Thoughts on medication and psychoanalysis: a lay analyst's view

The issues involved in split analytic treatments-where a second person manages the patient's medication-are discussed from the point of view of a developmentalist and lay analyst. Case material is presented to illustrate the interplay of medication with other elements of the psychoanalytic situation. Medication and its effects, it is argued, should be accorded no special status apart from other interventions and enactments in an analysis. Some see medication and psychoanalysis as parallel processes, two separate and unintegrated theoretical systems, and recommend shifting back and forth between models of the mind or becoming "bilingual"; against this view, it is argued that anything the analyst does will affect the patient's thoughts, fantasies, and even physiology in individual ways, and only attention to analytic material can reveal what an intervention means in a specific case. Success in split treatment depends on a collaborative therapeutic alliance among patient, analyst, and consultant. Because there is as yet no theory that bridges psychoanalysis and psychopharmacology, analysts must talk of these matters as incompletely synthesized and regard them as part of the challenges that make psychoanalysis the exciting, impossible profession it is.     

The function of theory in psychoanalysis: a self psychological perspective

Although aware of a lack of consensus in the literature about the exact nature of the relationship between psychoanalytic theory and the clinical process, the authors contend that the analyst's theory(ies) are inextricably intertwined with the treatment process. Two clinical case examples are presented to illustrate this and to highlight the authors' discussion of the empathic mode of listening and its role in self psychology, as well as the self-object transferences and the interpretive process in self psychology.     

Rethinking homosexuality: what it teaches us about psychoanalysis

This presentation, written ten years after the American Psychoanalytic Association adopted a nondiscrimination policy with regard to sexual orientation, discusses the evolving relationship between psychoanalysis and homosexuality. The paper is in three sections: (1) the process of policy change and the overturning of injustice; (2) the excursion after Freud's death into analytic bias and extreme pathologizing of homosexuality, the struggle to overcome those distortions, and the lessons to be learned from this history; and (3) the search, in the coming decade, for new understanding of homosexuality and all aspects of sexuality.     

Some thoughts about psychoanalysis and cinema

Abstract

This article approaches the pleasures of the cinema through a discussion of the conditions of cinema going and the place of the cinema in twentieth-century culture. It links them to the history of cinema and to the debates about art and psychoanalysis. It introduces the centrality of parallels between the cinema and dreaming and the importance of sexuality for the cinema. It suggests that discussion about the psychic mechanisms elicited by film going is a productive way of thinking about the cinema.     

Talking about medication

With the increasing use of psychotropic medication concomitant with psychoanalysis, attention must be given to the challenges created by complaints of medication side effects. When confronted with these side effects, analysts may experience specific, uniquely actualized countertransference anxieties that can prompt the abandonment of transference analysis. Particular countertransference fantasies that arise in combined treatments are examined, as are the reasons for the analyst's suspension of curiosity and openness and its clinical consequences. In these situations, effective analysis requires the analyst to be "bilingual," to hold in mind both the analytic and the pharmacological model.     

Scottish psychoanalysis: a rational religion

The ambition to rationally preserve a Christian religious inheritance distinctively informs Scottish psychoanalytic ideas. Scottish psychoanalysis presents the human personality as born into communion with others. The aim of therapy is to restore, preserve, and promote genuinely interpersonal relations. The Scottish psychoanalysis apparent in the work of W. R. D. Fairbairn, Ian Suttie, Hugh Crichton-Miller, and in the philosophy of John Macmurray, is exported to New Zealand, where it is promoted by the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists. Scottish psychoanalytic ideas also remain effective in post-war Britain: the idea of communion appears in dialogue with other theories in the work of Harry Guntrip, John Macquarrie, R. D. Laing, and Aaron Esterson.     

Rosalia H.: with Freud in a prelude to psychoanalysis

Abstract

The case of Fräulein Rosalia H. is discussed quite briefly by Freud in one of his contributions to Studies on hysteria. This case of ‘retention hysteria’ was included in another much longer case study, and it is designed to illustrate how a ‘mnemic symbol’, which operates to condense a group of memories, may be formed during the course of an analysis. A new symptom thus appears which may throw more light on the circumstances which gave rise to the presenting symptom. Despite the richness of this case, Freud does not refer to it again in his writing and there has been very little discussion of it in psychoanalytic commentaries. This paper explores how the case serves as a transition point from pre-psychoanalytic conceptions of symptomatology and clinical practice, and how it can be read as a prelude to psychoanalysis proper.     

Developmental psychology and psychoanalysis: I. The context for a revolution in psychoanalysis

After describing the manner in which the integration of psychoanalysis and developmental psychology became a central problem for ego psychology, the author examines the conditions that make it possible for new research and theory in developmental psychology to contribute to a revolution in contemporary psychoanalytic theory. They include: (1) the emergence of a state of "crisis" in American psychoanalysis centering on questions of the nature of early development and how it can be known; (2) the explosive growth of developmental research on early childhood dealing with issues at the heart of that crisis; and (3) the presence of a new generation of psychoanalysts and psychoanalytically oriented researchers capable of bringing that research to bear on those issues.     

Disagreement about logic from a pluralist perspective

Philosophical Studies - Logical pluralism is commonly described as the view that there is more than one correct logic. It has been claimed that, in order for that view to be interesting, there has...