Silent cries, dancing tears: the metapsychology of art revisited/revised

Against the backdrop of a broad survey of the literature on applied psychoanalysis, a number of concepts underpinning the metapsychology of art are revisited and revised: sublimation; interrelationships between primary and secondary processes; symbolization; "fantasy"; and "cathexis." Concepts embedded in dichotomous or drive/energic contexts are examined and reformulated in terms of a continuum of semiotic processes. Freudian dream structure is viewed as a biological/natural template for nonrepressive artistic forms of sublimation. The synthesis presented proposes a model of continuous rather than discontinuous processes, in a nonenergic, biosemiotic metatheoretical framework.     

Rules of clinical understanding in classical psychoanalysis and in self psychology: a comparison

This paper compares the rules that govern clinical understanding in classical psychoanalysis and in self psychology. The rules of understanding in the two systems are fundamentally different. Self psychology interprets causes and relies on interpretive rules similar to those used in allegory. Classical psychoanalysis investigates reasons and seeks to uncover the patient's own interpretive system. Self psychology refinds its own theory in the relation between elements disguised in the manifest content of patients' productions. Classical psychoanalysis seeks to open up manifest content. Where self psychology reiterates theory in its interpretations, classical interpretations move away from theoretical generalizations toward specific fantasy-memory constellations. Theory, in self psychology, organizes directly the content of interpretations; theory in classical psychoanalysis organizes a technique of exploration and furnishes general sequences according to which data can be understood. This paper also suggests that the differences in the rules of clinical understanding have potential consequences for psychoanalysis which manifest themselves in psychoanalytic training and in the capacity for self-analysis.     

Feminism and Family Therapy

Feminism has had a profound effect on contemporary culture and on thinking in most academic fields, including psychoanalysis. Interestingly, until very recently it had made virtually no impact on the theory and practice of family therapy. This paper proposes an explanation for this peculiar phenomenon and argues that family therapy has been considerably handicapped by its insularity from the feminist critique. Utilizing feminist scholarship in psychoanalysis, history, and sociology, the paper analyzes the structural contradictions in family life that family therapists have essentially ignored and then outlines their clinical implications. Key points in the discussion include the argument that systems theory is an inadequate explanatory matrix from which to build a theory of the family, that the archetypal "family case" of the overinvolved mother and peripheral father is best understood, not as a clinical problem, but as the product of a historical process two hundred years in the making, and that power relations between men and women in families function in terms of paradoxical, incongruous hierarchies that reflect the complex interpenetration between the structure of family relations and the world of work. This conceptual model then provides the basis for an analysis and critique of sexual politics as they emerge in the prototypical clinical situation.     

A semiotic theory of imagery processes with experiments on an Indo-European and a Ural-Altaic language: Do speakers of different languages experience different cognitive worlds?

StrØmnes, F. J. A semiotic theory of imagery processes with experiments on an Indo-European and a Ural-Altaic language: Do speakers of different languages experience different cognitive worlds?Scand. J. Psychol., 1973, 14, 291–304.-A theory of information transmission by symbol systems is presented. The theory is related to results on imagery and verbal behaviour found in the literature, and a new experiment is briefly reported. It is argued that information transmission can exclusively take place by the transmission of geometric isomorphs. Some of the conditions which must be fulfilled by a sign system which can transmit geometric isomorphs are pointed out. A supporting experiment, which purports to show that the underlying geometric systems of Ural-Altaic (represented by Finnish) and Indo-European (represented by Swedish) are strikingly different, is reported.     

How wide is the widening scope of psychoanalysis and how solid is its structural model? Some concerns and observations

The author advances the thesis that in the past 35 years there has been a relatively silent but nonetheless significant movement within the mainstream of American psychoanalysis toward a more "modest" position. This movement has been stimulated from different sources, sometimes with diverse goals and different programs. One determinant was the reaction to the post-World War II euphoria in regard to psychoanalysis and its possible therapeutic powers. Another element has been the ongoing consolidation of our knowledge and understanding of the ego-psychological, structural-model approach to analytic theory and technique, an approach which emphasizes both intrapsychic conflict and compromise formations. A consequence of this more modest position has been a greater appreciation of the limitations of psychoanalysis as well as the significance of those limitations. This more realistic appraisal of psychoanalysis may not have encouraged the widening scope of the indications for analysis, but the enhanced understanding of its limitations offers the promise of more effective psychoanalytic work in areas that have not been considered ideal for the so-called "traditional" analysis. It is suggested that more sophisticated approaches in the analysis of resistance and character, of "conflict" (in distinction to "diagnoses"), together with a more applicable understanding of the psychoanalytic process, can all contribute to a deepening, if not necessarily widening, of our psychoanalytic endeavors.     

Psychodynamic and systemic paradigms: An attempted integration in the light of personal experience with groups

Conclusion Our purpose is not to confuse psychoanalysis with systems theory: Karen Horney defined herself as a psychoanalyst, while the theory of autopoietic systems remains a systems theory. With the exception of the basic matrices that determine the identity of each current of thought, it seems possible to point out interesting points of contact among different anthropological views. They appear to converge on some points that are not to be overlooked, though they may take off from premises that are very different from each other. These are recent working hypotheses, which I have presented as a theme of research that needs to be verified scientifically. If these hypotheses can be rigorously verified in such a way as to avoid superimpositions, the theories would be enriched reciprocally, opening up interesting prospectives of scientific research. This is our wish.     

What are symbols symbols of? Situated action,mythological bootstrapping and the emergence of the Self

This paper addresses the question of how symbols should be understood in analytical psychology and psychoanalysis. The point of view examined focuses on the recent turn to more cognitive and developmental models in both disciplines and briefly reviews and critiques the evolutionary and cognitive arguments. The paper then presents an argument based on dynamic systems theory in which no pre-existing template or structure for either mind or behaviour is assumed. Within the dynamic systems model the Self is viewed as an emergent phenomenon deriving from the dynamic patterns existing in a complex system that includes the physiological characteristics of the infant, the intentional attributions of the caregiver and the cultural or symbolic resources that constitute the environment. The symbol can then be seen as a discrete, and in important ways an autonomous, element in the dynamic system. Conclusions are drawn for further research into the nature of the symbol with implications for both theory and practice in analytical psychology and psychoanalysis.     

The sexual couple: a psychoanalytic exploration

Even an originally revolutionary movement like psychoanalysis can become conservative and can take refuge, at last, in reactionary acquiescence. Many revolutionary minds, fighters of yesterday, are tired and now rest their cause on dogmas and preconceived ideas. The progress of science does not tolerate such refuge. The shape of psychoanalysis around the year 2000 of our era will be very different from the concept of the New York Psychoanalytical Society of 1945. No prophetic gift is needed to predict that it will be much more occupied with the total human personality than with the sexual components. The picture of psychoanalysis in the year 2000 will, I am sure, be nearer to that which neo-psychoanalysis sketches then to that of libido theory. It will be recognized then that the crude sex-drive cannot have the power attributed to it by Freud and that early mixtures of sexual and non-sexual urges are clearly to be observed in those very phenomena which impress us as "purely" sexual." (Reik, 1945).     

Commentary on Paper by Terry Marks-Tarlow

This discussion of the paper merging and emerging: A nonlinear portrait of intersubjectivity during psychotherapy focuses on how the original paper demonstrates the usefulness of the concepts of nonlinear dynamics systems theory (NLD) to clinical psychoanalysis. Diagnosis conceptualize in NLD terms successfully resists the pressure to reduce complex situations to overly simple few word phrases. The phenomena of transference and repetition are redescribed as resulting from an iterative process that is evident in complex adaptive systems. The model of psychoanalysis in terms of coupled oscillators is demonstrated to be clinically useful as is the concept of emergence which overcomes some of the less useful aspects of the reductionist program. The idea of studying boundaries per se, as opposed to their function of separating individuals, arises naturally from the study of fractals and promises to clarify the oversimplified discussions of these matters in the psychoanalytic literature. The original author has successfully demonstrated how useful NLD conceptualizations can be to the clinical psychoanalyst.     

Body–Mind Integrality: Remarks on the Nature and Origin of Universe and Life

This article summarizes scientific knowledge in the fields of quantum physics and medical science regarding the origin and the nature of the universe and life. The recent discoveries in the fields of biophysics, genetics, epigenetics, neuroscience, and psychosomatics describe the universe and life as highly coherent systems where information is a key factor. In this concept living systems are cognitive networks in a dynamic relationship with their environment. Health in this context is a dynamic balance in a subject in which the information flows functionally. Disease is identified as a pathology of information that can be classified in a new way, considering two different codes of meaning—the semiotic and the symbolic.     

Psychoanalysis and the political process

The Political Process is Society's mechanism for debating value systems. The term can also be used to describe a debate in a variety of other settings — subsystems of Society — about value systems. This paper is about the contributions that psychoanalysis, both as a theory and in its various applications, can make to the understanding of the process of debate and its setting. It is also about the implications for our conduct that arise from this understanding.     

Problems in contemporary psychoanalytic theory: II. Lines of advance

In the theoretical development to come in psychoanalysis, an "inclusive" strategy is recommended, allowing for conflicting points of view to exist side by side waiting for a new integrating theory to emerge. Until such a theory is at hand, the term "psychoanalysis" will remain a rather loose heading for several psychoanalytic subcultures. It is argued, both clinically and theoretically, in favour of giving the organizing function of the ego a central position in the forthcoming theory. Some consequences of this "organizational" point of view are discussed in relation to: ( a ) diagnostic classification, ( b ) the distinction between psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy, and (c) the theoretical language of psychoanalysis. In conclusion som requirements for a future theory of psychoanalysis are proposed.     

A Principal Reflects on Shame and School Bullying

This article considers the contribution that consideration of the moment-to-moment process in psychoanalysis can make to an understanding of termination. Information on moment-to-moment interactions related to termination is developed from videotape microanalysis of termination discussions—focusing on a child analysis, but including an example from an adult analysis—as viewed through the structure of a developmental model (Tronick's dyadic expansion of consciousness model) that is consistent with dynamic systems theory. The theory emphasizes the co-creation of meaning that occurs in an analysis, as indicated by verbal, as well as nonverbal, interactions that are apparent in the videotape. The insights from this approach can enrich the traditional psychoanalytic views on termination by emphasizing the ongoing developmental process, with termination more of an important step in this process than a specific ending.     

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.     

“Why do (don't) you ask?” transference and the desire (not) to know

One of the criterial distinctions of psychoanalysis is its renunciation of indoctrination through suggestion. In spite of the fact that psychoanalysis is both an organized body of knowledge and a disciplined form of interpersonal influence, it regards an analyst who tells the analysand what to think or do as essentially doing harm by substituting a new form of prejudice and alienation for the preexisting form he is attacking. Even though an analyst regards his knowledge of psychoanalytic theory as adequate at a general level, this "truth" is not an adequate mode of discourse with an individual. Why not? It is a fact that analysands often do not accept an analyst's idea. However, the fundamental problematic of clinical psychoanalysis comes precisely at the point that the analysand would accept the analyst's idea, involving the distinction between a properly psychoanalytic cure and a transference cure. Psychoanalytic theory itself holds that unreflective incorporation of another's idea about oneself comes at the expense of autonomous and spontaneous self-revelation. Despite its resolute pursuit of new truths, the aim of psychoanalysis is less concerned with attaining specific ideas about unrecognized conflicts than it is with achieving a general attitude--that self-understanding requires a capacity to admit dubious and unwanted ideas and feelings that symptoms, dreams, and free associations bring to light. This "psychoanalytic" attitude permits a new type of discourse in which the person recognizes himself or herself through expression, rather than parrotting the analyst's (or others') words, or continuing rigidly to hide the truth of desire for oneself. In the long run, psychoanalysis offers to correct a primary misunderstanding: that one can acquire a comprehensively true image of oneself. As Barratt (1988) emphasizes, this transformation is tantamount to a change in personal epistemology for the analysand and a change in epistemological theory for the culture as a whole. In our culture, most analysts and lay people alike take for granted that the ego is an agent that is to be integrated and strengthened in order to direct one's life. Likewise, the unconscious is commonly regarded as a type of savage alter ego that must be mastered by the ego. According to Lacan's critique, the ego is a snare and a delusion for the patient, however highly commended by society it may be, because its very essence is to furnish the illusion of enduring self-knowledge.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

On the Nature and Meaning of Human Finitude

This article considers the interaction between psychoanalysis and philosophy by examining the meaning of human finitude in the work of Freud and Heidegger. Although Freud and Heidegger develop radically different systems of thought, they are surprisingly close in their examination of the human attitude toward death. Freud's philosophical reflections on the nature of death are ultimately subsumed in his speculative theory of the death instinct, which is far removed from the lived experience of finitude. Heidegger's ontological account of death draws from lived experience but neglects the relational nature of finitude. Drawing on the connection between the work of Binswanger and Stolorow, I maintain that finitude is a fundamentally relational phenomenon. While philosophy can help us to understand and formulate an account of human finitude, the relational nature of psychoanalysis can help us bear the trauma associated with death.     

Sem-analysing events: towards a cultural pedagogy of hope

This paper locates the concept of learning among real-life human experiences and events. Functioning as a sign, a meaningful event can be understood in terms of a cultural extra-linguistic “text.” Reading and interpreting diverse cultural “texts” are equivalent to constructing and learning critical symbolic lessons embedded in a continuous process of our experiential, both intellectual and ethical, growth. The paper employs Julia Kristeva’s theory of the abjection and her method of semanalysis as a synthesis of philosophy, psychoanalysis and semiotics. Extending semiotic analysis to the level of informal education, the paper asserts that real-life events, such as the destruction of the Twin Towers on September 11, can become a means towards constructing the cultural pedagogy of hope paramount to sustaining a global society.

From nature in love: The problem of subjectivity in Adorno and Freudian psychoanalysis

This paper investigates the potential of the concept of sublimation for thinking subjectivity at the intersection of psychoanalysis and critical theory. I first rehearse a recent argument by Whitebook that Freud’s notion of sublimation presents a nonviolent integration and expansion of the ego, which can mediate the modern dichotomy between the rational subject and nonrational impulse and desire. On this view, sublimation turns subjectivity into a site of possibility in the context of modern, rationalized thought and society. I then argue that the concept of sublimation offered to critical theory in this form is insufficiently developed. Both Freud and Adorno analyze a deep-seated destructiveness of the modern subject, which turns up right at the heart of attempts to mediate the dichotomies of rationalized modernity. What is needed to counter this problem is a theory of love in which love is not separated from, but, rather, correlated with drive and desire, and can thereby get on a level with the unconscious or unacknowledged, impulsive nature of death-bearing subjectivity in enlightened modernity. A central conception in Kristeva’s development of Freudian psychoanalysis, the idea of transference love, delivers such a theory and thereby develops the concept of sublimation in the way that is needed at the intersection of psychoanalysis and critical theory.