THE RELATION BETWEEN PSYCHOANALYSIS AND ITS METASCIENCE

This paper deals, first theoretically with the concepts of trauma, narcissism, and conflict causality, then clinically with the recurrent sequences of compromise formations which form characteristic vicious circles of a narcissistic, masochistic, and addictive kind, and ends with some technical conclusions and a psychological and philosophical reconsideration of the concept of repetition compulsion. The repetition compulsion, reflected in those “vicious cycles”, is viewed as an attempt to attain in symbolic ways affect regulation and conflict resolution which proves blocked because the affects and the drive needs evoked by them and closely connected with them, the forms of defense, and the superego demands, are all of a global quality and therefore irreconcilable with each other. Therefore, the consistent endeavors to express them in symbols also have to be defeated. Narcissistic crises, loyality conflicts, and shame-guilt dilemmas have a commanding position in the triggering of those sequences, of the ensuing impulsive actions, and of the splitting of consciousness and identity.     

MARION MILNER, MYSTICISM AND PSYCHOANALYSIS

It is unusual to combine mysticism and psychoanalysis. Marion Milner, however, achieved precisely this. Through her self-analysis and analytic work with children and adults—and using as an illustration her own and others' imaginative ideas, paintings, doodles, drawings and pictures—she drew attention to the potential for health and creativity of undoing the obstacles to mystical experience of oneness with what is beyond or other than the self, which she sometimes called God, the unconscious or the id. This article seeks to explain and highlight this aspect of her contribution to, and continuing importance for, psychoanalytic theory and practice—particularly that associated with Winnicott—through detailing her early life and diary-keeping experiments, some of her psychoanalytic case histories during and after the Second World War, her work as an artist, ending with her travels and her involvement during the 1980s and 1990s with the Squiggle Foundation and British Association of Art Therapists.     

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE ARTS: THE SLIPPERY GROUND OF APPLIED ANALYSIS

The ways in which today's psychoanalysts approach art closely follow the avenues opened by Freud a hundred years ago. Drawing mainly on Freud's studies on Jensen's Gradiva (1907) and on Leonardo da Vinci (1910a), the author examines the main paradigms he used in discussing artistic activity, including his doubts and hesitations. Present‐day approaches to art are then examined via a discussion of the advantages and pitfalls of psychobiography, of the case study, and of textual approaches. The author makes a case for the type of interdisciplinary dialogue in which the goal is to establish a cross‐fertilization between psychoanalysis and other fields of knowledge while striving to avoid hypersaturation of a work of art in order to foster expansion of the mind.     

THE THREE ESSAYS AND THE MEANING OF THE INFANTILE SEXUAL IN PSYCHOANALYSIS

Freud's Three Essays on Sexual Theory (1905a) are still today highly significant because of their novel way of considering the human sexual dimension. The author intends to show that a close reading of the Essays, combined with the reintroduction of the seduction theory by Jean Laplanche, provides a specific and foundational sexual theory for psychoanalysis.     

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND HUMAN RATIONALITY

It is clear that Freud's theories have had a profound and revolutionary impact on ideas about human nature and human rationality. However, the precise nature of that impact is less clear. It is often said that psychoanalysis reveals the irrational forces at the root of even the most apparently rational forms of thought and activity; and that, in so doing, it undermines ideas about human rationality which have dominated western thought. That is undoubtedly true. However, it is only one aspect of the truth. For the implications of psychoanalysis are more complex and far-reaching than this currently fashionable view suggests.     

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPY

This paper attempts to address the similarities and differences between psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis as practice. Starting from the manifest technical points, which he dismisses as peripheral, the author reaches the position that he considers to be the fundamental area of contention, i.e. the tranference‐countertransference arena. Focusing on the countertransference stance of the professional in this process, the author distinguishes the defining differences of these two approaches, and hopes to show them to be more complementary than antagonistic.     

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND INFERTILITY MYTHS AND REALITIES

Psychoanalysis, long interested in infertility, and a valuable treatment for men and women suffering with this affliction, has also helped to create and support a myth of psychogenic infertility. Multiple causes of infertility exist across the physiological - psychological spectrum. There is no simple psychodynamic causality. Advances in assisted reproductive technologies provide treatments that create emotional stress and outpace psychological preparedness of patients and analysts. This paper is based on the experience of a unique study group in Boston. An analytic case illustrates some of the ways analysis can be a treatment of choice for people using assisted reproduction. In fact, analysis offers a unique opportunity to elaborate fully the complex realities and dilemmas faced by people and their therapists throughout the infertility experience. More generally, this study of the concept of psychogenic infertility explores a valuable role for psychoanalysis in the treatment of medical conditions.     

THE DISSOCIATIVE TURN IN PSYCHOANALYSIS

In his response to the Roundtable Discussions on what is effective in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, the author focuses on the renewed interest in the concept of dissociation that began to emerge toward the end of the 20th century. A contemporary psychoanalytic position informed by the impact of developmental trauma has led to an understanding of and interest in the dissociative mind. The actuality of trauma during infancy and early childhood is recognized as a key factor leading to the emergence of dissociative processes, the potential dissociative structuring of the mind, and mind being characterized by multiple, discontinuous, centers of consciousness. The therapeutic goal in the psychoanalytic work with fragmented patients is to establish communication and understanding between the dissociated self-states. The author offers two brief clinical examples of working with dissociated self-states.     

SOME THOUGHTS ON PSYCHOANALYSIS AND ETHICS

The author attempts to establish a framework for understanding the contribution of psychoanalysis to ethics through examining the work of certain philosophers, especially Kant. After reviewing the development of Freudian thought and going beyond the ‘psychoanalysis and/or psychiatry?’ question, he asserts that the space of the psychoanalytical cure revolves around an ethical problem. Thus, the limits of analysis should be determined by the subject's capacity for developing a structure of belief in the unconscious, with the concomitant capacity to go beyond equivocation in respect of an ethical conflict that underlies all cases where psychical suffering is manifested. Indeed, only human beings are called upon to deal with an ethical paradox “equally a logical one”which could be stated thus: there is Good in Evil and Evil in Good. This ethical paradox is the consequence of human subjection to the constituent laws of the Oedipus complex, which distances the human being, in his/her dealings with Evil and with Good, from any naturalist stance. In respect of the cure, then, we must take into account that Evil does not proceed from any particular drive‐based characteristic, but is rather the expression of specific subjection to an unconscious Other, towards which it directs its affects. Finally, the author proposes a principle that emerges from the preceding discussion: let us not impute to or place in the Other our own subjective splitting or pain at existing.