„Ich möchte an Sie glauben können!“

During daily psychoanalytic treatment something happens that can be described with a term from the Old Testament: “to know”, giving psychoanalytic praxis a religious dimension. The author illustrates this thesis with a case report. First he tries to show how an interpretation of the casuistic material appears in the scope of the well-known concept of religion as an expression of dissoluble narcissistic conflicts. Then he applies Winnicott’s idea of “potential space” as a new scope for interpretation of the case. The conception of the “destruction of the object” according to Winnicott will be related exemplarily to the history of Jesus’ death on the cross and the miracle of his survival. By heeding the world of ideas of Klein and Bion, the author comes to the conclusion that religiosity is an anthropological constant, which cannot be reduced to a pathologic narcissistic event.     

„Schicksalsklüfte“

The present paper deals with the derivation of the fate concept and its application in psychotherapeutic theory and practice. Conclusions for an extension of the practical therapeutic view on existential themes, such as meaning, freedom, loneliness and death are drawn and effects on the therapeutic relationship are presented.     

Figur und Fläche im Wettstreit

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

„Innerer Richter“ und „Herzenskündiger“ im Wandel der Zeit

The last few years have seen a deepening of the understanding of the role of metaphor and metaphorical processes first in the cognitive sciences, more recently also in psychoanalysis. What had for a long time been viewed as an imprecise way of understanding turned out to be central for a comprehension of how the mind functions. Most important was the step of distinguishing metaphorical processes as a fundamental way how the mind works from the linguistic form of metaphor. The essay deals with a number of core metaphors for superego conflicts and for interpersonal relations; In particular, the differentiation between people who focus more on things versus those who stress inner life and emotions.     

Facetten eines „deutschen“ Gegenübertragungsproblems

Departing from two case vignettes of psychoanalytic treatments of foreign children of parents who had collaborated with the Germans during the second world war, we are pondering whether there is a specific form of German counter transference defense, making it impossible to allow destructive narcissistic transference offers full of relish through the patients out of the fear that their activation in the analyst might end up in shame and horror as in the previous generations. The nearly complete renunciation to work analytically on the Nazi and Wartime could be described as a secret agreement of the protagonists, finding its justification in keeping out this delightful destruction. The consequences of this abandonment are the disability to establish a solid oedipal position and a regression to the anal world, being characteristic for both postwar German states including much of the analytic work.     

„Nanotechnologie“ als neue „Schlüsseltechnologie“?—Versuch eines historischen und systematischen Vergleichs mit anderen Technologien

Nanotechnology seems to be a new “key-discipline”, which should lead to basic changes in many areas of living and producing. This estimation is questioned by a comparison with established technologies, which reach from heat engines to biotechnology. In this line it is possible to come to a more realistically assessment of nanotechnology. “Technologies” in the narrower sense are understood as techniques based scientifically and integrated systematically into a network. The development of these technologies starts first in the early modern times. Before this background the established technologies are characterised looking at relevant questions and problems, the role of researchers and inventors, the importance of theoretical foundations, important applications and innovations, as well as the relevance of visions and then confronted with nanotechnology in its present state. It is accentuated that there are no explicit theories and no specific applications of nanotechnology and it seems to be only a kind of chemical technology.

Autismus oder „Psychopathy“?

According to the concept of Hare autism spectrum disorders and psychopathy are associated with a strong deficit in empathy. However, empathy deficits in patients suffering from autism spectrum disorders and empathy deficits in individuals with psychopathic personality traits appear to be different. Some authors described the comorbid occurrence of psychopathic personality traits/psychopathy in individuals with autism spectrum disorders. The following article aims to approach this differential diagnostic problem by a brief review of the literature on a casuistic basis. This article reports the case of a highly remarkable 17-year-old adolescent. The case will be discussed according to the construct of psychopathy with reference to the concept of Hare.     

„Affektlose Zustände?“

In clinical work psychoanalysts are confronted with phenomena that are marked by affectless states and an apparent non-existence of affects. The author refers to patients who are addicted to near-death, dwell in states of confusion and inhibition in which affects are not found to be attached to thoughts, where splitting dominates and containment for fragmentation is sought. Instead of the latter it comes to pulverization and atomization and therefore to the annihilation of affects: affects seem to be unperceivable. Such phenomena allow considerations concerning the concept of the death drive. The questions are considered whether the apparent non-existence of affects is an expression of a silent death drive, what the function of these affectless states is and what the object relationship, which is expressed and communicated within these states looks like. Three concepts are taken into consideration: whether these affectless states are manifestations of a developmental state in which splitting is yet not an issue (Fairbairn), or must they be seen under a defensive aspect as a protection against persecutory tantalizing affects (Klein), or are these states the pure manifestations of the death drive (Green). By means of a clinical vignette of a patient suffering from an inhibition of thought processes, an inability to work on the basis of a borderline pathology and treated with high-frequency psychoanalysis, the phenomenon of ?affectless states“ is elaborated on the basis of the three aforementioned theoretical concepts and the dynamic unconscious fantasy associated with these seemingly affectless states is discussed.     

Spielsucht – Alkoholabhängigkeit: „Zwei Süchte,eine Behandlung?“

While alcoholism has been undisputedly classified for decades as an addiction in diagnostic manuals like ICD -10 and DSM -IV, the classification of pathological gambling has not been definitively resolved, although alcohol dependence and pathological gambling have many addiction criteria in common. The course of gambling addiction is typically characterized by an initial phase, a critical habituation phase, and a phase of despair. While a gambling addiction may rapidly progress to chronic dependence within a year, the development of chronic alcohol dependence requires many years of misuse. For gambling addicts, external influence plays a considerable role (trigger situation) on the entry into gambling. For the majority of players, the initial contact comes from third parties, while for problem gamblers the social character of an invitation as a maintaining factor has less influence than for alcoholics. There are differences especially in the expression of comorbidities and the consequences of the addiction. For problem gamblers, these are more psychological than social, while secondary disorders are significant for alcoholics.     

Qualitative Untersuchungen über Kontur und Fläche in der optischen Figurwahrnehmung

Zusammenfassung Ein von Day vorgenommener Versuch, die Phänomene der Formwahrnehmung bei abgeschwächter Konturbildung einzuordnen in die statistisch-physiologische Theorie der Konturenbildung von Marshall und Talbot, wird für nicht ausreichend gehalten. Nach Vergleichen mit Ergebnissen eigener Versuche ist die Phänomenanalyse dort dafür nicht weit genug voran getrieben.In den eigenen Versuchen wurden Figuraufbau und Konturfunktionen untersucht bei abgeschwächter Konturenbildung, und zwar abgeschwächt durch eine physiologisch-somatische Bedingungsvariation: Reizaufnahme mittels peripher gelegener Netzhautteile. Die Zusammenfassungen der Ergebnisse dieser Versuche finden sich je am Schluß der Abschnitte II, III und IV auf S. 285, 293f. und 299.Experimenteller Teil einer Arbeit, die im Jahre 1959 der Philosophischen Fakultät der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster in teilweiser Erfüllung der Habilitationsverpflichtungen vorgelegt wurde.     

Therapieabbrüche in der stationären Psychotherapie

This article focuses on the patients’ view of the causes and consequences of premature therapy termination in inpatient psychosomatic setting. In this study, drop-out patients and non-drop-out patients were questioned in semi-structured phone interviews (n=62). The causes of early termination are seen in this study to be connected with an internal, somatic concept of disease, discontent with treatment, and social interaction problems in the hospital. In 80% of the examined cases more than two causes were reported. Consequently, early termination of treatment can be considered as an outcome of multifactorial influences. Furthermore, a group of “inner drop-outs” has been identified within the non-drop-out patients. Despite high discontent, these patients remained in treatment because they often feared possible negative consequences of early treatment termination. Both drop-outs and inner drop-outs scored lower in outcome analysis than the remaining patients. This study points to problem areas that can help identify potential drop-out patients.     

„Bluttaten“ und „schizophrene Politik“

Background

The role of printed media in the maintenance of stigmatization has been a subject of debate for several years now. As for stigmatization of schizophrenia, previous research has frequently focused on stereotypes in newspaper articles and the metaphoric use of the word “schizophrenic” for something contradictory, aloof or ridiculous.

Aim

The objective of this study was to quantify the frequency of stigmatizing articles with regard to the specific type of stigmatizing content in German broadsheets and tabloids.

Material and methods

A total of 391 articles extracted from the entirety of all issues of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the tabloid BILD from 2011 were content-analyzed for stereotypes, false statements and metaphoric use of schizophrenia.

Results

Stigmatizing elements were prevalent in each newspaper (40.4–66.7?%). Among broadsheets the metaphoric use constituted the predominant form of stigmatization, whereas depictions of persons with schizophrenia as dangerous and unpredictable prevailed in the tabloid BILD.

Conclusion

Metaphoric use and blatant discrimination are still highly prevalent in German newspapers. While metaphoric use may be stopped by renaming the disorder schizophrenia, further efforts are needed to raise awareness for and ultimately prevent the reification of stereotypes in printed media.