Search

The question of the status of cause-and-effect explanations of human behavior that posit physically existing causative factors and those that, on the other hand, posit hypothetical entities in the form of "useful fictions" has a long history. The influence of the works of Jeremy Bentham and Hans Vaihinger, as well as the later influence of Francis Galton, is described. Issues of the validity of hypothetical constructs and related problems of measurement and definition as found in psychoanalytic theory construction and in trait theory are examined. The significant and continuing interest generated by the landmark studies of K. MacCorquodale and P. E. Meehl (1948) and L. J. Cronbach and P. E. Meehl (1955) as well as the central importance of P. E. Meehl's thinking are described.

In "Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Anxiety," Britt Wray explores the importance of language in understanding and sharing the emotions caused by the climate crisis. She emphasizes the need for validation and community in coping with these feelings and taking action. Wray also discusses the differences between existential dread from nuclear threats and climate threats, highlighting the importance of care and courage in facing these realities. The text emphasizes the need to reframe the concept of control, recognize interconnectedness, and listen to non-dominant cultures and indigenous communities. It suggests engaging in truth and reconciliation processes and creating spaces for compassionate conversations to shift towards climate solutions. The text provides resources for accessing support groups and therapy networks for those experiencing climate anxiety and encourages open-minded conversations for those less engaged. [Extracted from the article]

This issue includes two special clusters: “Teaching v. Research,” edited by Katie Little, and “The Time of Psychoanalysis,” edited by Ruth Evans and R. D. Perry. It also includes three essays on teaching and contributions to three of our columns: “How I Teach,” “Conversations,” and “Histories.”

This is the Introduction to the cluster of essays on The Time of Psychoanalysis.

This essay surveys the continued persistence of psychoanalytic theory and practice over the past decades. It argues that the psychoanalytic understanding of “ambivalence” has been crucial (and underappreciated) in key developments in both affect theory and in the use of psychoanalysis in critical race studies. Such ambivalence, moreover, still has the capacity to prod critical conversations in more nuanced, less antithetical, directions.

For a time, if one wanted to capture the emotional landscape of late medieval literature, psychoanalysis appeared to be the most acute and persuasive analytic tool. From the subjectivity of courtly love to the identification with a suffering God to the defenses against the pleasures of others and neighbors, psychoanalysis offered illuminating frameworks in startling sympathy with medieval texts. With the ascendance of affect theory and its associated (if varied) attention to the non-discursive, the biological or natural, and the conscious or self-understood, the role of psychoanalysis has become less clear. My essay explores the productive intersections between psychoanalysis and affect theory, and especially Lauren Berlant’s suggestion that we think again about sex and sexual desire as possible sites of individual and cultural transformation. The phenomenon of repetition is a focus shared by psychoanalysis and affect theory, and I propose the reiterative conventions of courtly love as a place where the tensions between the two approaches may provide a window into medieval meditations on sex, love, and cultural change.

This paper reads the Man of Law’s Tale at the intersection of logistics, cultural capital, and psychoanalysis. It argues that Custance’s acts of religious observance participate in the late medieval culture of good wifely conduct and private devotion. Conduct is an embodied state of cultural capital in which self-improvement is indistinguishable from self-investment. In Custance’s case, her wifely conduct becomes a racialized cultural capital that she brings to distant lands and effects conversion. Her ship is the space of the Lacanian Imaginary, and her body and flesh are what Anne Anlin Cheng would term a “zone of contamination,” a psychic space in which subjecthood and objecthood are merged. As a form of governance, conduct is an effect of capitalism on the self and the collective. The racialized cultural capital that Custance traffics in, rather than offering any pure and stable technique of self-making, is at best a symptom awaiting analysis.

In this short afterword, I speculate about two scenarios in other disciplines where thinking through psychoanalytic categories might afford new historical sensitivities. In experimenting with the possibilities of psychoanalysis, I draw examples from fields that are non literary or at most adjacent to literary studies. The provocative contributions to this colloquium, "The Time of Psychoanalysis," showcase the advantages of psychoanalytic perspectives in the study of medieval literature, whether in teaching or in further research. How might we imagine these advantages in other disciplines, and indeed, how might those literary scholars who work inside the frame of psychoanalysis demonstrate its value to colleagues in other linguistic and disciplinary traditions, persuading scholars in other fields to use it?

In recent years, psychoanalysis has undergone a very welcomed transformation away from a predominant emphasis on repressive symptomatology and intrapsychic conflict, toward an appreciation of dissociative symptomatology and the unformulated. And yet, much ambiguity surrounds our understanding of dissociation as a process, defense, and structure of the self. In this paper, I outline a self-state continuum model to help formulate the different ways defensive dissociation may be operating from a discrete process into becoming a structure of the self. I elaborate on this continuum model and go on to examine how discontinuous self-system patients may be better identified and treated from within a psychoanalytic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regression in the service of the ego is a unique phenomenon that often occurs within therapeutic settings. In the current study1, I show how it emerges within child therapy and how bibliotherapy manages to give it presence and thus to process it. The methodology that guided this study was based on a critical reading of psychoanalysis and bibliotherapy theories. In addition, the methodology is based on a therapeutic vignette aimed at demonstrating the qualities of bibliotherapy with children. I claim that bibliotherapy, based as it is primarily on the use of reading and writing processes, offers additional ways of processing and thinking about this phenomenon. The study provides an innovative contribution that is related to the interdisciplinary approach to therapy. There are important links between the two major disciplines examined in this study, psychoanalysis and bibliotherapy. Their intertwining generates interrelations and mutual inspiration. Moreover, this study adds to the theoretical and practical foundation of bibliotherapy and further establishes the understanding regarding the power of reading and writing processes to "relate the soul" within the analytical process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mia, an Asian-American adoptee, began treatment unaware of the themes of her identity. When race, identity, and anti-Asian violence moved into the national foreground during the pandemic, Mia’s identity became a focus in therapy. A twinship transference allowed Mia to develop an awareness of being Asian in a white world, as well as reckon with the prejudice she has known. How did Mia come to appreciate being Asian in twinship with her white therapist? How did her white therapist offer twinship responsiveness? Intersubjective Self Psychology, with its focus on diverging and overlapping trailing and leading edges of patient and therapist, illuminates the answer. Mia’s trailing edge insistence on mirroring and defensively maintained assumption of sameness needed to give way to a leading edge yearning to belong, complete with the fullness and specificity of her own experience. The therapist’s trailing edge reluctance to experience twinship needed to give way to a leading edge yearning to revel in shared humanity, different as patient and therapist might be. Responding to Mia’s twinship yearnings with reference to difference allowed Mia to claim her identity, and provided new ways to understand twinship yearnings for shared experience that also celebrates the specificity of difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychiatry in China is influenced by political, economic, cultural, and social ideology. The process of psychoanalysis entering China is also a reflection of Chinese history, mirroring China's transition from conservatism to openness, from focusing on tradition to embracing modernity, and from focusing on community and family to individualism. These changes align with the Chinese continuous exploration and pursuit of integration, adaptation, and individuation in the process of globalization, urbanization, and modernization. This article describes the continuous expansion and development of psychoanalysis and psychodynamics in China parallel to societal changes and how an increasing number of people have begun to engage in psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic practices and research. The author describes challenges to how psychoanalysis can better serve the Chinese people through clinical practice and in-depth research under the country's unique social, cultural, historical, and political background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Process notes contain unique information concerning core elements of a psychodynamic treatment. These elements may be both conscious and unconscious for the author. One element for study is the tendency to which a therapist writes about providing either supportive or expressive interventions. This study sought to establish a method of systematically and reliably identifying the records of therapists' interventions as supportive or expressive. Methods: Three early-career clinicians were trained in the use of a process note intervention rating scale constructed specifically for this study. Quantitative statistical analyses assessed the scale's reliability and internal consistency. Results: Interrater reliability analysis determined at a p of 0.005 a Fleiss's kappa of 0.24 and an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.264, suggesting a low but statistically significant reliability between the raters. A Cronbach's alpha of 0.67 and a McDonald's omega of 0.53 suggested questionable internal consistency. Discussion: Early-career clinicians can reliably code the manifestations of interventions in psychodynamic process notes as supportive or expressive. Future studies may improve the reliability and internal consistency of the scale, add measures of interpretation content, and evaluate these data in relation to other core elements of process notes, such as the author's emotional engagement as manifested in language measures and clinical outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since he first proposed it, Carl Jung's "archetype" theory has faced resistance from a pervasive but seldom examined set of underlying Cartesian assumptions embedded in mainstream psychology. This paradigm assumed a physical universe (and hence body) free of psyche that coincided with an essentially disembodied mind largely concerned with abstract symbol manipulation. This situation led archetype theory to remain largely within insulated psychoanalytic circles for decades. Since the 1980s, however, cognitive psychology has increasingly become embodied from a variety of standpoints. This article shows how the results of embodied cognition and spontaneous thought "demystify" many of the attributes Jung described in his archetype theory, making archetype theory not only more comprehensible but clinically applicable. Combining approaches suggests new avenues of inquiry for experimental research and enriches the psychoanalytic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychoanalysis involves studying how people maintain not knowing what they "know." As a result, how psychoanalytic psychotherapists orient toward what their patients may be experiencing but cannot say is at the core of psychoanalytic praxis. Jeremy Safran's unique psychoanalytic sensibilities were a model for how to yield to feeling states and relational dynamics that are at the heart of therapeutic action, but which all too frequently get bypassed. This brief recollection highlights how Safran's commitment to open inquiry and mutuality—not just with his patients but also with his students—continues to impact the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction provides an overview to this special issue honoring the work and legacy of Jeremy D. Safran. Born of the Jeremy Safran Memorial Conference, held on April 2nd, 2023, this issue features a wide range of contributions from leaders in the field, former students, and early career professionals whose work engages and develops central ideas from Safran's work and reflects on his impact on their own clinical work and scholarship. Themes center around the three domains of Safran's major contributions: pedagogy; psychotherapy integration; and Buddhism, spirituality, and psychoanalysis. We observe among the contributions an experiential reconnecting with the deeply relational commitments of our friend and colleague. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the perspective of a poet and first-year psychoanalytic training candidate, this paper develops Jeremy Safran's ideas about the dialectic between psychoanalysis and Buddhism by drawing an analogy between their processes and those of a poetry practice to define an alternative to pathological dissociation under capitalist systems of value. The paper details the writer's experience of working a day job in an office and the pathological dissociation which she subsequently attempts to overcome and critique through writing poetry. Various poems written at work are shared and analyzed as evidence. Drawing from Safran's edited volume, Psychoanalysis and Buddhism, the author then identifies aspects of Zen Buddhist meditation practice and the psychoanalytic process that focus on connecting with reality, however conflicted, as opposed to escaping it. This paper was written under the mentorship of the psychoanalyst and Zen teacher Barry Magid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores experiences of surrender to an aspect of mind that is unconfined, empty of dualistic concepts, and lucidly aware. Ghent's concept of surrender, Farber's unconscious will, and Buddhist philosophers' essence of mind all link to creative processes described by Poincaré and Mozart. This impressionistic collage points to the spaciousness to know beyond our usual stories. From this essential mind more wholesome actions proceed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this duet of two voices honoring Jeremy Safran's legacy, the authors celebrate some points of resonance between Sándor Ferenczi's groundbreaking relational interventions and Safran's approach to the therapeutic relationship as the heart of healing. Karen Starr first highlights Ferenczi's now well-known creative experimentation with technique and his emphasis on and care for the relational dimension of psychoanalytic treatment. Jill Bresler then links Safran's career-long dedication to the therapeutic alliance to Starr's introductory remarks, honoring Safran and Ferenczi's shared dedication to expanding options in clinical practice through focus on the relationship. Recalling Safran's naming Ferenczi as a key figure in psychotherapy integration's origin story, Bresler reflects on her own learning from Safran's groundbreaking transtheoretical research into the mutative aspects of psychotherapy and his translating a psychoanalytic focus on the therapeutic relationship to CBT researchers and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper honors Jeremy Safran's legacy of scholarship and pedagogy through the lens of his emphasis on rupture and repair. Challenging a Freudian rendering of mourning as ultimately giving up a lost object, the author draws on Nicholas Abraham and Maria Torok's application of Sandor Ferenczi's concept of introjection to offer a relational rendering of the grieving process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following is a meditative reflection on an anecdote from Jeremy Safran's Psychoanalysis and Buddhism. Moving through Safran's description of an important moment in his development as a student of Buddhism, the author weaves images, practices, and ways of being and feeling into an homage to Safran's legacy integrating psychoanalytic and Buddhist praxis and epistemology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dr. Jeremy Safran had a unique talent to seamlessly weave together clinical work with his broad knowledge of philosophy, history, and theology. Alongside his commitment to researching the minutest clinical interactions, he was conscious of the broad values of the nature of the good life that underpinned his analytic approach. This paper will explore the concepts of the enchanted unconscious, clinical impasses, negotiation, and surrender, suggesting that these concepts together provide insight into Safran's larger philosophy of life. It will then provide the approach to these concepts of the Rebbes of Ishbitz/Radzin, a school of Polish Hasidic thought. It will conclude with an exploration of how both Safran's psychoanalytic approach and the Ishbitz/Radzin Rebbes' Hasidic approach to the Torah provide distinct insights and applications of these concepts, which can be mutually enriching for both disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sense of agency, our felt sense of authorship for our actions, is a difficult concept to define, yet its faltering stands at the heart of psychopathology. Historically undertheorized by psychoanalysis and typically positioned opposite relatedness by clinical psychology, Jeremy Safran conceived of agency and relatedness as paradoxically related. This paper pays tribute to Safran's ideas by taking his writings on agency as a starting point to elaborate how agency forms, and goes awry, in the relational crucible of early life. In doing so, the paper draws on the developmental theory of Winnicott, empirical research on embodied agency from adjacent fields of study, and Safran's clinical phenomenology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Schelling's anticipation of Freudian psychoanalysis is well established, it has thus far gone unnoticed that Schelling's ideas also proved fruitful in the context of a distinctively philosophical theory of the psyche developed by a younger contemporary of Freud. During the 1920s Helmuth Plessner, a key figure of philosophical anthropology, outlined a complex conception of the psyche as an individualized, inner region of reality. Although Plessner did not present his philosophical psychology in a systematic form, its building blocks can be found in The Unity of the Senses, The Limits of Community, and Levels of Organic Life and the Human, among other writings. Moreover, Plessner left a clue as to how these building blocks fit together, which suggests that Plessner viewed his philosophical psychology as structurally analogous to the model of personality outlined in Schelling's 1809 treatise on human freedom. I propose that Plessner sought to formulate an alternative to both idealism and realism about the psyche that might reconcile the insights motivating these rival positions. Schelling provided Plessner with a workable model for such a reconciliation. After reviewing textual evidence for my hypothesis, I sketch Schelling's predecessor theory. Based on the Schellingian template, I then reconstruct Plessner's non-reductively naturalistic theory of the psyche, which aligns the real bodily ground of the psyche with its ideal existence. Highlighting the strengths of Plessner's philosophical psychology against the foil of Paul Ricoeur's and John McDowell's relevant arguments, I argue that the theory reconstructed here deserves contemporary consideration as a plausible contender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a series of propositions concerning how our affective sensibilities are shaped and unshaped by architectural space. We will examine the connections between our pre‐reflective sense of atmospheres and other kinds of apprehension, including the psychoanalytic. The potentiality of spaces to influence feelings is what is meant by atmosphere. Our conceptual framework, then, will center on the question of how felt space can give rise to affectivity, thought and, more controversially, action. References to film noir (especially Fritz Lang's psychoanalytic thriller Secret beyond the Door [1948]), the paradigmatic genre of atmosphere, will frame the contention that our disposition to the world comes first, before any cognitive assessment, and, as such, possesses the force to inspire affective states. It will be suggested that the ways we test and evaluate atmospheres through the imagination are potentially the inspiration for violence, an idea echoed by architects such Bernard Tschumi and psychoanalytic thinkers such as Marcuse. The goal here is to present multiple entry points for a rich discussion concerning if, or the extent to which, notions of atmosphere admit psychoanalytic interrogation, and how or whether analytic assumptions shift as a result of such an investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article retraces the advent of psychoanalysis in Egypt and the way in which it has failed to differentiate itself from medical and academic models, remaining dominated by the figure of the persecuting Master outside its ranks and the paternal Master within them. It then goes on to discuss the arguments typically set forward to explain resistance to psychoanalysis in Egypt and the Arab world in general, and this with an aim to both relativizing and exploring such positions. Such resistance can indeed be identified not only within the sphere of the demand for analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the concept of psychoanalytic pedagogy in the context of current societal challenges and systems of domination. The author emphasizes the need for representation and diversity in psychoanalytic education, highlighting the importance of including marginalized voices and interrogating systems of power and oppression. The article also discusses the role of interdisciplinary thinking and the potential for psychoanalysis to offer a liberatory praxis. Overall, the author calls for a more open and adaptable approach to psychoanalytic pedagogy in order to navigate the complexities of the present moment. The text discusses the process of developing a syllabus for psychoanalytic courses, emphasizing the importance of creating inclusive and transformative learning environments that allow for critical engagement with the material and diverse ways of knowing. The author also highlights the need for psychoanalysis to center lived experiences and engage with systemic dynamics and normative unconscious processes, challenging dominant ideologies and structures within the field. The article concludes by urging institutions to examine their curriculum and dismantle any harmful hierarchies or systems of oppression. [Extracted from the article]

This paper is a multifaceted exploration of white subjectivity and the social phenomena of whiteness, about which there is a considerable body of psychoanalytic literature spanning decades. Hazel White's "unwound sonnet late on the tide" explores themes of traumatic legacies, family, shame, and mourning. Critical poetic inquiry is used to consider these themes and make links between the poetics of psychoanalytic processes and the psychoanalysis of poetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the results of a qualitative study of Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC)'s experiences of discrimination in psychoanalytic professional organizations (PPOs) in the USA. The authors used thematic analysis to analyze the transcripts of semi‐structured interviews with n = 10 self‐identified BIPOC with prior experience in PPOs, including psychoanalytically‐oriented graduate programs, psychoanalytic institutes and other training programs, and professional membership organizations across the United States. A key finding is that a significant majority of interviewees (n = 9) reported experiencing discrimination in these organizations, per their own definitions of the term "discrimination," and described these experiences in considerable detail. The authors attempt to triangulate the findings of the present study in relation to the findings of the Holmes Commission and other existing literature on BIPOC experiences in psychoanalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cet article se propose de soulever les impasses épistémologiques produites par le développement contemporain du concept de handicap – concept formé dans un rapport étroit avec le contexte sociétal et avec les questions de droits de la personne, plus qu'avec la problématique nosographique et clinique. Dans ce cadre nous investiguons plus particulièrement la notion de handicap mental, entité clinique dont l'histoire classificatoire, au cœur de l'édification de la psychiatrie dès le XIXe siècle, fut particulièrement malaisée. Il s'agit à partir de l'étude de cette trajectoire de contribuer à soutenir l'intérêt de son approche théorico-clinique psychanalytique. Nous réalisons une analyse de l'évolution des conceptions psychiatrique et psychanalytique sur le handicap mental. Nous les discutons en dégageant des pistes de réflexion pour le travail clinique et thérapeutique orienté par la psychanalyse, que nous menons avec de jeunes patients handicapés et leurs parents. Le handicap mental est replacé dans la dynamique historique des tentatives de classification dont il a fait l'objet : idiotisme, idiotie, débilité mentale, handicap mental ou intellectuel... Son étiologie organique avérée ou fortement supposée a originellement maintenu, et continue de maintenir à la marge certains modes de penser cliniques et de traitements psychiques dont l'approche psychanalytique fait partie. Nous discutons et différencions les concepts de « mental » et « psychique » et l'ambiguïté de leurs acceptions. Le « mental handicapé », quand il est réduit à son étiologie neuronale, est envisagé dans une perspective déficitaire, qui relègue au second plan voire rend superflue l'investigation de la vie psychique. Nous rappelons, notamment à la suite de D. Widlöcher, combien la pensée Kraepelinienne faisant dépendre l'indication thérapeutique de l'étiologie supposée est de nos jours dépassée. Ainsi mettons-nous l'accent sur les différences individuelles dans la relation qui se construit entre le jeune handicapé et ses proches et dans l'interaction entre leurs psychés. Les effets de la naissance d'un enfant handicapé sur la construction du sentiment de parentalité, le lien de filiation et le narcissisme parental sont ainsi compris au sein de la dynamique des interactions, réelles et fantasmatiques , qui nécessairement diffèrent en fonction des sujets, parents et enfants. Plus particulièrement, nous envisageons la « situation anthropologique fondamentale » de J. Laplanche comme modèle heuristique pour penser la vie psychique pulsionnelle de l'enfant porteur de handicap et le sexuel infantile qui la constitue, dans l'interaction adulte-enfant, comme chez tout un chacun. Nous faisons l'hypothèse que la rencontre parentale avec un enfant présentant une pathologie handicapante est susceptible de renvoyer d'une manière trop brutale, certains parents, à leur propre « étrangeté », c'est-à-dire à l'inquiétant du retour d'un refoulé ou de modes de pensée primitifs abandonnés depuis longtemps. Cette irruption interne est susceptible de conduire chez le parent à une ré-élaboration fantasmatique relançant la dynamique pulsionnelle chez l'enfant. Dans d'autres configurations cliniques, elle peut susciter chez le parent l'usage de défenses drastiques visant à geler sa propre vie pulsionnelle et celle de l'enfant, ayant pour effet chez ce dernier d'entraver l'effort de traduction des messages énigmatiques, le désir de comprendre et d'inhiber la créativité d'une vie psychique fondée sur la dynamique auto-érotique. La compréhension, l'écoute et la prise en charge cliniques psychanalytiques du patient porteur d'un handicap mental repose sur la reconnaissance fondamentale de son infantile, c'est-à-dire d'un inconscient, d'un sexuel infantile inconscient et permet, dans certaines configurations qui ont pu geler, inhiber ou réprimer la vie psychique de l'enfant, de redynamiser les mouvements pulsionnels. This article aims to bypass the epistemological impasses produced by the contemporary development of the concept of disability – a concept formed in close relation with the societal context and with questions of human rights, more than with a nosographic and clinical problematic - and more precisely with regard to mental disability, a clinical entity whose classification history is particularly difficult, and yet at the heart of the edification of psychiatry since the 19th century. In studying this trajectory, we aim to demonstrate the interest of psychoanalysis's theoretical-clinical approach. We analyze the evolution of psychiatric and psychoanalytical conceptions of mental disability. We discuss them and identify avenues of reflection for the psychoanalytically oriented clinical and therapeutic work we do with young disabled patients and their parents. Mental disability is placed in the historical dynamic of the attempts to classify it: idiotism, idiocy, mental debility, mental or intellectual disability, etc. Its proven or strongly assumed organic etiology originally marginalized, and continues to marginalize, certain modes of clinical thinking and psychic treatments, of which the psychoanalytical approach is one. We discuss and differentiate between the concepts of "mental" and "psychic" and the ambiguity of their meanings. The "mentally handicapped" subject, when reduced to their neuronal aetiology, is considered from a deficit perspective, which relegates the investigation of psychic life to the background or even renders it superfluous. Following in the footsteps of D. Widlöcher, we point out that Kraepelin's thinking, which made the therapeutic indication dependent on the supposed aetiology, is now outdated. We therefore emphasize the individual differences in the relationship that develops between the young disabled person and his or her family, and in the interaction between their psyches. The effects of the birth of a disabled child on the construction of the feeling of parenthood, the bond of filiation, and parental narcissism are thus understood within the dynamics of interactions, both real and fantasized , which necessarily differ according to the subjects, parents and children. More specifically, we consider J. Laplanche's "fundamental anthropological situation" as a heuristic model for thinking about the psychic life of the child with a disability and the infantile sexuality that constitutes it, in adult-child interaction, as in everyone else. We hypothesize that the parental encounter with a child presenting a handicapping pathology is likely to send some parents back to their own "uncanniness," that is to say, to the disturbing return of a repressed or primitive way of thinking abandoned a long time ago, coming from their own "internal foreign land." This internal irruption is likely to lead to a re-elaboration of the parent's fantasies, re-launching the child's drive dynamics. In other clinical configurations, it may prompt the parent to use drastic defenses aimed at freezing his or her own and the child's drives, with the effect of hindering the child's efforts to translate enigmatic messages and their desire to understand, and inhibiting the creativity of a psychic life based on auto-erotic dynamics. Psychoanalytic understanding, listening, and clinical treatment of the mentally handicapped patient is based on the fundamental recognition of the infantile, i.e. of an unconscious, an unconscious infantile sexuality; the psychoanalytic approach allows for, in certain configurations that may have frozen, inhibited, or repressed the child's psychic life, a revitalization of the drives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

L'objectif de l'article est de questionner aux niveaux théorique et clinique les thérapies d'affirmation de genre. Elles sont en effet présentées dans le DSM-5-TR comme les seules thérapies possibles de la dysphorie de genre, et nous démontrons que cela est discutable du point de vue de l'interaction entre l'activité médicale et la clinique du sujet, ainsi que du point de vue de l'évolution des modèles psychopathologiques de traitement des problématiques liées au genre, cela notamment au regard des données psychanalytiques (diagnostics, processus et thérapeutiques associés). Notre méthode articule une analyse de la littérature et deux cas cliniques. D'abord, nous étudions les évolutions diagnostiques du transsexualisme à la dysphorie de genre dans le champ de la psychopathologie et de la psychanalyse. Ensuite, nous présentons deux cas cliniques de patients ayant envisagé ou engagé une transition. Puis, nous étudions l'activité médicale impliquée dans les thérapies d'affirmation de genre, à partir des thèses de Canguilhem. Le DSM-5-TR a une conception réductrice et contradictoire de la dysphorie : il en situe implicitement la cause et la solution dans le milieu social, sans prendre en compte l'interaction avec le patient. Les théories psychanalytiques ont au contraire maximisé les potentialités de cette interaction, permettant ainsi d'argumenter l'intérêt psychothérapeutique de la réassignation (ou affirmation) de genre, mais aussi d'en démontrer les limites, en tenant compte notamment de la position subjective du sujet dans sa structure psychique. La réassignation se présente comme une normativation de la dysphorie par les traitements médicaux. Or, la normativation doit plutôt être comprise comme le processus par lequel le sujet établit une norme de genre qui lui est spécifique et qui lui permet de traiter sa dysphorie, en faisant un usage singulier des protocoles médicaux de réassignation. Du fait de l'interaction entre le sujet et son milieu, la normativation n'est pas une adaptation à la réalité extérieure ou sociale, mais implique que le second soit aussi modifié par le premier. On ne peut donc souscrire à la thèse du DSM-5-TR selon laquelle la dysphorie n'aurait qu'une seule thérapeutique possible prédéfinie, systématique et généraliste. La dimension clinique interne à l'activité médicale suppose en effet que la souffrance des patients précède la formalisation qui peut en être faite, et que les dispositifs médicaux sont conçus et appliqués secondairement à une diversité de configurations psychopathologiques. C'est d'ailleurs ce que démontrent les cas et l'histoire des idées et des pratiques présentés. La normativation des patients s'applique à leur environnement incluant les thérapeutiques, lesquelles sont donc appelées à être modifiées et diversifiées. The objective of this article is to question gender-affirming therapies at the theoretical and clinical levels. They are, in fact, presented in the DSM-5-TR as the only possible therapies for gender dysphoria; we demonstrate that this is questionable from the point of view of the interaction between medical activity and clinical practice with the subject, as well as from the point of view of the evolution of psychopathological models of treatment of gender-related issues, particularly with regard to psychoanalytic data (diagnoses, associated processes and therapies). Our method combines an analysis of the literature and two clinical cases. First, we study diagnostic developments from transsexualism to gender dysphoria in the field of psychopathology and psychoanalysis. Next, we present two clinical cases of patients who have considered or initiated a transition. Then, we study the medical activity involved in gender-affirming care, based on Canguilhem's theses. The DSM-5-TR has a reductive and contradictory conception of dysphoria: it implicitly locates the cause and the solution in the social environment, without taking into account the interaction with the patient. Psychoanalytic theories have, on the contrary, maximized the potential of this interaction, thus making it possible to argue the psychotherapeutic interest of gender reassignment (or affirmation), but also to demonstrate its limits, in particular by taking into account the subjective position of the subject in its psychic structure. Reassignment presents itself as a normativation of dysphoria by medical treatments. However, normativation must rather be understood as the process by which subjects establish gender norms that are specific to them and which allow them to treat their dysphoria, by making specific use of medical reassignment protocols. Due to the interaction between subject and environment, normativation is not an adaptation to external or social reality, but implies that the latter is also modified by the former. We cannot therefore subscribe to the thesis of the DSM-5-TR according to which dysphoria has only one possible predefined, systematic, and general treatment. The internal clinical dimension of medical activity assumes that the suffering of patients precedes the formalization that can be made of it, and that medical tools are designed and applied secondarily to a diversity of psychopathological configurations. This is also what the cases and the history of the ideas and practices presented demonstrate. The standardization of patients applies to their environment including therapies, which therefore should be modified and diversified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Talking about sexuality in a health care total institution is not an easy task insofar as it contributes to the disclosing of the subjective and cultural postures of professionals, in contexts still marked by the absence or lack of professional training on this subject. Talking about sexuality can also endanger or challenge the institution. This paper presents a secondary analysis of what is presented as a form of "clinical ethnography". The materials used in this study were collected in 1996–1997, in the context of a crisis situation caused by the revelation of illicit sexual relations between a head special educator and a young woman labelled as mentally handicapped, in a care institution. In the course of a psychosociological intervention carried out in response to a request from the management of the institution, professionals from different categories were able to express themselves on these "events" and to address, more generally, issues related to sexuality in the institution. The sessions, moderated by the author of the study and a psychoanalytic research assistant, were recorded and transcribed for subsequent feedback to participants. The thematic content analysis of the transcripts of the sessions allowed for a better understanding of the psychosocial obstacles to communication about sexuality, the subjective difficulties related to speaking out, the phenomena of denial of sexuality, as well as the representations of sexuality in institutional situations. The documents discussed here invite reflection on the complexity of collecting information and stories about sexuality in institutional settings. They explore communication processes and, in particular, the difficulties of communicating about sexuality and sexual abuse in institutions in the health and social sector. This study suggests ways in which clinical support can be provided to teams affected by and confronted with traumatic events and the personal and professional difficulties that may arise from such situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parler de sexualité dans une institution de soins n'est pas chose aisée dans la mesure où cela contribue au dévoilement des postures subjectives et culturelles des professionnels, dans des contextes encore marqués par l'absence ou les lacunes de formation professionnelle à ce sujet. Parler de sexualité peut aussi mettre en danger ou en cause l'institution. Cet article propose une analyse secondaire de ce qui se présente comme une forme d'« ethnographie clinique ». Les matériaux mobilisés dans ce travail ont été recueillis en 1996–1997, dans le contexte d'une situation de crise suscitée par la révélation de relations sexuelles illicites entre un éducateur-chef et une jeune femme désignée comme handicapée mentale, dans une institution de soins. C'est au cours d'une intervention psychosociologique menée en réponse à une demande de la direction de l'établissement que des professionnels de différentes catégories ont pu s'exprimer sur ces « événements » et aborder de façon plus générale les questions liées à la sexualité dans l'établissement. Les séances de travail animées par l'auteur de l'étude et une assistante de recherche psychanalyste ont fait l'objet d'une prise de notes et ont été retranscrites pour être ensuite restituées aux participants. L'analyse de contenu thématique des retranscriptions des séances a permis de mieux comprendre les obstacles psycho-sociaux à la communication sur la sexualité, les difficultés subjectives liées à la prise de parole, les phénomènes de négation de la sexualité ainsi que les représentations de la sexualité en situation institutionnelle. Les documents discutés ici invitent à la réflexion sur la complexité du recueil d'informations et de récits sur la sexualité, explorent les processus de communication et notamment les difficultés à communiquer autour des questions de sexualité et d'abus sexuels dans des institutions du secteur sanitaire et social. Ce travail propose des pistes de travail clinique d'accompagnement des équipes concernées et confrontées à des événements traumatiques et aux difficultés personnelles et professionnelles qui surgissent de ces situations. Talking about sexuality in a health care institution is not an easy task insofar as it contributes to the disclosing of the subjective and cultural postures of professionals, in contexts still marked by the absence or lack of professional training on this subject. Talking about sexuality can also endanger or challenge the institution. This paper presents a secondary analysis of what is presented as a form of "clinical ethnography." The materials used in this study were collected in 1996-1997, in the context of a crisis situation caused by the revelation of illicit sexual relations between a head special educator and a young woman labelled as mentally handicapped, in a care institution. In the course of a psychosociological intervention carried out in response to a request from the management of the institution, professionals from different categories were able to express themselves on these "events" and to address, more generally, issues related to sexuality in the institution. The sessions, moderated by the author of the study and a psychoanalytic research assistant, were recorded and transcribed for subsequent feedback to participants. The thematic content analysis of the transcripts of the sessions allowed for a better understanding of the psychosocial obstacles to communication about sexuality, the subjective difficulties related to speaking out, the phenomena of denial of sexuality, as well as the representations of sexuality in institutional situations. The documents discussed here invite reflection on the complexity of collecting information and stories about sexuality in institutional settings. They explore communication processes and, in particular, the difficulties of communicating about sexuality and sexual abuse in institutions in the health and social sector. This study suggests ways in which clinical support can be provided to teams affected by and confronted with traumatic events and the personal and professional difficulties that may arise from such situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cet article concerne les défis actuels pour la psychanalyse que constituent le genre et les incongruences de genre. En effet, bien que le terme genre soit de plus en plus utilisé, il reste un concept plus difficile à définir et à circonscrire qu'il n'y paraît au premier abord. Afin d'apporter un éclairage sur ces sujets, il sera exposé le changement au combien important, qu'est le passage du paradigme du syndrome transsexuel à celui de la santé transgenre. Cet exposé sera alors étayé par deux vignettes cliniques : celle de Claudia dont la transition s'inscrit dans un parcours transsexuel et celle de Rose dont la transition paraît plus s'apparenter à un parcours transgenre. Les vignettes cliniques de Claudia et de Rose permettent d'illustrer ce qui se rapporte à une manière différente d'appréhender la différence des sexes : entre une abstraction qui épouse les contours d'une différence des sexes conçue comme binaire pour Claudia, et un genre fluide pour Rose. Suite à ces remarques, il est proposé de revenir sur le concept de genre afin de mieux le cerner et de le concevoir, notamment dans sa rencontre clinique et théorique avec la psychanalyse. Le genre est alors conçu comme un concept frontière, renvoyant à un troisième corps social au croisement du sentiment personnel et subjectif et du sociopolitique. En référence à la narratologie, le genre est défini comme une construction personnelle et/ou collective visant à donner une cohérence à la différence des sexes, et étayé par une réalisation par la perception, aide possible à la liaison de l'excitation sexuelle associée aux questions relatives à la différence anatomique des sexes d'un point de vue psychanalytique, qui concerne autant l'analysant que le psychanalyste. This article is concerned with the current challenges to psychoanalysis that gender and gender discordance represent. Indeed, although the term gender is increasingly used, it remains a concept that is more difficult to define and circumscribe than it first appears. In order to shed light on these issues, the important shift from the transsexual syndrome paradigm to the transgender health paradigm will be discussed. This presentation will then be supported by two clinical vignettes: that of Claudia, whose transition is part of a transsexual journey, and that of Rose, whose transition seems to be more akin to a transgender journey. Claudia's and Rose's stories allow us to illustrate a different way of apprehending the difference of the sexes: for Claudia, an abstraction that follows the contours of a difference of the sexes considered as binary, and, for Rose, a conception of gender as fluid. Following these reflections, it is suggested that we return to the concept of gender in order to better define and conceptualize it, particularly in its clinical and theoretical encounter with psychoanalysis. Gender is thus considered as a frontier concept, referring to a third social body at the crossroads of personal and subjective feeling and the socio-political. In reference to narratology, gender is defined as a personal and/or collective construction aiming to give coherence to the difference of the sexes and supported by a realization through perception. Gender can be thought of as an aide to the binding of sexual excitation associated with questions relating to the anatomical difference of the sexes from a psychoanalytical point of view, which concerns both the analysand and the psychoanalyst. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Money is the epitome of Marx's fetishised commodity. And, in Marxist discussions of the connected topics of currency and commodity fetishism, it often is left under-appreciated that such fetishism reaches its apotheosis only with the development of 'interest-bearing capital.' Herein, I perform two complementary gestures, one as regards Marxism and another with respect to psychoanalysis. Apropos Marxism, I counter-balance the usual, long-standing (over)emphasis on commodity fetishism as per the first volume of Das Kapital with a foregrounding of this fetishism as per the third volume. Apropos psychoanalysis, I shift away from its traditional fixation on reducing financial matters to libidinal contents. I explore instead the implications of the forms of capitalist fetishism for reconsidering the forms of intra-subjective defence mechanisms. This leads me to posit a complementary inversion of Lacan's dictum according to which 'repression is always the return of the repressed': The return of the repressed sometimes is the most effective repression. To pose a rhetorical question paraphrasing Brecht: What is the laundering of money compared with the laundering that is money? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article first resumes up-to-date conceptualisations of the superego in psychoanalytic theory, stretching from the superegoic sense of guilt (Freud) up to the superego as an "imperative od jouissance" (Lacan), and at the same time as an imperative of transgression insofar as enjoyment is by definition based upon transgression of the law. Against this background, the article develops another conceptualisation of the superego, which consist in the completion of the superegoic dialectics of "dirty and necessary" in perversion. This conception is based upon perverse self-instrumentalisation of the subject, which transforms the "dirtiness" of subjective enjoyment and transgression into their necessity. The article then moves toward the analysis of how especially this new conceptualisation of the superego manifests itself in the popular crime series Chicago Police Department (CPD), and in some logically and structurally similar phenomena, which occurred during Donald Trump's presidency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a discussion of Sigmund Freud's note on 'The Perversions in General' from the 1905 edition of his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. To summarise its argument, the article proposes that what Freud calls 'perversion' is itself to be properly understood as a form of sexual generalisation. It goes on to contend that Freudian perversion thus has larger implications for our understanding of the new sciences of sexual generalisation (sexology, psychoanalysis, structuralism, genealogy) that are beginning to emerge from the end of the nineteenth century onwards. If perverse sexuality is arguably the defining libidinal object of Krafft-Ebing's sexual taxonomy, for example, the article argues that perversion is already in itself a form of perverse sexual taxonomy. In conclusion, the article argues that Freud's perversion is consequently a form of structural 'dis-content' that cannot be contained within the modern sciences of sex which extend from Krafft-Ebing's sexology to Foucault's history of sexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Folklore reflects the concept of fear, with which genres such as incantations and prayers are directly associated. These texts establish adialogue with danger, either with commands or supplications, and they indicate what kind of dangers are imminent. By combining psychoanalytical and folklore theories, the paper offers the analysis of the conceptual image of fear and of the defensive function of prayers and incantations within the material of Slovenian incantation and prayer collections: what kind of threats one wants to chase away by incantations or/and magical signs and objects; and what kind of form and use contain the preventive incantations themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychotherapy based on depth psychology (TP) and analytical psychotherapy (AP) can be understood as psychoanalytic applications which share a large number of common grounds; however, they focus on different emphases as far as the methods of treatment are concerned. The theoretical models of AP employed to understand the therapeutic process and its mode of action can therefore not simply be applied to TP, unless they are understood to be the analytical variant of "psychoanalysis light" (Rudolf 2019). Against the background of the TP setting, specific aspects of the treatment techniques which are also central to TP are described and are investigated as to what extent they might contribute to the therapeutic effectiveness of TP treatment. In addition to supportive interventions and the activation of resources the focus is on the conceptional understanding of the therapeutic relationship and the problem of how structural changes might best be achieved even though regression in the therapeutic process is limited and the analysis of the transfer is not a core aspect. By means of case studies the article demonstrates how in a mostly triangulating relationship structure emotional encounter moments (Stern 2005; Plassmann 2019) are created by intensive intersubjective presence, which are kept at eye level in a dialogic process and constantly initiate small transformative steps of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While religion constituted one of the main topics of interest for early social scientists, faith traditions have silently slipped from this central role. When religion now appears in psychological research, it is usually relegated to the position of either the object of psychological investigation (which psychology purports to "explain") or a static piece in the empirical puzzle (as one variable among many when explaining clinical or social outcomes). In either case, religion is generally no longer seen as an equal partner to the social sciences in our attempts to better understand of the human condition. However, there are and have been voices within psychology that see this as unnecessarily myopic. James Jackson Putnam (1846–1918), an early supporter of the emerging field of psychoanalysis, advocated that psychology take seriously philosophy, metaphysics, and religion. Putnam's objections to the narrowing of our view of human life in the spirit of scientism fell largely on deaf ears, and his call for psychology to include that which lies beyond the walls of empirical naturalism and reductionism remains relevant today. In as far as theoretical innovation in psychology is more of a creative recognition than true scientific discovery, philosophy and religion constitute tremendously rich, and unfortunately underappreciated, fonts of inspiration. Putnam saw in religion the "dim recognition" of "the creative spirit of the universe." We briefly reflect on the example of obsessive–compulsive disorder and the much older religious concept of scruples, including approaches to mindfulness. This example is suggestive of the richness of psychological insights to be found in religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers 'post-MeToo' media culture through a close reading of Olivia Wilde's 2022 film Don't Worry Darling by drawing primarily on Jacques Lacan's approach to anxiety. #MeToo indexed, in its marking of '#', in its saying, in its hashing out, that the 'me' of feminist subjectivity and the 'too' of a collective form of that subjectivity always bears a marked remainder. There is something which the symbolic will always miss; so too do fantasies of a united feminism, under the signifier '#MeToo' lack. Some years after the #MeToo moment, the movement which it appeared to promise wanes. Revanchist patriarchy surges forth with eruption of #TradWives on TikTok, and the exhaustion of #MeToo in the wake of clapbacks and callouts of 'cancel culture'. This paper returns to the original site where #MeToo irrupted – Hollywood – through a consideration of Don't Worry Darling. Branded a 'feminist psychological thriller in the wake of #MeToo' by director Olivia Wilde, the film presents a trad wife dreamworld governed by a Jordan Peterson like guru. Drawing on Lacan, I argue that Don't Worry Darling, in its spectacular box office failure, surrounding sexual scandal, and in the narrative itself, works as an index of feminist, but also patriarchal, anxieties after #MeToo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a manifesto for an infrastructural turn in psychoanalysis, proposing to look at institutions 'slantwise'. It theorises psychoanalytic infrastructural thinking, pondering on its qualities as a particular kind of orientation to action, and showing its capacity to consider multiple transferences and ambivalence, as well as new fantasies on gain, accumulation and redistribution. It articulates the relationship between infrastructural thinking and a postural theory of the subject, centred on considering inclinations, orientations, and disorientations in relation to objects. Drawing on ethnographic and archival material, it constructs a 'scene' for observing infrastructural thinking at work, in psychoanalytic free clinics in Brazil, in the 1970s, and up to our times. It looks at the infrastructural creativities of the free clinics, which promise to renew the relationship of psychoanalysis with itself and with its others. Exploring the intersection of psychoanalysis and phenomenology, it traces the work of infrastructural thinking in postural moments, glitches, disorientations, or slips of the tongue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The untold and unrecognized stories which socioculturally subjugated Americans live become embedded in their psyche-soma, disallowing them the status of full personhood and leading to what Fanny Brewster calls participation mystique. Oppression, trauma and the violence of colonialism, mundane as well as transgenerationally transmitted, spawn terror, fragmentation, despair, and chronic devaluation. Psychoanalysis has partaken and colluded in perpetuating, enacting and remaining silent around what critical race theory delineates as majoritarian stories, which are sovereign societal myths structurally cemented into the American caste system. Accompaniment and witnessing in the consulting room may return voice, power and integration to our societally subordinated patients, whereby they may claim and speak the truths of their personal counterstories. In order to help these patients become whole, this paper extends a bid for psychoanalysis to courageously undertake the personal work of recognizing its own socioculturally generated pain, shame and guilt, along with engaging in a mourning process. Psychic accessibility to witnessing necessarily must include recognition of patients' cultural suffering in tandem with exquisitely experiencing the harsh realities of a society which has organized itself in unconscionable ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studying art from a psychoanalytic perspective remains relevant because it expresses the link between subjects and their desire and how they relate to objects in general. This article focuses on analyzing minimalism and the latent fantasy of the artistic movement. We question the narrative of the minimalist as something clean and empty and explain why, despite its efforts, instead of slowing down consumption, it ends up accelerating its rate and making the subject's alienation to capitalism even stronger, creating a lot more suffering. We present the argument by linking the libidinal and political economies with Jacques Lacan and Karl Marx's thoughts. The article concludes by reflecting on the suffering of the capitalist subject and the limits of its ethical behavior within a capitalist economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a reflexive and embodied approach, this article examines the researcher's narrative inquiry, consisting of the conflicting feelings and messy thoughts that arose through her interviews with adults who had experienced child sexual abuse. The article highlights how embodied writing can enable access to other worlds by activating the physical senses and bringing researchers back to core bodily ways of knowing; these latter may be evoked by preconceptions, entangled discourses and social views and taboos concerning child sexual abuse. The article speaks to the emerging field of Embodied Critical Thinking and the concept of emotional reflexivity in qualitative research on sensitive, challenging and difficult topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Depression is common in people with chronic kidney disease, yet little is known about how depression is identified and managed as part of routine kidney care. Objectives: The primary objective was to survey all UK adult kidney centres to understand how depression is identified and managed. A secondary objective was to broadly describe the variability in psychosocial care. Design: Online survey. Methods: The survey comprised of three sections: (1) general kidney care, (2) psychological provision and (3) social work provision. Results: 48/68 (71%) of centres responded to the general survey with 20 and 13 responses from psychological and social work module respectively. Only 31.4% reported having both in centre psychological and social work practitioners. Three centres reported no access to psychosocial provision. Of the 25 centres who reported on pathways, 36.0% reported having internal pathways for the identification and management of depression. Within services with psychological provision, screening for depression varied across modality/group (e.g., 7.1% in mild/moderate chronic kidney disease vs. 62.5% in kidney donors). Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy were the most common interventions offered. Most psychosocial services were aware of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines for managing depression in long‐term conditions (n = 18, 94.7%) yet few fully utilised (n = 6, 33.3%). Limited workforce capacity was evident. Conclusions: There is considerable variability in approaches taken to identify and treat depression across UK kidney services, with few services having specific pathways designed to detect and manage depression. Workforce capacity remains a significant issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychoanalysis brings some specific aspects of treatment technique to the field of mental health practice today, such as highlighting the dynamics within therapeutic relationship (especially regarding emotional and unconscious elements), the role of defense mechanisms etc. Moreover, by means of taking a particular therapeutic stance, psychoanalysis offers some shared mental space for patients. The present paper argues that this stance is characterized by the capacity to "not act", that is: by passive receptivity. To view this as some specific "negative skill" in psychotherapy in general means to align common elements of effective psychotherapy with the capacity to explore the uncommon, unfamiliar or unforeseen in particular psychotherapeutic processes. The paper sketches how this can be employed in psychotherapy training as well as in psychotherapy integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to propose a psychodynamic hypothesis based on control-mastery theory (CMT) about the self-punishment function of some non-psychotic hypochondriacal states. After a review of several major psychoanalytic hypotheses about hypochondria, we will show the main concepts of CMT, an integrative, relational, cognitive-dynamic theory of mental functioning, psychopathology, and therapeutic process that is the theoretical framework that has helped us understand and treat these states in our patients. We will then describe two clinical cases to show how some hypochondriacal states can be interpreted as self-punishments connected to three main kinds of guilt hypothesized by CMT: survivor guilt, burdening guilt, and separation/disloyalty guilt. Finally, we will discuss the implications of these hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a primer to reading the primary texts of Jacques Lacan. I argue that there is an experiential dimension to the act of reading Lacanian texts that approximates the transmission of psychoanalysis in a clinical setting. A primary insistence is that Lacanian psychoanalysis has a fundamentally different relationship to knowledge than other therapeutic and theoretical traditions, and that therefore any emphasis on understanding is incongruous with the larger aims of the project. I discuss Lacanian conceptions of frustration and love in order to explore these ideas, before turning to a specific moment in the Lacanian corpus. I conclude by exploring implications for work in the public sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of psychological trauma implies a causal relation between the traumatic event and subsequent psychopathology. Difficulties in defining the characteristics of causal agent and establishing its firm correlation with signs and symptoms of disorder stem from the paradoxes embedded in the concept of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which ignores unconscious dynamics of posttraumatic states. In this article, we argue that the impact of extreme traumatization on personality can be made observable through analysis of unconscious mechanisms, processes and structures, such as capacity for symbolization/mentalization, representation and meaning making as well as thinking and intersubjective transformation. The article focuses on the theoretical background for creating a multifactorial, complex and biopsychosocial model of psychopathology of posttraumatic states and does not focus on treatment and psychosocial interventions directly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]