Can We Eat Dog Without Dog Eating Us Commentary on Paper by Janine de Peyer

This paper examines a state of fear aroused in the analyst during a session. I suggest that the fear arose from the attempt to enter the patient's mental state—a state that was unfamiliar to the analyst. In entering what was essentially psychically foreign territory, I terrified myself with a version of the patient's experience.     

Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel and psychosexuality - a reminder

Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, who would have turned 90 this year, had a passion for truth that placed her work at the very heart of psychoanalysis. Never leaving the field of Freudian analysis she explored the inevitable difficulties, due to our premature birth, to become moral subjects. Psychoanalysis was to her, as it was to Freud, a psychology of conflict. She was suspicious of seemingly optimistic views which saw conflict as created between the potentially free subject and one repressive external system or another. Freedom is always limited in psychoanalysis. In an attempt to follow the line of thought in her vast production the article touches upon her critique of Freud’s so called phallic monism, the significance of both parents’place in the psyche, the question of “Falsehood”, perversion as a dimension of the human psyche, and her concerned view on the situation of Western thought today. The author suggests that we might benefit from her radical Freudian stance in a time when the view on truth is undergoing many unfathomable transformations. Perhaps Chasseguet-Smirgels thought can also be an important reminder about the foundations of our work; not just sexuality, not just mental acts but their specific relationship to each other     

Reflections on the Reflections

Pastoral Psychology -     

Reflections on Supervision

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - This paper explores basic tasks involved in the supervisory process, and frequent problems in carrying out these tasks. Basic tasks include clarification of...     

Commentary on Jansen's Paper

Karl Jansen raises a fundamental and exciting question: Is humankind's consciousness the result of neuronal function, or are there extra-cerebral aspects as well? While his neurotransmitter model of near-death experiences (NDEs) is well described, I find his supporting evidence weak. Methodological differences between studies of ketamine hallucinations and near-death experiences (NDEs) raise doubts about how similar those experiences are phenomenologically. While Jansen's model has electrifying implications, the data required to support his conclusions do not yet exist.     

Reflections on Christian Education

During the school year of 1994–1995 students (n = 1611) attending Seventh-day Adventist high schools in the United States of America completed questionnaires designed to assess their HIV/AIDS-related knowledge and behaviors. AIDS-related behavioral intentions, attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived control were also assessed according to the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1989). The rates of the sexual and drug-use behaviors measured in this population are lower than for students who attend public high schools. Increased risk for participating in sexual intercourse, the key AIDS-risk behavior in youth, was associated with the students' substance use and also by their parents' use of substances. Measurements designed in accord with the Theory of Planned Behavior revealed that students most relied on spiritual strength and encouragement from teachers to manage their control over premarital sexual intercourse.     

Reflections on aum shinrikyo

Abstract

On March 20, 1995, Aum Shinrikyo, the fanatical Japanese cult, released lethal sarin gas on five Tokyo subway trains, killing 12 people and injuring more than 5,000. This article explores some of the psychological currents involving the guru, Shoko Asahara, his disciples, and the guru-disciple relationships within a violent theology. It also raises more general questions about groups crossing a threshold from anticipating Armageddon to attempting to bring it about.