bring a richer perspective to collaborations with colleagues in other subdisciplines, and the development of funded postdoctoral experiences to support this aspect of student development. Because of the integrative nature of our work, questions are also posed related to the use of particular names, which at times places us in possibly more-restricted categories then we wish. These issues are, of course, open to debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

first measure of freedom In this discussion of Mitchel Becker and Boaz Shalgi's paper “On Being, Disappearing, and Becoming: A Journey of Surrender,” I briefly discuss the context of the idea of negation and the negative in psychoanalytic thinking, and suggest the need for a more nuanced and specific language to distinguish the multiple kinds of being and not-being the authors invoke. I suggest, for example, that there are constitutive kinds of negation and traumatic ones. I resonate with the authors’ emphasis on flows and movement and the necessity of tolerating nothingness in the process of change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In my discussion of Janine Puget's deeply thought-provoking paper, I focus on her central argument that the subject's interior world and the world of intersubjective relationships answer to different logics and evolve along separate developmental paths. Puget's argument hinges on a notion of the other, and of otherness as disruptive and traumatic to the subject. My discussion aims to problematize this notion on two fronts. First, I suggest that otherness is not only external to the subject. I point to some ways in which psychoanalysis conceives of otherness and of the other as integral to the constitution and development of the subject. Further, I argue that individuals sometimes desire and actively seek otherness. I engage in this context the question of social displacement and immigration, Puget's other main concern in her paper. Life tourists, as Puget calls them, are a paradox of will and necessity, where the prospect of confronting otherness and being othered is both a threat and a life-affirming recourse. Yet there seems to be more involved in immigration than the psychology of individuals or their relationships. Drawing on my personal and clinical experience as an immigrant working with other immigrants, I suggest that beyond the self-other relation, we can recognize otherness on a third dimension, that of collective, socio-political, normative discourse. Looking at the psychoanalytic notion of Oedipus, I suggest the possibility that Puget's view of the subjective and intersubjective as disparate captures the effect this third, social dimension of human life on the construction of subjectivity and of human relating. I argue that the fault line Puget recognizes may be understood as the effect, within subjectivity, of social power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parsons's paper, “An Independent Theory of Clinical Technique,” is discussed. Agreement is expressed with many of the theoretical points made by Parsons, and the creative and freeing historical role of the British Independent tradition (recently attacked by Kleinian authors such as Segal) is praised. However, the author sees some of the clinical examples in the paper as expressing a traditionalist conception of psychoanalytic practice, with a strong one-sided emphasis on the analyst as a knowledgeable expert offering deep interpretations. Parsons does not question the nature of the actual intersubjective relationship in each dyad, with its fluctuations and its subtle nuances, which can go far beyond the proclaimed roles of the two partners, at times even reversing them. More radical points of view can be found in the work of Ferenczi and Winnicott, two authors who are significant both for Parsons and for the author; for example, Ferenczi's emphasis on the patient's capacity to interpret the analyst's countertransference, and the experiments with the setting both made in their search for an adaptation to the unique 'analysand's needs. In conclusion, the paper calls for continued departure from standard techniques of any kind, critically deconstructing all traditional assumptions regarding the analytic process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Riccardo Lombardi's paper is considered from a British (Independent) object relations perspective. Although the paper deals with the experience of shame and its relationship to fantasies about sex and death and how these are experienced (including in the body), shame is also a profoundly object related mental state, perhaps one of the most damaging when suffered in infancy, leading to reflexive functioning. The nature of shame is touched upon and its impact on personality development, and how this is handled in the transference and countertransference by Riccardo Lombardi with his particular patient. Although the patient's struggle to own his own hate is Lombardi's principal focus in the clinical account, this author suggests that Lombardi was attuned primarily to the patient's developmental failings due to the impact of shame and, by working primarily in the countertransference, was able to facilitate growth of certain personality functions for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this discussion of Steven Cooper's paper, it is argued that, although Cooper's desire to hold himself "accountable" in his work with patients is laudable, the "pluralistic third" approach that he employs gives rise in his doing so to several difficulties in the way that it is described in the paper. The vivid clinical material that Cooper provides to illustrate his approach is used as a starting point to offer an understanding of what transpired between analyst and patient, which although convergent with Cooper's formulations in some respects nevertheless follows a very different line of thinking in other areas. Broadly speaking, it is suggested that although these divergences arise from many sources—a discussion of which is beyond the scope of this contribution—one particular issue involved is a rather different understanding of the role of early internalized object relations in the patient's psychic life and the way these get lived out at many levels in the treatment situation. It is further argued that Cooper's conceptualization of the approaches of schools different from his own appears somewhat circumscribed and this detracts from his desire to make an authentic comparison between his way of working and those of other schools, something that is called for by his proposed pluralistic third method of keeping himself accountable. This is not considered surprising given the difficulties inherent in our becoming adequately familiar, in more than just an intellectual way, with the approaches of schools different from our own, especially when wide divergences are involved between schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Chicago class culminates, a number of our students go on to complete the psychoanalysis minor, which requires a capstone paper that can deal with theoretical issues in psychoanalysis or relate psychoanalysis to the subjects of their majors, such as literature, psychology/neuroscience, or their own independently designed majors. We include three representative papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text contains Mazzola's comments on Geraint A. Wiggins’ position paper Music, mind and mathematics: Theory, reality and formality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ms. Todd's paper illustrates both the value of the analytic frame and the relevance of a flexible approach in response to the external reality. In this case, the impingement of the outside environment became an ongoing threat to the analysts thinking and to the development of a safe and predictable therapeutic relationship. Ms. Todd's narrative of Joey's three-and-a-half-year analysis emphasizes the impact of external interference on the analyst's capacity to experience difficult affects with and for the patient. In addition, it highlights the importance of recognizing and working through one's countertransference resistance. This commentary focuses on Ms. Todd's work with Joey, so I will only refer to her work with his parents and other providers as it is reflected in her analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary on Eyal Rozmarin's paper 'To Be Is to Betray' considers the place of history in the psychoanalytic encounter. Examining texts by Adorno and Ferenczi, the author cautions against 'radical cures' that conflate political values with analytic ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In comparing psychoanalytic models there is always the danger of reducing one or more critical elements in at least one of the paradigms under consideration. This commentary aims to elaborate aspects of the intersubjectivist position, most especially at the clinical/phenomenological level, which I believe are overly reduced or underrepresented in Ringstrom's paper, thus losing much of their original significance. I also suggest a self psychological/intersubjectivist form of mutual recognition that potentially enriches, rather than challenges, this key element within the relational model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's commentary on a paper by Julie Gerhardt regarding the aspects of envy. In this article, the author attempts not to make an argument for or against theoretical positions but rather try to outline the frames that each position belongs to in order to analyze in depth their degrees of consistency, their similarities, and differences. He also highlights the concept of envy in its relation to gratitude and love and its developmental and clinical implications.

In this article the author offers insights on papers in the "European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling" (EJPC) concerning the use of photographs in the psychological therapies. He emphasizes that the discussions of topics on psychotherapy, photography, and the various forms of therapeutic work with cameras are all fundamentally dwell on the visual and its processing. Also mentioned is the engagement with family photographs as a way of making photography than any psychological analysis.

This discussion explores the themes of the paper “When a therapist is diagnosed with a terminal illness.” Issues discussed include the meaning of a long term survivor of HIV/AIDS being diagnosed with a terminal cancer, abruptly closing a therapy practice and terminating with patients, and the personal process of coping with death and dying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This discussion of Suchet's paper further explores Butler's double disavowal of love and loss as it relates to racialized bonds. It also examines Yoshino's concept about the cost of "covering" difference and supports the need to uncover white privilege and lack while being mindful of holding the tension of sameness and difference between the psychic and the social. Surrender is considered within a frame of multiplicity and of Buddhist thought, and the author associates to the sensory realm of childhood through her own early attachment. Finally, the author wonders about the nature and complexity of racialized shame and its delicate place in clinical work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dr. Slavin's and Dr. Elise's paper are discussed, with reference to clinical theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper expands on Seligman's ideas about mentalization and the challenges of working with patients who cannot mentalize. Seligman's clinical presentation demonstrates that much valuable analytic work takes place without explicit reference to the transference. Drawing on Britton's notion of the triangular internal space that allows for reflective thought, we propose that analytic interest in an external object, discovered through the relationship and meaningful to both patient and analyst, helps create the same kind of space. The difference-within-sameness of shared contemplation can increase receptivity to divergent perspectives. Likewise, the “third object” can become a therapeutic metaphor, open to various meanings without being limited to any one interpretation. We trace how Seligman and his patient use a series of third objects in their work together. In this process, the patient moves from a transitional relationship of minimal differentiation to an increasingly secure sense of her own separateness, beginning to accept, and even enjoy, having a motivated mind of her own. Finally, we discuss how Ferro's concept of the analytic field offers a theoretical rationale for the effectiveness of this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author considers Cooper's notion of the pluralistic third from several angles as Cooper's use of the term covers a range of applications from that of an internal supervisor to the use of ideas from psychoanalytic traditions other than one's own in evaluating one's clinical work. The impression created of the American situation is contrasted with the institutionalized pluralism of the British Psychoanalytical Society since the Second World War. The author believes that the theoretical question of the analyst's accountability to a professional authority is overdetermined in the paper because the clinical material is dominated by the patient's problems in facing up to parental authority. A crucial enactment is seen as starting at the analyst's first contact with the patient, which seems to subvert the analyst's capacity to be an authority figure. The analyst finds a working relationship with his own psychoanalytic authority in the second session of the analysis but seems to lose it through an overextension of the ideas of "play," self-questioning, and the seeking of agreement between patient and analyst. The author considers the clinical material from the point of view that his peer supervision group would take. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attentional biases associated with various forms of psychopathology have been well documented. Few studies, however, have assessed the factors that moderate these biases. The present paper assesses the biased processing of health words as a function of hypochondriacal tendencies during a threat of bioterrorism (anthrax), and whether perceived control can moderate those biases. Based on a sample of 328 participants, hypochondriacal tendencies were associated with slower reaction times on a modified emotional Stroop task when the stimulus words were anthrax-related, and this effect was moderated by a manipulation of perceived control. Specifically, individuals with low perceived control over the health threat had greater attentional bias of anthrax infection, independent of related variables such as anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In October 2004 it was my pleasure to present at a cutting-edge conference entitled The Interplay of Implicit and Explicit Processes in Psychoanalysis. In addition to offering an address ("The Essential Role of the Right Brain in the Implicit Self: Development, Psycho- pathogenesis, and Psychotherapy"), I also provided a commentary to Steven Knoblauch's excellent paper, "Body Rhythms and the Unconscious: Toward an Expanding of Clinical Attention." In the following, I briefly summarize these presentations, with the purpose of showing how current advances in developmental and neuropsycho-analysis are being incorporated into the practice of clinical psychoanalysis. This work is part of an ongoing effort to expand regulation theory, an overarching theoretical model of the development, psychopathogenesis, and treatment of the implicit self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A commentary on Eugenio Gaddini's paper ‘On imitation’ is given, based on a close reading, involving a detailed description and analysis of its main concepts and themes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this discussion I emphasize that the medium is the message in psychoanalytic supervision. But as supervisors, our approach often fails to communicate the clinical values we strive for in our work with patients. I speculate as to why this happens so frequently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fundamental element of quality healthcare is that provision is accessible to all users and culturally sensitive to them. However, there is evidence to suggest that there is inequity of provision across all cultures. Furthermore, there is a paucity of published research in the United Kingdom concerning palliative care for minority ethnic families with a life-threatened or life-limited child or young person. The article sets out to discuss the findings of a literature review and, drawing on current work by the Centre for Children and Families Applied Research at Coventry University under the leadership of Professor Jane Coad, to explore the interface between South Asian cultures and the experience of palliative care services of children, young peoples, and families. All families require a broad range of services which are appropriately delivered and accessible throughout the trajectory of their child's illness. The literature review findings reveal that how families understand concepts such as health and disease arise from the complex interaction between personal experience and cultural lifestyle including language, family values, and faith. There is an urgent need to involve South Asian families in research in order to provide a robust evidence-base on which to develop service provision so that care is matched to the unique needs of individuals concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author discusses aspects of a paper by Carine Minne presented at a meeting designed to remember and celebrate the life and clinical occupation of British psychiatrist Richard Lucas. A brief overview of Lucas' interest in psychotic illness and its processes is presented. An overview of the reasons for the gaps that exist between psychiatrists' and their patients' understanding of the psychotic process is presented.

Kohut's major contribution to psychoanalysis was in his systematizing a clinical approach to disorders of the self. Kohut's theoretical innovations, however, are often misunderstood for a variety of reasons, as evidenced in Dr. Meronen's paper, ''The Return of Narcissism: Heinz Kohut in Historical Context''. Through redressing some of Dr. Meronen's misunderstandings of self psychological theory and his subsequent conclusions, I attempt to clarify in this discussion Kohut's sweeping technical innovations and the theory from which they are derived, all of which are reflective of Kohut's fundamentally personal vision of the essential nature of man. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many older adults are concerned that new internet technologies, especially social media, add to the alienation and isolation of children and young adults. The author considers these concerns in relation to two child psychotherapies by skilled therapists, in which the patients used cyberdevices. The play‐like functions of these uses are discussed, including displacement, defense and communication. Since the child patients introduced cyberdevices that were developed in the earlier phases of technology development, rather than the more contemporary, web-based social media, some emerging questions remain unanswered. Nonetheless, the therapists’ deft and sensitive handling of the patients’ uses of technology suggests that many of the established psychodynamic approaches are appropriate to the new situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the psychological impact on children and spouses of armed forces personnel. It is stated that people who work with armed forces often stay away from their families which causes dissociations and that further produces deadness and gaps in consciousness. As stated, the phonecalls from soldiers to their wives, also makes the women feel a psychological dilemma.

In this paper we respond to this special issue's critical focus on mental health in education by considering the medicalised and homogenising approaches to the mental health of young people and the severely negative consequences for young people. Our argument is underpinned by the need to destabilise the hegemony of the current dominant discourses and practices of mental health used in education. The problem with these discourses and practices, informed by particular forms of psychiatry and psychology, is precisely their dominance and their popularised proxy take-up of these. We firstly outline this problem, explore the emergence and saturation of a 'damaged self' in education and consider the impact on young people. We offer counter-narratives that involve a reframing of the self in relation to ethics, politics, capability and the arts and can assist in countering the psy-dominance in education. The paper concludes with some reflections on how teachers might work against the damaging effects of the psy-disciplines and instead support young people in finding their counter-narrative selves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a gradient in our description of psychoanalytic process, as to how much the analyst's reactions are caused by the patient's communications and needs, and how much they are caused by the analyst's own personality, including the analyst's storehouse of experiences, wishes, needs, and motivations. I consider Dr. Sands generous presentation of three of her patients' dreams and one of her own dreams to analyze the contribution of analyst and patient to the clinical interaction, in terms of overlap and difference. Such transference/countertransference interactions may lead to tertiary revision by the analyst of the patient's dream and may raise the question of how much the analyst's reaction is due to the patient's dissociation or the analyst's psychology. I also consider the implications of conceiving of “the unconscious” as a mental place versus “unconscious” being a potential property of any mental activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ringstrom has articulated useful themes that deserve more conversation and exploration. However, his article reads as a Relational Psychoanalytic critique of Intersubjective Systems theory, rather than as the comparison that the title asserts. This commentary responds to some of the critiques raised by Ringstrom, and raises some critiques of its own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I appreciate Noelle Burton's courageous paper in which she movingly demonstrates how the analyst's opening to her own vulnerable child self, as evoked by the analytic interaction, creates parallel openings between the patient and analyst and within the patient. At the same time, I wonder if there is a not-fully-mentalized enactment occurring in the analytic process—an enactment that is reflected in certain aspects of Burton's clinical narrative. And I wonder if the containment of Burton's childlike feelings—a central focus of her paper—is even more interactive than she has recognized. These questions are, however, overshadowed by the paper's significant creative (clinical and conceptual) contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Identity and structure as signifiers of the unconscious are in flux as a result of the evaporation of the relations in the modern world. The author develops some hypotheses on the input of the changing identity in respect to the psychoanalytic encounter in therapy and to processes in institutions. He comes to the conclusion that the orientation to the individual dynamics, the therapy room and the therapeutic relationship, which is at present substantial for most analysts, will no longer be relevant. Whether we will be successful or not as psychoanalysts depends on whether we see the world growing together, share the responsibility for it and take up the burning questions of globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A range of clinical psychoanalytic approaches in the United States is considered as they may parallel Parsons's presentation of an “independent” orientation in Britain. Attention is paid in particular to the analyst's sense of outsiderness and concern for otherness, along with their moral implications for clinical work. In addition, the limitations of theory and defensive misuse of theory are also addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This discussion of Michael Parsons's exposition of the Independent Tradition's clinical theory of technique compares and contrasts the British Independent and American Relational perspectives in regard to their approach to technique. In this discussion I will consider the question whether, given strong object relational influences on relational psychoanalytic theory, we are able to locate systematic differences in the way that Independent and Relational analysts attempt to work, to be with, and to relate to their patients in the psychoanalytic situation. Overlapping historical roots of the two traditions are considered, along with apparent differences in the ways in which the contributions of common ancestors, such as Ferenzci, are applied. I suggest that the integration of American Interpersonal School ideas with Object Relations theory in American Relational Psychoanalysis led to a different therapeutic sensibility, different ways of thinking about and participating in the analytic process from those that are reflected in the Independent Tradition as Dr. Parsons describes it. The discussion includes an imaginative reconsideration of clinical process along relational lines, in an attempt to clarify different emphases in technique between the two schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of existential exposure speaks to those encounters in which our generally successful efforts to avoid the full knowledge of our human condition utterly fail us. Despite our denial and the usually reliable dissociative mechanisms we use to support it, the truth of our unprotected, vulnerable state becomes psychically real. I make use of Pizer's narrative about his medical crisis and its impact on his analytic self states to explore how body/mind alterations that constituted his experience of existential exposure affected his analytic subjectivity and the evolving intersubjectivity with his patient. I suggest that the experience of existential exposure is registered through the body, which is the medium through which disembodied abstractions about existence are made real. Dysregulation in the body creates a powerful psychic disequilibrium marked by the loss of omnipotence and control. When they are not so overwhelming as to produce trauma, these destabilizing experiences can foster the emergence of new self states that reflect greater flexibility, elasticity, and freedom in one's sense of self. I underscore the complex intersubjective impact of the analyst's embodied experience of existential exposure: how it shifted the transference/countertransference by introducing an “existential Third” into the treatment, leveled the playing field between patient and analyst, and may have served not only to expand but also to constrict aspects of the analyst's subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Features the contribution of psychoanalyst Erik Erikson to psychoanalysis through his `Dream Specimen' paper. Contrasts between Erikson's humanistic perspective of psychoanalysis and psychoanalyst Heinz Hartmann's biological perspective; Analysis of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud's Irma dream; Linkages between trauma and the origins of the dream; Focus on ego psychology.

Bodnar and I urge therapists to understand and address not only a person's conflicted desires, which Roth advocates should be the only focus of psychoanalytic treatment, but also the role space and place play in a person's psychology. The psychoanalysts Bodnar cites, who advocate the importance of understanding environments, follow the positivistic assumptions of ecopsychology. I argue why the dialectical-relational model I outlined should be followed. From the viewpoint of this model, I discuss Bodnar's patients who are wasting environments and commend Bodnar for addressing the role body experiences with places and spaces play in the conflicts of these individuals. I explain why I disagree with Roth's opinion that Bodnar and I are romanticizing nature in our discussions of environments. I join Bodnar's challenge that treatment should include helping a person learn how he or she can repair and recover the ability to interact and negotiate with all environments. I also challenge therapists to understand the embodied metaphors they carry that give meaning to human and nonhuman environments and to explore why, when, and how therapy should be conducted in different environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding consciousness as either hierarchical—as a single reality with various levels of depth—or nonhierarchical, as a self-organizing multiplicity of embodied states with an emergent intelligence greater than the sum of its information, makes a decisive difference in clinical practice. It leads to a fundamental difference between imagination and illusion. Imagination is understood as an efficacious aspect of reality, not as its opposite. To this perspective the dreamer did not create the dream but belongs to the dream. Images possess us more than we have them. The efficacy originates in the images. Using an example of a dream worked by Freud, which locates its meaning in a historical event, the author demonstrates the difference between historical interpretation and correspondence between dream image and historical fact, creating a meaningful reverberation. He shows how the body can be used as a receptacle of multiple sense memories corresponding to multiple embodied states, which when experienced simultaneously give rise to fresh consciousness. He concludes by showing the difference between a co-construction of meaning, which ascribes meaning, and the emergence of meaning from the multiplicity of embodied states enveloping analyst and patient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this discussion I consider several influences on the contemporary project of deconstructing racism and the concept of racialized subjectivity. This discussion applauds the turn in Suchet's work toward self-examination in a consideration of the experience of race and racism. Suchet's work moves the debates about racialized subjectivities into a deeper and more complex understanding of all the ways in which identifications and attachments cross race and class lines for many individuals. This discussion focuses on Suchet's treatment of the power of hybridic and biracial identifications, beginning with autobiographical material from Suchet's own childhood in South Africa. In this discussion of "Unraveling Whiteness" I integrate psychoanalytic concepts of enigmatic signification (the work of Laplanche) into a discussion of early attachment, and relational configurations with children and nonparental caretakers. The question of trauma or potential transformation in interracial experience is discussed, and some distinctions between American and South African experience are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using metaphoric dance imagery, the author playfully engages the theme of inhibition of desire through an audio-visual-kinetic listening style. She explores potential alternative self-states and dissociated self-other configurations between patient and analyst in the form of multiple dance "couplings." The analyst's role in the awakening or inhibiting of his or her patient's sexual desire and personal agency is discussed, drawing on potential transference–countertransference configurations and the influence of shame, disempowerment, and stereotypes of gender and race on the formation of sexual identity. How does each patient call for her analyst to change? Will eroticism, dissociated rage, victimization, or betrayal find expression in Amanda's treatment once Slavin renounces his position of idealized holder of knowledge? How does Elise's exploration of the contrast between the female analyst's conventionally desexualized "analytic costume" and her patient's more colorful hyperbolic imagery of her sexuality, further the pursuit of liberation from culturally contextualized shame and devaluation of female sexuality? The author proposes a model of self-acceptance on the part of the analyst of the embodiment of her own fluctuations in sexual desire, along with openness to transference explorations, where relevant, about her own body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Francoise Davoine sees madness as a research project involving the uncanny presence of ghosts arising from the realm of the transference as well as the "big" history of wider social catastrophes across the generations, in effect "cut-out" pieces of the unconscious. Madness is a rupture in the social link that needs repairing. The therapist is a coresearcher with the individual whose madness tells a story embedded in the heart of madness itself. Davoine presents her work with a woman who has a history of multiple psychiatric hospitalizations. She invites her patient to link up with and speak of that which formerly resided in the Lacanian Real, that is, the unsymbolized haunting absence of her mother who was tragically murdered by the Nazis. The therapist's dream becomes a bridge to this world of ghosts for both patient and therapist. The dream ushers in an enactment and a transference interpretation by the therapist, which leads to a disappearance of madness from the analytic stage. I attempt to apply the theories of PostKleinians, as well as Harold Searles and Gaetano Benedetti, to help illuminate the processes of therapeutic action. Contemporary psychoanalytic approaches to dreams and a relational view of madness are also addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I attempt, in this discussion, to deconstruct the jouissance present in the witnessing of a deliberate annihilation of a human being. I propose that the crisis in the analyst's subjectivity is linked to an unconscious identification with that which is most abhorrent and unacceptable. The unknowability of trauma ensures that its presence will be enacted in a complex system of mutual influence between analyst and patient in which the roles of victim, perpetrator and bystander oscillate between and within the participants. Taking the discussion to the broader sociopolitical level, I make an analogy between the destructiveness of the South African regime under apartheid and the current destructiveness of the U.S. engaging in a pre-emptive war. In a similar way to how Straker may feel contaminated by her patient's complicity in annihilation, so too are we contaminated by the atrocities perpetuated in the name of our country, even if they are policies we condemn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]