Letting go: some thoughts about termination

Termination of analysis is discussed from three perspectives. First, considered as a vicissitude of the analytic relationship, termination contains essential elements of the psychoanalytic process itself. Cycles of attachment, loss, mourning, and internalization mark moments in, as well as overviews of, every analysis from its beginning to well past its termination. Second, Freud's approach to the subject of termination is explored and widened, with an emphasis on its relation to mourning and on the depth and permanence of analytic transference--two dimensions relatively neglected by Freud, perhaps for personal reasons. Finally, clinical issues are presented that are meaningful to the author in his work with analysands, including his work as a training analyst.     

The role of a parent's illness in the emotional experience of a child evidence from Klein's Narrative of a child analysis

Abstract

The analysis of Richard, described by Melanie Klein in Narrative of a Child Analysis, gives us some insight into the effect on a child of threats to the health of his parents. His mother was involved in a road accident when Richard was 2; his father collapsed during the time of the analysis when he was 10. This paper links these events with disturbances in Richard's relation to his father and to his mother, as well as with threats to his own integrity, as demonstrated in the analysis. Richard's reversal of roles with his father and mother is discussed, as are Klein's reaction to Richard's report of finding his father ‘ill and nearly fainting’ and Richard's response to her behaviour. The paper draws attention to the way in which a child's reaction to the ill health of one parent can affect relations with both parents, as well as disturbing his sense of himself.     

'Most Dear to All the Muses': Mapping Tagorean Networks of Enterprise--A Study in Creative Complexity

ABSTRACT: The network of enterprise concept was applied to an "uncontroversially creative" subject from a non-Western culture-Rabindranath Tagore, the 1913 Nobel laureate in literature. The approach followed here is developmental, describing and analyzing the evolution of aspects of the creative work. It reflects historical reconstruction, examining not only the creative products but other phenomenological materials as well; but care is taken to remain sensitive to the multiple contexts in which the individual operated, including work tasks and enterprises; family and private worlds; professional milieus; and the sociohistorical period. The study explains the challenges in mapping Tagore's network of enterprises and analyzes his overall purpose in undertaking creative work. The analysis of Tagore's literary enterprises provided the basis for defining his uniqueness, along with the density, longevity, cyclicity, and branching nature of his enterprises. Furthermore, the realm of drawing and painting provided confirmation of some of the findings obtained from the study of the network of his literary enterprises. -     

Merleau‐Ponty and the significance of style

A distinctive feature of Merleau‐Ponty's thought is the central role he assigns style in generally characterizing embodied agents' perceptual and cognitive functioning. Despite this, he says little to explain how he conceives style itself. This article therefore aims to clarify Merleau‐Ponty's notion of style and its significance within and beyond his work. It begins by surveying his broad application of the term and using his discussions of painting to reconstruct his conception of style, identifying two major roles Merleau‐Ponty attributes it in unifying intentional structures and founding conceptual meaning. His view is related to several competing philosophical conceptions of style to highlight its distinctiveness and some conceptual difficulties in adequately defining style. I then argue that Merleau‐Ponty succeeds in coherently distinguishing style from rules by recognizing that style conceives pattern formation, especially the relation of general and particular, in a way contrasting with the identity‐based thinking inherent in the functioning of rules. With this distinction, I conclude that, although Merleau‐Ponty overgeneralizes its role, his conception of style has broader philosophical significance in accurately capturing the nonmechanical cohesion of certain embodied intelligent activities (such as painting) and enabling better understanding of the variety of forms such activities can take.     

Impasse and the interpretation of perversion

This article presents a case study of a year of psychotherapeutic work by a female and male therapist with a 14-year-old boy born with ambiguous genitalia. His mother was also present in the sessions at the request of Zak. We describe the early trauma surrounding Zak's birth and the subsequent desertion of a violent father. We present the catalogue of medical interventions he received to re-construct his genitals. Now at the age of 14 years Zak is entering into a chemically induced puberty. His mother had a version of an internal couple at war, where the male was viewed as useless and with suspicion. This view served to distort her capacity to bear Zak's condition and dovetailed with his phantasy of a monstrously violent and destructive male. Thus the artificial shove into manhood for Zak was filled with terror. The induced puberty was felt more like an attack and he acted out through resistance to intervention and non-compliance. This organisation created in him a state of thoughtlessness and despair, which we propose parades itself as a ‘secondary handicap’ (Sinason, Mental Handicap and the Human Condition, Free Association, London, 1992). Our joint work as a couple with Zak and his mother stood in opposition to their internal structures and provided an experience of a different kind of coupling: an opportunity to observe a cooperatively working couple who helped give words to the anxieties they brought. We trace Zak's attachment to and internalisation of a thinking couple, which paralleled both his ability to become more expressive and a reduction in acting out his aggression. The work aimed to promote in Zak a level of emotional development that was commensurate with his physical development. The construction of genitals and a lifetime of testosterone injections alone will not allow Zak to grow into the man he can be. We will attempt to explore the basis of these structures to demonstrate that the work provided the opportunity for Zak to reflect upon and express his terror, and to turn to other people to seek support, help and advice.     

The shaping of masculinity: Revisioning boys turning away from their mothers to construct male gender identity

This paper offers an understanding of the nature of the internalization processes involved in the shaping of male gender identity founded on the boy's unique struggles in separating from his mother. The underpinning for the initial development of a sense of masculinity is reconsidered as the author questions the widely held idea of Greenson and Stoller that a boy normatively has to 'dis-identify' from his mother to create his gender identity. Import rather is placed on the conscious and unconscious aspects of the mother's (and father's) pre-oedipal and oedipal relationship with their little boy in order better to understand the nature of the boy's unique identifications and subsequent sense of masculinity. Both the security of the boy's attachment to his mother, in providing the foundation for a transitional turning to an 'other', and the mother's capacity to reflect upon and recognize her own, as well as the father's and her son's, subjectivity and maleness, are crucial in comprehending boys' 'attachment-individuation' process. Likewise, the unconscious paternal and maternal imagos and identifications of both the boy's mother and father, as well as the father's pre-oedipal relationship with his little boy and the boy's mother, are extremely significant in shaping a son's gender identity. The author argues that these early maternal (and paternal) identifications live on in every male and continue to impact the sense of maleness in a dialectical interplay throughout the life span. A maturing gender identity develops from integrating these early, pre-oedipal maternal identifications that no longer need be repudiated nor defensively organized as polarized gender splitting.     

Creative Cognition in Social Innovation

The present article considers the debate between Darwinian and non-Darwinian accounts of creativity from the perspective of little-c (or everyday) creativity. Specifically, the basic arguments found in both positions are highlighted by juxtaposing Simonton's (this issue) empirical analysis of Picasso's Guernica sketches with Weisberg's and Hass's (this issue) analysis. Unresolved issues in this debate are identified and discussed. The body of the article is focused on developing an argument for how these lingering issues might be addressed by expanding empirical studies of Big C (eminent) creative processes to include little c (or everyday) levels of creative magnitude.     

Mother and child. A psychobiographical portrait of Mary Cassatt

The noted American impressionist, Mary Cassatt is remembered for her intimate portrayal of women, children, and the mother-child relationship. In this paper I have attempted to highlight some of the psychological forces impinging upon the artist, feeling that the artist's work is highly overdetermined. Mention was made of some of the difficulties that a psychobiographical study engenders. Nevertheless, it is hoped that such a study leads to enhanced understanding and appreciation of the artist, her work, and her rich inner world. An examination of the artist's life indicates that difficulties in the family of origin impinged upon her and deeply influenced her work. The loss of several siblings during critical developmental subphases may have produced intense survival guilt in Mary, motivating her to "recreate" her siblings on canvas and to devote her life to care of survivors. Lack of confirmation of Mary's talents by her father may have hindered her development, propelling the child toward a profoundly libidinalized and enmeshed relationship with the mother. Mary's intense relationship with her mother may have led the artist to develop particular stylistic nuances in her productions, contributed to her inability to become a wife and mother herself, and led to frequent episodes of depression. A case was made that Mary suffered from narcissistic disturbance, never completing the recognition of herself as a person outside of the orbit of her mother. Finally, the role of Edgar Degas in the artist's life was described. He seems to have played a major role in the evolution of Mary's style as well as being an important influence in her making a partial separation from her mother in adulthood. In spite of Mary's deep personal suffering, she was able to epitomize in her paintings the most tender and nurturant of relationships. By painting the mother-child theme, she sublimated her own wishes to become a mother as creator of art. Within her family system, she appropriated the position of mother; as the artist, she became the interpreter of this experience. By developing her talent, she communicated her wish to be a mother, and expressed the need to find, if only on canvas, a more truly empathic mother. In essence, her work allowed her to conceive of a life different from the one external reality imposed upon her. It also served as an indispensable adaptive function, allowing the artist to communicate with others, achieve recognition, and play.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

On the Ethics of Democratic Access to Web Information

Floridi’s work, although diverse and multifaceted, portrays a solid coherence across his different lines of work. Among his wealth of interests and results, we highlight his recent work on information logics, on the ethics of information technology, and his rigorous (and vigorous) philosophical analysis of recent technological trends and developments in information technology. In the present article we illustrate, by means of some connecting arguments, the diversity and coherence of Floridi’s work. We also show how his work, although fundamentally philosophical in nature, can be used to build solid foundations for scientific and entrepreneurial endeavours of higher quality. More specifically, we discuss how the combination of results from the three lines of work referred to above can be used as ground for the organisation of higher quality programmes to augment the capabilities and effectiveness of governmental systems through information and communications technology, a trend that has been explored in many nations and that has been coined Electronic Government. Electronic Government programmes that improve the capabilities of citizens to interact with each other and with governments, as well as the capabilities of governments to listen to the needs and aspirations of citizens, have the potential to contribute to the construction of more democratic states. Electronic Government systems that rely on ready made models to prescribe to citizens how best they should interact with each other and with the public administration are, however, by construction non-democratic. Hence, it can be a moral and ethical matter for governments to choose which line of technological development they take.     

Leonardo's Mona Lisa: Iconic Center of Male Melancholic Religion

In previous writings, I have argued that a three-to-five-year-old boy's emotional separation from his mother is the key experience in his development of a melancholic orientation to life, and that men's religious proclivities (based on honor, hope, and humor) reflect this emotional separation. In the present essay, I argue that Leonardo da Vinci's {Mona Lisa} is the iconic center of the religion of male melancholia, and thus displaces the Virgin Mary of traditional Christianity in this regard. I provide evidence in support of this argument by focusing on Walter Pater's essay on Leonardo da Vinci, and interpreting Vincent Peruggia's theft, Hugo Villegas's stoning, and Marcel Duchamp and others' humorous assaults on the dignity of Mona Lisa as expressions of male melancholia. I conclude that the painting aids in the difficult task of transforming melancholia into mourning.     

A Holistically Deweyan Feminism

The argument that a holistic analysis of Dewey's work, drawing not only on the major portions subject to extensive commentary (such as Experience and Nature ) but also on his aesthetics, provides fuel for feminist theorizing is sustained by advertence to the standard commentary and also to new work in aesthetic feminism itself. Sleeper, Rorty, Hickman and Russell are cited, and the recent resurgence of interest in developing the intersection between analytic aesthetics and feminist aesthetics is alluded to. It is concluded that the enterprising feminist theorist may suffer from an embarrassment of riches in attempting to approach Dewey but that such an approach is well worth the effort.     

THE ROLE OF AN IMMIGRANT MOTHER IN HER ADOLESCENT’S IDENTITY FORMATION: “WHO AM I?”

Immigration is a complex bio-psycho-social process and the immigrant mother has a truly complex task in lending her ego strength to her adolescent offspring. The normal adolescence’s decathexis of the love object and the consequent search for a new object may not happen smoothly for those adolescents whose mothers are immigrants. The immigration experience may cause the immigrant mother, who lost her motherland, deeper disturbance in self-identity as well as disequilibrium in her psychic structure, which in turn impacts adversely her adolescent’s development. The adolescent’s inadequate early experience with an immigrant mother may result in a deeper disturbance in his separation-individuation process as well as his identification process. An immigrant mother who has not mourned adequately, with a different sociocultural background has to go through a far more complex development of motherhood. The case of an adolescent boy, Jason, demonstrates the impact of immigrant motherhood on his ego development.     

Destruction reconceived: On Winnicott's ‘The Use of an Object and Relating through Identifications’

‘The Use of an Object and Relating through Identifications’ is a landmark contribution that I find very difficult to write about because so much of what lies at its core is merely suggested. It is necessary for the reader not only to read the paper, but also to write it. In my reading/writing of the paper, the mother becomes real for the infant in the process of his actually destroying her as an external object (destroying her sense of herself as an adequate mother), and his perceiving that destruction. She also becomes a real external object for the infant in the process of his experiencing the psychological work involved in surviving destruction, a form of work that does not occur in the world of fantasied objects. The analyst or mother may not be able to survive destruction. It is essential that the analyst be able to acknowledge to himself his inability to survive and, if necessary, to end the analysis because of the very damaging effects for both patient and analyst of prolonged experience of this sort. The author presents clinical discussions of analyses in which the analyst survives destruction and is unable to survive destruction.     

The Embarrassing Adam’s Apple, Compromised Masculinity, and Hope: The Case of Norman Rockwell

Taking its cue from Norman Rockwell’s embarrassment regarding his protruding Adam’s apple, this article focuses on the role that this embarrassment played in his development of a sense of “compromised masculinity” (Halpern 2006). This focus is informed by a discussion of the Adam’s apple from a historical and medical point of view, and by a consideration of Rockwell’s work as an artist. The article concludes with an exploration of his painting Freedom of Speech and its role in his turning of a perceived physical liability into a psychological strength and of its implications for a view of Rockwell as an agent of hope.     

Freud's prehistoric matrix-Owing 'nature' a death

This paper is informed by contemporary literature in two fields-neonatal research, on the one hand, and the burgeoning interdisciplinary interest in Moses and monotheism, on the other. The author postulates that a cluster of traumatic events during the first two years of Freud's life compelled him to repeat what could not be remembered. Embedded in charged implicit schema, these affects remained unprocessed in Freud, who alone of all psychoanalysts did not have an analysis, manifesting in an uncanny dread/allure of the 'prehistoric' as a dark and dangerous era relating to the archaic feminine/maternal matrix and fratricidal murderousness. Furthermore, she cites evidence to suggest that for Freud this unconsciously excluded subtext of the preoedipal era became associated with ancient Egyptian and Minoan-Mycenaean cultures, a passionate fascination actualized in his collection of antiquities yet incongruously absent in his theoretical work, with three exceptions-Egyptian allusions in Leonardo's unconscious attachment to his archaic mother; the 'Minoan-Mycenaean' analogy on discovering the pre-oedipal mother shortly after the death of Freud's own mother; and Egypt as cradle of humanity in his uncharacteristically rambling, troubled text of Moses and monotheism. The author sees Freud's conceptual avoidance yet compulsive reworking of the prehistoric matrix as a symptomatic attempt to expose early unformulated representations that 'return to exert a powerful effect.'     

PAINTING A STORY: ARS‐POETICA AND IDEOLOGY IN A STORY BY BENJAMIN TAMMUZ AND A PAINTING BY NAHUM GUTMAN

The article discusses the story “Our National Artist” by Benjamin Tammuz, in which the hero is an artist and a pioneer whose ideas do not conform to Zionist ideology. The present author’s claim is that this is an implied ars poetic‐ideological story in which Tammuz hints at his own beliefs regarding Zionism, namely his severe reservations about it. He allows his artist hero to express what he himself could not openly express at that time. The article goes on to discuss a well‐known painting by Nahum Gutman which Tammuz chose for the cover of his collection, The Bitter Scent of Geranium, in which “Our National Artist” appears, and which serves as an allusion to the “non‐Zionist” nature of this collection. Tammuz’s choice of Gutman’s painting testifies to his conception: in this painting he “reads” the pre‐Zionist or the non‐Zionist space as a dominant “text”, thus shifting attention from the Zionist consensus to its margins and beyond.     

Culpable control and counterfactual reasoning in the psychology of blame

Many counterfactual reasoning studies assess how people ascribe blame for harmful actions. By itself, the knowledge that a harmful outcome could easily have been avoided does not predict blame. In three studies, the authors showed that an outcome's mutability influences blame and related judgments when it is coupled with a basis for negative evaluations. Study 1 showed that mutability influenced blame and compensation judgments when a physician was negligent but not when the physician took reasonable precautions to prevent harm. Study 2 showed that this finding was attenuated when the victim contributed to his own demise. In Study 3, whether an actor just missed arriving on time to see his dying mother or had no chance to see her influenced his blameworthiness when his reason for being late provided a basis for negative evaluations but made no difference when there was a positive reason for the delay. These findings clarify the conditions under which an outcome's mutability is likely to influence blame and related attributions.     

Ouvrir le dialogue pour comprendre l’activité. Un exemple de méthode en psychologie du travail

The investigations in occupational psychology are conditioned by the way events are observed and interpreted. When we approach subjectivity, it is necessary to understand what is hidden. And the angle from which we look at determines the analysis. This is to highlight the significance of the action. Those who work interpret situations, so they cannot be reduced to their action. But how can we reach the sense of a behaviour? The problem of interpretation arises. Understanding the activity, is trying to share the contents with the subject investigated. Therefore, the direct observation of a behaviour is not synonymous with objectivity. Through two examples of the preparatory phase of our inquiries, we present persons who explain us their professional activity. In these exchanges, what is said depends on the mode of entry. The objective is to engage the subject to explain his work to understand and transform. For this, the methodology can only be indirect. The resulting methods enable the subject to talk about what he does and come back on his activity to develop.     

René Magritte: coping with loss--reality and illusion

René Magritte was profoundly influenced in his painterly style and in the content of many of his paintings by his mother's suicide when he was fourteen. This paper explores the influence of this traumatic event on his work. My thesis is that the nighttime suicide of Magritte's mother by drowning: (1) had a profound impact on the form and style of his paintings; (2) his paintings represented an effort, mostly successful, to contain and master through intellectual control with isolation of affect the trauma of this experience, which must at the time have evoked helplessness and despair; (3) the contents of a series of his paintings directly reconstruct the traumatic experience under control and in the service of mastery; and (4) there are paintings, mostly painted at the time he clearly developed his own style (1926-1930), that reveal a breakthrough of projected primitive aggressive impulses and unconscious representations of the aggressive mother. In these latter paintings, both form and content are dramatically different from the main corpus of Magritte's work.