THE CHILD AS A TRAUMATIC SELF-COMPONENT IN FERENCZI’S LATER PSYCHOANALYSIS

In the Ferenczi renaissance of the last few decades it has become more and more important to elaborate and reconstruct the general shape, the “Weltanschauung”, of his psychoanalysis. The construct of his “psychoanalytic anthropology” is based on the relational nature of individual existence. Relationality pervades the life narrative through the concept and role of the trauma and is crucial to the understanding of Ferenczi’s self-concept. He understood the human individual as essentially fragmented in a “preprimal” way, in which the split self contains the child, as an active, always present infantile component. Through powerful allegories like the “Orpha” or the “wise baby,” Ferenczi suggested an essentially post-modern idea of self that can be connected and differentiated from Winnicott’s True and False Self.     

DECODING FERENCZI’S CLINICAL DIARY: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

In the Clinical Diary of Sándor Ferenczi, certain codes and abbreviations are used to refer to the eight patients Ferenczi was treating in 1932. The identities of two patients are known to us. Notably, Dm. (Clara Thompson), and R.N. (Elizabeth Severn), but the others have remained a mystery. This paper uncovers the identities of the other patients in the Diary, and, for the first time, reveals their identities and life stories. Biographical notes on these patients are provided to expand and contextualize our understanding of their lives—Who were they? What kind of families did they come from? And what happened to them after their analyses? The process of uncovering their identities and the ethics of writing about historical patients will also be addressed.     

AMOS OZ’S A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF IMMIGRATION NARRATIVES IN MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE

Jewish immigration to Eretz Israel is one of the constitutive narratives of Israeli nationality. The Zionist enterprise cast immigration and assimilation in a positive light by using the Hebrew word aliyah to describe immigration to Israel, linked to the notion of people returning to their homeland. In reality, however, the immigration process was often diametrically opposed to the optimistic aliyah story. Most immigrants, once in Israel, found themselves to be outsiders, yearning for their lost homes, friends and culture, and unable to view the new land as their home.

Over the last few decades, Israeli scholars have begun to challenge the concepts underlying aliyah. In the wake of the ongoing debate on nationality, many prefer to replace the word aliyah with immigration, which suggests that Israel should accept a diversity of identities and cultures.

This article presents a new model to account for this. Following Homi Bhabha’s distinction between the pedagogical and the performative and the idea of heterotopy in Foucault’s writing, I demonstrate that narratives of immigration express dialectical relationships between a utopian pedagogical narrative of aliyah and a personal performative narrative of immigration. I illustrate these relationships through major narratives of modern Hebrew literature, and suggest that they are at the core of Oz’s novel A Tale of Love and Darkness.     

WHAT’S NEW IN PARALLEL PROCESS? THE EVOLUTION OF SUPERVISION’S SIGNATURE PHENOMENON

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - The concept of parallel process has played a central role in psychoanalytic supervision for the last 60 years, generating continuing interest in...     

REFLECTIONS ON JANET ZUCKERMAN AND LISA HORELICK’S “THE AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE OF THE ANALYST IN THE EXTRA-ANALYTIC MOMENT”

A review and amplification of the article by authors Horelick and Zuckerman regarding the clinical phenomena of encountering patients (analysands) outside of the physical boundaries of the consultation room. Their clinical examples and the literature used to buttress their position and in particular the open disclosure of the deeply personal reactions they experienced are examined and used as launching points for further understanding. Ferenczi, Balint, Freud and other luminaries are incorporated into the topic of extra-analytic encounter, in an attempt to further demystify this inevitable and unplanned moment of disclosure, which, much like resistance and countertransference offer more opportunity than obstacle.     

PERCEPTIONS OF TRUST AND EMPLOYEES’ ATTITUDES: A LOOK AT NIGERIA’S AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION WORKERS

This study examined the attitude reactions to trust among coworkers and between employees and management. Sample included 296 extension personnel drawn from two Agricultural Development Programs in southwest Nigeria. Exploratory principal component factor analysis showed that the perceptions of trust have the dimensions of: management-affective, coworkers-affective, management-cognitive, and coworkers-cognitive. Based on a hierarchical regression procedure, coworkers-cognitive trust was unrelated to group cohesion and affective commitment, and coworkers-affective, management-affective and -cognitive trusts were related to cohesion and affective commitment. Quit intentions was predicted by coworkers-cognitive, management-affective and -cognitive trusts, and not by coworkers-affective trust. Implications of the results are discussed.I would like to appreciate the efforts of Helen Asishana and T. Amore during the data collection phase of this study. Also, the author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

REALIZATIONAL PERSPECTIVES: BION’S PSYCHOANALYSIS AND DOGEN’S ZEN

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - The author discusses similarities, differences and identities between the later work of the psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion and the Soto Zen Buddhist teacher...     

ADORNO AND HORKHEIMER'S CONCEPT OF ‘ENLIGHTENMENT’

Descartes and Augustine. Stephen Menn. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. xvi + 415. £40.00. ISBN 0 521 41702 3

The Enthusiastical Concerns of Dr Henry More: Religious Meaning and the Psychology of Delusion. Daniel Fouke. E. J. Brill: Leiden, 1997. $93.50 hb. ISBN 90 04 106006

The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard. Edited by Alastair Hannay and Gordon D. Marino. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. pp. xi + 428 with bibliography and index £40.00. ISBN 0–521–47151–6

Carnap's Construction of the World: The Aufbau and the Emergence of Logical Empiricism. Alan W. Richardson. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998. pp. χ + 242. £35.00 ($49.94) hb. ISBN 0 521 43008 9

An Essay on Metaphysics. R. G. Collingwood. Revised edition, edited with an introduction by Rex Martin. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1998. cv + 439 pp. £48. ISBN 0–19–823–561–5

Civil Society and Fanaticism: Conjoined Histories. Dominique Colas. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. pp. xxx + 480 [orig. Le Glaive et le fléau: Généalogie du fanatisme et de la société civile. Paris, Editions Grasset &; Fasquelle, 1992]. £40.50 (US$65.00) and £14.95 (US$21.95). ISBN 0–8047–2734–1 cloth; ISBN 0–8047–2736–8 pb.     

THE COLLAPSE OF OLIGARCHIC CAPITALISM AND THE RISE OF REGENERATIVE LEARNING: HOW THE SCIENCE OF ENERGY SYSTEMS CLARIFIES WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY AND WHAT COMES NEXT

We live in a head-spinning, gut-wrenching time of multiplying crises. At home we face outsourced jobs, crumbling cities, underpaid teachers, unaffordable healthcare, endless wars, political corruption, a co-opted corporate media, skyrocketing inequality, and public “austerity” measures whose main purpose is to make tax-breaks for the rich more affordable. Working-class stagnation is producing widespread anxiety, mounting debt, and “despair deaths” from opioid abuse. Fear is fueling populist outrage, along with extremism, authoritarianism, and the conditions for a fascist takeover. Meanwhile, climate change poses an existential threat to humanity itself. All of these calamities spring from the same root cause: an oligarchic capitalism that puts short-term profit for owners over people and planet. While this system seems immutable, upheavals from Occupy Wall Street to the rise of right-wing populism signal a backlash to a political–economic establishment that treats people and planet as resources to be pillaged and expenses to be minimized. Its failures have also been driving the development of new possibilities in the form of more systemic approaches. Still, while systems thinking has improved approaches in fields from agriculture to medicine, so far none of these reforms have been able to channel public frustration into true transformation because none addresses the root problem: oligarchy. The science of systemic vitality we need is also being born, but so far, its findings are diffuse. This article shows how the science of energy systems can galvanize today’s economic reformation by articulating the common sense rules and rigorous measures of systemic vitality, while anchoring them in an evidence-based vision of humanity as a collaborative learning species. The result is a practical path to building systemic socioeconomic vitality by revitalizing human networks, energizing collective learning, and clarifying why oligarchic capitalism is a distortion of our original democratic free-enterprise dream, which is now careening toward collapse.     

EICHMANN’S BLOOD‐BARTER IN HUNGARY

In 1944, with the Second World War all but lost for Germany and her bombed‐out industry unable to supply the military, one desperate measure taken to obtain needed war material was an offer by Eichmann to barter the lives of one million Jews for ten thousand trucks. The interaction between the SS and Jewish leaders in Budapest—and in turn their appeals outside Hungary—is the subject of five plays: one originating in Austria, two in Germany, one in Great Britain and one in Israel. All five are discussed here in terms of their approach to the subject, their raisons d’être and their pursuit of the ethical issues raised by Jewish involvement with the Nazis. Whether under a fictional or his real name, a central character in these plays is Reszö Kastner (1906–1957), who was accused after the war of cooperation with the Nazis.     

PHILOSOPHY AS ART IN ARISTOTLE’S PROTREPTICUS

Observing certain affinities with Plato’s Alcibiades, this paper argues that a distinction between care (epimeleia) of the soul and philosophy as its art (technê) is reflected in Aristotle’s Protrepticus. On the basis of this distinction, it claims that two notions of philosophy can be distinguished in the Protrepticus: philosophy as epistêmê and philosophy as technê. The former has the function of contemplating the truth of nature, and Aristotle praises it as the natural telos of human beings; whereas philosophy as technê helps nature to accomplish the end it designed for human beings. It emerges that according to Aristotle in the Protrepticus philosophy is the art of making oneself coincide with one’s nature as a human being.     

DIMENSIONS OF INTERSUBJECTIVITY IN MAHĀYĀNA-BUDDHISM AND RELATIONAL PSYCHOANALYSIS

Buddhism has become one of the main dialogue partners for different psychotherapeutic approaches. As a psychological ethical system, it offers structural elements that are compatible with psychotherapeutic theory and practice. A main concept in Mahāyāna-Buddhism and postmodern psychoanalysis is intersubjectivity. In relational psychoanalysis the individual is analysed within a matrix of relationships that turn out to be the central power in her/his psychological development. By realising why one has become the present individual and how personal development is connected with relationships, the freedom to choose and create a life that is independent from inner restrictions should be strengthened. In Mahāyāna-Buddhism, intersubjectivity is the result of an understanding of all phenomena as being in interdependent connection. Human beings are a collection of different phenomena and in constant interchange with everything else. Personal happiness and freedom from suffering depends on how this interchange can be realised in experience. The article focuses on the philosophical psychological fundaments in both approaches and emphasises clarification of to what the term ‘intersubjectivity’ exactly refers. This clarification is essential for the current dialogues, as well as further perspectives in this interdisciplinary field.     

“JEWISH TRAFFICKING” AND LONDON JEWS IN THE AGE OF MIGRATION

There are excellent accounts of the Jewish response to “trafficking” in women for prostitution during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but recent analyses of the white slavery phenomenon have raised new questions. This article concerns the response of Jews in England, and specifically the motivations and activities of those who founded the Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls and Women (JAPGW). The JAPGW set the model for initiatives carried out by Jewish communities throughout the British Empire and was a primary contributor to internationalisation of the issue on the part of the League of Nations after the First World War. The JAPGW’s motivations were complex: they involved a particular religious outlook, the response to antisemitism and assumptions along lines of class and gender. In addressing “Jewish trafficking”, Britain’s established Jewish community sought to take ownership of what it meant to be a Jew in British society.     

GERSHOM SCHOLEM’S DIALECTIC OF JEWISH HISTORY

Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856–1941) evolved from a political liberal, committed to free competition, hard money and honest government, to become in his maturity a social liberal chiefly pursuing social justice and free speech. In the Supreme Court (1916–1939) he remained faithful to his liberal and progressive parameters. Since about 1905 he evolved from being a half-assimilated Jew to an identified Jew and a Zionist. His original concept of Zionism was as a mission to achieve higher social goals. However, from about the mid-1920s he intensified his Zionism as a vital goal in itself. His synthesis of Progressivism and Zionism gradually came to be the classic tradition of all major American Zionist and pro-Israel trends.     

‘HOW MANY OF US REMEMBER 1984?’: NARRATING MASCULINITY AND MILITANCY IN THE KHALISTANI RAP BRICOLAGE

For some Sikh rappers and their audiences, the utopian concept of Khalistan serves as an ideological grid, in which specific masculine and militant logics become meaningful and acceptable. In diasporic settings, such as in the UK, memories of ancestral cultures serve as mythical resources for constructing coherent narratives vis-à-vis metaphorical discourses of contemporary youth cultures. This article investigates the ways in which such narratives are constructed, and how historical remembering is explicitly and tacitly made relevant. An analysis of the lyrics of one song by a London-based hip-hop group will help to inform such perspectives on the negotiation of culture in diasporic settings, and will further deconstruct essentialist notions of ‘culture’ and ‘identity’.