'Little Hans': From his phobic episode to becoming an opera director

‘Little Hans’ is one of the most highly commented cases in the psychoanalytic literature. His work as an opera director from 1925 in Europe and then in the United States of America is much less well known. This may seem especially surprising given that Freud very soon detects Hans’s emerging interest in this subject. Yet Freud does not mention it either in 1909 when he reports the case, or when Hans visits him in 1922, even though Hans had already decided to become an opera director at this point. The author of this article endeavours to show how this artistic choice could be understood as a way of accommodating, in a double transference relationship with Freud and with his father, the unanalysed residue of the ‘Krawall’ (a term invented by Hans) and ‘the black thing’, both of which appeared during the phobic period.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

Derrida argued at great length early on in his career that texts live on in the absence of their author. The question remains, however, of precisely how this survival takes place. In this paper I argue that the life of Derrida’s own ?uvre is sustained through his particular practice of self‐inheritance. I justify this claim by focusing on one moment in the text Rogues: Two Essays on Reason, in which Derrida inherits from himself through self‐citation. In citing himself while at the same time modifying his citation, Derrida sets into motion a deconstruction of his own text that he does not seem to anticipate. It is this movement of deconstruction that enables Derrida’s text to live on.     

Looking back,looking forward: A reexamination of Benjamin Wolstein’s interlock and the emergence of intersubjectivity

In this paper the author takes a close look at Benjamin Wolstein’s chapter, ‘Therapy’, from his book, Countertransference, published in 1959. This chapter contains a discussion of what he refers to as the interlock between analyst and patient, or today what we might describe as transference/countertransference enactment. The author shows how Wolstein’s concept of the interlock and its relation to the analyst’s countertransference was radical and innovative for its time. Wolstein’s notion of a transference/countertransference interlock, along with the seminal contributions of Ferenczi and some of the early interpersonal theorists, anticipates the complexities of a two‐person psychology and the entanglement which can occur from the intermingling of unconscious processes of analyst and patient in the experiential field. The author highlights three main ideas. First, the author provides a brief review of enactment with an emphasis on the role of the analyst’s participation as conceptualized by the various theoretical perspectives. An historical context is given for Wolstein’s clinical theorizing. Second, the author explicates Wolstein’s concept of the interlock, with particular attention to the processes involved which account for the complexities it presents. Third, the author examines the ‘working through’ process, including the emergence of intersubjectivity in the resolution of the interlock. The author shows throughout Wolstein’s emphasis on the influence of the analyst’s personal psychology, mutuality, and intersubjectivity, all of which anticipated the gradual interpersonalization of psychoanalysis across the various schools of thought.     

Alchemy and the erotic transference: A Jungian approach

Abstract

In The Psychology of the Transference Jung showed a series of pictures which he discovered in an ancient alchemical text, the Rosarium philosophorum. He connected these to the effects of the transference in psychotherapy. This may seem an unnecessarily obscure way of looking at the transference, yet it makes remarkable sense. Although alchemy is often considered the sole province of Jungian analysis, it can also be seen as illuminating a psychodynamic approach to counselling. Written from a post-feminist viewpoint, a critical approach is taken to certain key Jungian terms. The paper is illustrated with two clinical examples.     

TRANSFERENCE BEFORE TRANSFERENCE

This paper is predominantly a clinical presentation that describes the transmigration of one patient's transference to another, with the analyst functioning as a sort of transponder. It involves an apparently accidental episode in which there was an unconscious intersection between two patients. The author's aim is to show how transference from one case may affect transference in another, a phenomenon the author calls transference before transference. The author believes that this idea may serve as a tool for understanding the unconscious work that takes place in the clinical situation. In a clinical example, the analyst finds himself caught up in an enactment involving two patients in which he becomes the medium of what happens in session.     

In the Name of Psychoanalysis: Persistent Controversies and Evolution in Psychoanalysis: A Review of Impossible Training: A Relational View of Psychoanalytic Education by Emanuel Berman

In his book Impossible Training, Emanuel Berman stresses the historical roots of current standards of psychoanalytic training and demonstrates the persistence of controversies that have been present in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic training from their inception. This perspective, of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic education as evolving, encourages candidates and practitioners to be participants and creative voices in an evolving field rather than rote followers learning a trade. The author proposes ways that the transference of educators to the younger generation of psychoanalysts can facilitate or interfere with the training of candidates. Berman is applauded for shedding light on current controversies in psychoanalytic education by showing their roots in historical controversies. However, the author points out Berman's tendency to overvalue his side of the controversy rather than embrace controversy itself as in the best interest of the evolution and development of the field.     

The Soteriology of Role-Play in the Bhagavad Gītā

I will here apply the classical Indian model of the dramatic actor as a methodology for interpreting the soteriological psychology of the Bhagavad Gītā, paying special attention to the usefulness of this approach for clarifying K???a's rationale in showing his divine form in Chapter 11. I argue that the Gītā advocates creative role-play as both the means and the end of liberation. Further, while K???a's teachings can be understood in terms of orthodox Hindu soteriologies that have in view an overcoming of the emotions, I argue that K???a looks to transform Arjuna into an ‘athlete of emotion’, much like traditional Indian-based training methods do for theatrical actors.     

“Yet That's Not Much”: Age Differences in Othello

Critics recently have focused attention on the roles of race and gender in Shakespeare's Othello, examining how the play interrogates social norms and disagreeing over whether those norms ultimately are subverted or upheld. However, in focusing on the play's Caucasian, patriarchal society, critics have largely overlooked the textual issue of age: Othello and Desdemona are separated by as much as a generation. The mature Othello would bring to mind for early modern audiences several theatrical and social conventions, from the Roman comedic tradition to the role of the aged cuckold. These conventions generally are challenged in the early part of the play, then upheld in later acts as Othello descends into Iago's alternative reality. This article demonstrates how early modern views of age and aging work with racial stereotypes both to ennoble the character of Othello and to destroy him.     

The analyst's excitement in the analysis of perversion

The author believes that unconscious sexual excitement in the transference and countertransference is an especially problematic aspect of the analysis of perverse character pathology and that perverse sexual gratifi cation deserves a more prominent position in the clinical theory of analyzing perversion than that which has been assigned tacitly through analysts' routine focus on the defensive and destructive dynamics of perversion. He presents clinical material from the analysis of a perverse patient that illustrates the role of excitement in the transference perversion established in this analysis; and he asserts that gratifying perverse enactments occurring in the transference perversion can appear not only as conscious or unconscious excitement in the transference but also, at times most clearly, as the analyst's excitement. The author suggests that using a clinical theory that supports the analyst in understanding his excited responses as perverse countertransferences-i.e. evoked excitement complementary to the sexual component of a perverse transference-will assist him in locating and thinking about gratifying, perverse excitement in the transference where it is most usefully analyzed. Finally, he discusses some of the reasons why analysts might deny, suppress or otherwise avoid perverse countertransferences and in so doing contribute to sustaining perverse resistances.     

The presence of sexuality as Cantus Firmus with Variations

This text is a distillate of many years of activity as a psychoanalyst. The author gives personal reflections on sexuality as it appears in transference and countertransference, in theory and clinically. The phenomena are viewed from the perspective of metaphor, as the author uses, e.g., the music of Franz Schubert as a metaphor for Eros and Thanatos; concepts she sees are metaphors in themselves. The phenomena of ?wild analysis” and guilt are also commented upon.     

The problem of good and evil in the development of the child

Abstract

Carl Jung's decision to undertake a thorough study of Western alchemy was inspired by his reading of The Secret of the Golden Flower, a ninth-century Chinese Taoist text describing the process of meditation in alchemical terms. When he first read this book in 1928 and wrote a commentary for it, he completely ignored its alchemical aspects. He simply tried to make the text comprehensible to Western readers by explaining its basic psychological concepts and assumptions.

In the foreword to the second German edition of The Secret of the Golden Flower. June acknowledged this oversieht¹     

The Value of Marketing Theory for Parochial Schools: Some Parting Thoughts

In this response to Thogmartin's Spring 1994 JRCE article on “The Prevalence of Phonics Instruction in Fundamentalist Christian Schools,” the author offers his suggestions about why fundamentalist Christians are so enamored with intensive phonics reading pedagogy. In the first part of his response, he argues that the rationale for intensive phonics teaching lies in a radical behaviorist anthropology and epistemology of which Christian educators ought to be extremely wary. In the second section, the author provides a review of some empirical evidence for the limited utility of phonics in the teaching of reading and suggests, finally, that Christian teachers should show as much concern about what and why Christian children and adolescents should read as about how to teach them to do so.     

Beyond compassion: on Nietzsche’s moral therapy in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Dawn</Emphasis>

In this essay I seek to show that a philosophy of modesty informs core aspects of both Nietzsche’s critique of morality and what he intends to replace morality with, namely, an ethics of self-cultivation. To demonstrate this I focus on Dawn: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality, a largely neglected text in his corpus where Nietzsche carries out a quite wide-ranging critique of morality, including Mitleid. It is one of Nietzsche’s most experimental works and is best read, I claim, as an Epicurean-inspired critique of the present and an exercise in moral therapy. In the opening sections I draw attention to the wider social dimension of the text and its concern with a morality of compassion, which is rarely done in the literature. I then turn to highlighting Nietzsche’s “Epicurean moment,” followed by two sections on Nietzsche on the self in which I aim to bring to light his ethics of self-cultivation and show in what ways his revaluation makes central to ethics a modest egoism and care of self. In the conclusion to the essay I provide a contrast between Nietzsche and Kant and deal with reservations readers might have about his ethics. Overall, the essay seeks to make a contribution to an appreciation of Dawn as a work of moral therapy.     

My Art by the Numbers

The author explains his affinity for numbers as it relates to his work as an artist spanning his long career. This affinity helped him invent one of the first systems for making four-color digital prints. Having been only recently introduced to the book Number and Time, by Marie-Louise von Franz, the author finds that he is in full agreement with her depth psychology theories on number. Recounting a synchronicity that he experienced while writing this paper helped the author to understand Jung’s concept of the unus mundus, as explained by von Franz in Number and Time. He speculates that number archetypes must have evolved in human consciousness over very long periods of time and writes about the number zero as a “recent” example. The author also describes his experience of a spontaneous mathematical vision that led him to create an algorithm, which in turn led him to realize that crystals having fivefold symmetry could exist in nature, which was considered impossible at the time. The author discusses his new inventions of quasi-periodic and random tile patterns, which were inspired by 15th-century Islamic tile patterns, as they related to the aperiodic patterns invented by Roger Penrose in the 20th century. He speculates about the ability of artificially intelligent computer software to be able to generate random quasi-periodic patterns. Lastly, the author recounts a synchronistic experience that occurred during the month of his 72nd birthday, in which his work with numbers is seemingly reciprocated by nature.     

Jerome on Sinlessness: a Via Media between Augustine and Pelagius

This article will explore Jerome's understanding of sinlessness and will argue that he saw himself just as opposed to Augustine as to Pelagius. I begin by exposing Jerome's context in the Pelagian Controversy. I then expose his understanding of sinlessness. Next, I turn to his arguments in Ep. 133 and the first two books of his Dialogi contra Pelagianos. In book three of that text, we notice a change in his arguments which indicates that Jerome is no longer arguing only against Pelagius; he now disagrees with Augustine as well. I then examine a variety of issues besides sinlessness in the third book of the Dialogi that reveal that Jerome disagreed with Augustine on multiple topics, showing that his opposition to Augustine's position on sinlessness was not exceptional. Finally I turn to statements by Jerome that seem to indicate a positive appreciation for the Bishop of Hippo, but which on closer inspection are seen to contain latent criticisms.     

Mass psychology of the led and the leaders

Abstract

Some salient features of a Sullivanian perspective are given as a background for a discussion of the case of Anna. Lived experience is mentioned as of equal importance as fantasy. Technically, analytic inquiry in the form of questions is stressed. In his review of the case presentation, the author observes that too much emphasis is given to content, compared to form. He notes that the therapist does not report key transference and non-transference interactions with the patient and further suggests that the patient still has significant narcissistic problems. He suggests that it is time to confront the patient with her characterological ways of relating to the analyst.