Psychoanalysis Traumatized: The Legacy of the Holocaust

Psychoanalysis is a survivor of the Holocaust. It was founded and flourished in central European centers that would be destroyed by the Nazis. A core group of refugees who lived through persecution and exile were instrumental in rebuilding their movement on alien shores. They had no opportunity to mourn the loss of their culture or their leader, Freud, whose death was overshadowed by the cataclysmic upheaval around them. Though its trauma has been dissociated, it is represented in psychoanalytic ideas and enacted in institutions within the context of delayed or incomplete mourning. For example, authoritarianism in psychoanalytic institutions will be explored as a reliving of the trauma of both fascism and exile, and not merely typical group psychology. Further evidence of the impact of dissociated trauma includes the astonishing scotoma for actual events in treatment of Holocaust survivors; the extreme privileging of infantile fantasy over reality, and attention to childhood neurosis at the expense of adult catastrophic events.     

The Cornered Object of Psychoanalysis: Las Meninas, Jacques Lacan and Henry James

Long recognised as a painting ‘about’ painting, Velázquez’s Las Meninas comes to Lacan’s aid as he explicates the object a in Seminar XIII, The Object of Psychoanalysis (1965–1966). The famous seventeenth century painting provides Lacan with a visual mapping of the ‘ghost story’ he discovers in the Cartesian cogito, insofar as it depicts the unravelling of the Cartesian representational project at the moment of its founding gesture. This article traces Lacan’s argument as he turns to art, linear perspective and topology to model how the object a persistently eludes the grasp of scientific knowledge. Following a discussion of distance-point perspective in Renaissance Italy and the role this innovation played in enabling distorted depictions of objects in space, I propose Henry James’s ghost story, “The Jolly Corner,” as the sequel to Lacan’s reading of Las Meninas. In James’s tale, we obtain a narrative account of what the figures in Velasquez’s painting might ‘see’ as they return our gaze towards us.     

Eating Disorders: A Bond between Medicine,Culture and Psychoanalysis

Action in connection with the therapeutic process is often equated with acting out. The subtle behaviour that belongs to ?the complicated system of transmitting and receiving unconscious signals? (Sandler), with which the patient attempts to make the analyst behave as the object of transference or to fulfill an unconscious desire, is also described as acting out or micro-acting out (Treurniet). This fine-grained action, however, means nothing; it is not symbolic or communicative action. Its intention is, rather, to trigger effects and induce interactions. It occurs not only on the side of the analysand but also on that of the analyst, and is part of the unconscious communication in the therapeutic process. Presented here are some of the various interactive ways and means with which the analyst is prompted into unconscious action and certain, unnoticed, ways in that he turn ?treats? the patient. The analyst's action responses can bear the character of interpretations with which he may unintentionally reveal how he regards the behaviour of the patient.     

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.