Ferenczi and Freud – From psychoanalysis as a “professional and personal home” to the creation of a “psychoanalytic home” for the patient1

Abstract

The author explores the relationship between Sándor Ferenczi and Sigmund Freud in the light of their correspondence. This allows us to see how Freud was able to offer and create for Ferenczi a “professional and personal home” that enabled the latter to find a much more meaningful and creative contact with himself. According to the author, this experience played an important role in Ferenczi’s later readiness to offer to and create with his patients a similar “psychoanalytic home.” As Freud was not able to share such clinical research work with Ferenczi, a conflict developed between them whose nature has occupied psychoanalysts ever since, and whose seeds can be found in the 1246 letters that they exchanged between January 1908 and May 1933. From this point of view, Ferenczi’s Clinical diary (written in 1932 and published only in 1985) can be seen as the continuation of the dialogue they had entertained for so many years, as well as Ferenczi’s attempt not to give up the “professional and personal home” that they had created together.     

Wilhelm Reich Revisited: The role of ideology in character analysis of the individual versus character analysis of the masses and the Holocaust

Abstract

One of the most controversial members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and Freud’s intimate for many years, Reich is known not only for his seminal contributions to therapeutic and social psychoanalysis in his 1933 classic Character analysis, but also for his notoriety as a discoverer of an energy he named orgone. This paper is devoted to Reich the psychoanalytic sociologist and reformer, with special prominence given to his other, now somewhat forgotten, 1933 book The mass psychology of Fascism.     

On True Friendship and on the Anthropological Relevance of Freud’s The Future of an Illusion

In this response article to Isabelle Noth and Christoph Morgenthaler’s text on the correspondence between Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister, the author reflects on two issues: first, Freud’s theoretical ideas on friendship and, second, his essay The Future of an Illusion as a text in which Freud abandons his general theoretical starting point, namely the analysis of the human condition, normality, and cultural and religious phenomena from the perspective of clinical anthropology.     

Hamlet: plea for a measure of normality

The author first considers issues in psychoanalytic interpretations of literary characters, especially the question of treating the character as fiction (the aesthetic illusion) or as a real person. The position he adopts is to interpret Hamlet as a potential person, created by Shakespeare and an expression of Shakespeare’s actual – and intuitive – view of man.

With a synopsis of the tragedy and the context of its creation as background, the author then reflects on questions concerning the play. How does Shakespeare present the characters? Is Hamlet’s madness pretended or real? Which conflicts does he handle in the course of the play? Has Oedipal dynamics a role as motivational factor in his mind?

Hamlet is irrational, impulsive, emotional, inhibited, brooding, suspicious, revengeful, condemning and much more. But, in the view of the author, he is all this in a human, ‘normal’ way. There is nothing convincingly pathological or constricted in his character. ‘Un-normal’ is his intelligence and his wit. Hamlet – an intelligent, reflected, resourceful prince in late Renaissance – who has wrestle with a madhouse of political intrigues, family murders and deceitful friends.

Hamlet in Shakespeare’s text – a fairly normal person in quite a mad world.     

That obscure object of psychoanalysis

This essay examines how psychoanalytic conceptions of the subject and the object in the works of Freud and Lacan may contribute to a re-examination of the vexed issue of the subject–object relationship in science, philosophy and epistemology. For Freud, the ego is the essential subject, yet he regarded it as an always already objectified subject, which is objectively thinkable yet never subjectively knowable qua subject. Lacan conceptualised this Freudian principle of subjectivity with his notion of the divided (barred) subject, which he initially designated as an effect of the symbolic order of language. As to the object, both Freud and Lacan emphasized its constitutive partiality, which explains why no object is ever fully capable of providing full satisfaction and why each and every object is flawed and cracked, thus triggering desire. Extending Freud’s idea of the ‘shadow of the object,’ Lacan captured the fundamental inadequacy of the object with his concept of the object a. As such, for Freud and Lacan, the subject–object relationship is problematic, because it concerns a relationship between a divided subject and a non-object (object a). In this relationship, the subject is not purely object and the object is not merely subject (in the Kantian sense), nor is the Hegelian subject–object identity more than an idealist aspiration. For psychoanalysis, the subject is always traversed by the object, yet the object can never be fully integrated into a subjectified structure of knowledge. The only way to conceive of an adequate subject–object relationship is at the level of fantasy.     

Moses,Michelangelo and Freud: From an interlacement of stories in history to some suggestions for treatment theory

Abstract

The first part of this paper is inspired by Freud's interpretation of Michelangelo's Moses, which as the author shows, profoundly expresses Freud's subjectivity and personal features. With reference to clinical treatment, when the analyst “reasons” without considering his or her partner's position, the setting is lacking from a relational point of view. The consequence is that the analyst is missing a precious resource, that is, his or her patient and the documental sources he or she transmits in the analytic dialogue. In the second part of the paper, the author analyzes the nature of documental sources. This information pertains to both the patients’ pasts and their histories, expressing their rigid conservative needs, and to their evolution and transformational needs, in view of future possible change. Evolution needs are not visible, because they are implicitly present, and—according to the author—they could be recognized through the method of discrete details proposed by the Italian art critic G. Morelli. A broader vision of analytic listening is also considered: the past should be taken into account with the aim of interpreting the present and the future, as changing spaces. Change in therapy is announced through nonrepressed unconscious signals and by the language of the implicit. In the conclusion, the author exposes the connections of change, implicit, symbol, metaphorical language and waiting time.     

The Hospital Room as Uncanny: Psychoanalytic Observations and Recommendations for Pastors and Chaplains

This essay in applied psychoanalysis is written for the field of pastoral psychology, and it also has obvious affinities with the medical humanities. The author uses Freud’s (The uncanny. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 17, pp. 217–256). Vintage, London, 1919/2001) “The Uncanny” to question the concept of homelike hospital rooms. Instead of making patients feel more comfortable, the authors believes that these rooms could, in some cases, actually increase the anxiety of patients. The author uses Helena Michie’s personal story of her experience of touring a birthing suite to support this argument, as well as some poetry by Billy Collins. The author, however, does not stop with identifying a problem, as he also suggests that pastors and chaplains, when they provide care for their patients, should help them identify and use their own transitional and transformational objects. These objects, of course, will be highly idiosyncratic, and it is precisely this kind of attention—attention to the idiosyncrasies of individuals—that pastors and chaplains should be giving to those in their care. While there is a growing literature on D. W. Winnicott, who coined the term “transitional object,” and Christopher Bollas, who gave us the term “transformational object,” in medical and pastoral circles, the author suggests that attention to and the endorsement of the use of transitional and transformational objects should become a part of hospital policy, if only in chaplaincy handbooks, so as to recognize what many individuals are already doing.     

Mourning the dead,mourning the disappeared: The enigma of the absent–presence

Freud's interest in the impact of death on the living goes back further than Mourning and Melancholia (1917e, [1915]). In Totem and Taboo (1912–13) Freud noted the ambivalence of the emotions we experience in relation to the dead. In this paper, I focus on Mourning and Melancholia as a landmark in the understanding of both the normal and psychopathological aspects of mourning and depressive processes in human beings. Mourning and Melancholia bridges Freud's first and second topographic theories of the psychic apparatus and constitutes for many authors the foundation of his theory of internal object relations. With this psychoanalytic understanding of mourning as a framework, I discuss ‘special mourning processes,’ such as the those confronted by psychoanalysts in Argentina when treating the relatives of thousands of people who were ‘disappeared’ by the military dictatorship in the 1970s; they are ‘special’ in the sense that the external reality [which] constitutes the starting point of the psychic mourning process, as described by Freud, is absent. I argue that the ‘absent–presence’ of the body as an enigmatic message initiates a special mourning process that bears certain characteristics of, and is isomorphic to, Laplanche's seduction theory.     

Mental health – a normal state?

ABSTRACT

How can we conceptualize mental health; what is the relation between mental health and normality; and what has psychoanalysis to say about these questions? After a short resume of the views concerning normality and melancholia in the last centuries, the author turns to Freud and Bion. For Freud, mental health at best seems to be a relatively mild neurotic state, and perfect mental health is an unattainable ideal. Bion underlines the dynamic nature of the concept; mental health comprehended as a process. Problems connected to the individual’s subjective view of his or her mental health are considered, and some consequences that the questions under discussion have for psychoanalytic treatment are discussed. The author concludes with a reflection on the complex relation between mental health and normality.     

Fired Up and Loaded for Bear

Three plausible psychoanalytic interpretations of a poem by Billy Collins are presented: one based on the psychoanalytic concept of reaction formation; another on the psychoanalytic view that the aims of civilization require certain renunciations of instinctual gratification; and a third on Sigmund Freud’s suggestion in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905) that irony is a subspecies of the comic. While the first two interpretations focus on the subject—the poem’s protagonist—the third focuses on its technique. As a result, the third interpretation is likely to be more useful to readers who wish to apply it to their own life-situations. To illustrate this fact, the author relates the poem to his own life-situation, which is that of entering older adulthood.     

The critique of Eros: Freud on narcissism and the prospects for romantic love

This paper examines the prospects for real/actual love as viewed from a classical psychoanalytic framework. It is argued that Freud’s prescient and controversial 1914 work On Narcissism: An Introduction holds great importance for an understanding of his views on love, which in many ways were never explicitly defined. After the concepts of narcissism and love are considered, the aim, process, consequences and specific choices of object love are analysed. Perhaps not surprisingly, both narcissism and the residue of infantile love objects permeate and continually influence subsequent object love in a powerful manner. These perseverations of the infantile, along with impediments arising from the beloved, society and the self, create a number of difficulties for a would-be lover. Despite these hindrances from both within and without, real/actual love is certainly possible within Freud’s framework, but it is hard won and appears to require the dispelling of illusions, emancipation through recognition of one’s determinism, acceptance, introspection and continual character development.     

The relevance of castration and circumcision to the origins of psychoanalysis: 1. The medical context1

In this paper the author outlines and discusses the origins and the decline of castration and circumcision as a cure for the nervous and psychic disturbances in women and little girls between 1875 and 1905. The author argues that the opposition to this medical practice affected the conception of hysteria, promoting a distinction between sexuality and the genital organs, and the emergence of an enlarged notion of sexuality, during the period from Freud’s medical education to the publication of the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. The hypothesis is put forward that Freud came directly in contact with the genital theory of the neurosis at the time of his training on the nervous disturbances in children with the paediatrician, Adolf Baginsky, in Berlin, in March 1886. It is hypothesized that this experience provoked in Freud an abhorrence of circumcision ‘as a cure or punishment for masturbation’, prompting an inner confrontation which resulted in a radical reorganization of the way of thinking about sexuality. It is also suggested that this contributed to Freud developing a capacity to stay with contradictions, something which would become a central quality of the psychoanalytic attitude.     

Reaching out for the object in the process of meeting

Reaching out for an object has been broadly discussed within psychoanalysis using the term 'object-seeking'. This article develops the idea that it is a fundamental feature of human beings to reach out for objects in order to survive and/or to gain vitality. Self-love, which is a derivative of object love, is not possible to achieve in a developmental manner without a sufficient phase-specific emotional response to the subject’s object seeking. In terms of psychoanalytic methodology, the present article represents a tradition (e.g. Tähkä) of renewal related to the classique approach, which is a more passive psychoanalytic technique (e.g. Freud and Winnicott). This traditional psychoanalytic methodology is complemented with a more active technique in order to be therapeutically efficient – especially in the treatment of individuals who are not primary neurotic. The four psychoanalytic schools (drive, object relations, ego and self-psychology) are integrated in a patient’s authentic attempt to reach out for the developmental object in the process of meeting.     

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.     

THE INTERPLAY OF DEDUCTIVE AND INDUCTIVE REASONING IN PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORIZING

Deductive and inductive reasoning both played an essential part in Freud's construction of psychoanalysis. In this paper, the author explores the happy marriage of empiricism and rationalism in Freud's use of deductive reasoning in the construction of psychoanalytic theory. To do this, the author considers three major amendments Freud made to his theory: (i) infant and childhood sexuality, (ii) the structural theory, and (iii) the theory of signal anxiety. Ultimately, the author argues for, and presents Freud as a proponent of, the epistemological position that he calls critical realism.     

Some Characteristics of Dreams in Group - Analytic Psychotherapy

Abstract

Group psychoanalytic theory rests on many of the same psychoanalytic assumptions as individual psychoanalytic theory but has been slow in developing its own language and unique understanding of conflict within the group, as many group phenomena are not the same as individual psychic events. Regressive fantasies and alliances within and to the group are determined by group composition and the interaction of fantasies among members and leader. Bion’s useful but incomplete early abstract formulation of psychic regression in groups was the initial attempt to move beyond Freud’s largely sociological view. This paper explores some of the origins of Bion’s neglect of murderous violence in groups as a result of his own experiences in the first European war. In the following, I present evidence for the existence of a violent basic assumption and offer evidence as to Bion’s avoidance of murderous and violent acts.     

The Perennial Freud: Method versus Myth and the Mischief of Freud Bashers

Nowadays Freud bashing is not only à la mode, in certain circles it has become de rigueur. Once a name of respect, Freud has become a name of ridicule. But like any scientific method, body of knowledge, and therapeutic procedure, psychoanalysis should be subjected to critical scrutiny. The recent crop of hostile Freud critics may have filled a vacuum left for decades by a psychoanalytic establishment which, like the Church of yesteryear, shunned all forms of criticism intramural and extramural. A central guiding idea of this essay is the distinction between the psychoanalytic method and psychoanalytic doctrines, hypotheses, and theories. This distinction has been invariably confused by both Freud's adherents and Freud's attackers. Moreover, arguments ad rem have been conflated with arguments ad hominem. A socially responsible criticism must seek to be constructive and not merely destructive. It is the latter course that was taken by the various hostile critics that came to be labeled as Freud bashers. The time has come to take a stand against the more egregious attacks on Freud and the psychoanalytic method.     

How translations of Freud’s writings have influenced French psychoanalytic thinking1

Translations of Freud ’s writings have had a lasting influence on psychoanalytic thinking in France. They have, all the same, given rise to some conceptual distortions as regards the ego and the id, the ideal ego and the ego ideal, and splitting. Lacan’s ‘return to Freud ’ certainly reawakened interest in Freud ’s writings; however, by focusing mainly on Freud ’s early work, Lacan’s personal reading played down the importance of the texts Freud wrote after his metapsychological papers of 1915. The fact that there is no French edition of Freud ’s complete works makes it difficult for French psychoanalysts to put them in a proper context with respect to his developments as a whole. The Oeuvres Complètes [Complete Works] edition may well turn out to be the equivalent of the Standard Edition, but it is as yet far from complete – and, since the vocabulary employed is far removed from everyday language, those volumes already in print tend to make the general public less likely to read Freud. In this paper, the author evokes certain questions that go beyond the French example, such as the impact that translations have within other psychoanalytic contexts. Now that English has become more or less the lingua franca for communication between psychoanalysts, we have to face up to new challenges if we are to avoid a twofold risk: that of mere standardization, as well as that of a ‘Babelization’ of psychoanalysis.     

BEFORE BABEL: REFLECTIONS ON READING AND TRANSLATING FREUD

The author offers some thoughts on reading and teaching Freud, on translating Freud, on translation in general, and on a possible kinship between translation and the psychoanalytic process. His reading of Freud's works, and the years he spent translating them into Hebrew and editing Hebrew editions of his writings, have made a deep and salient impression on his personal psychoanalytic palimpsest. The author began this labor prior to his psychoanalytic training and has no doubt that, to this day, the experience greatly shapes not only his attitude toward Freud himself, but also the nature of how he listens to patients and the way he thinks and writes about psychoanalysis.     

Otto Rank's art

Abstract

Otto Rank's work has had an indirect influence on much of existential‐humanistic psychology, yet his contribution has been unevenly acknowledged. Seeing Rank as a developing artist helps to put his creative contributions to psychoanalysis, post‐psychoanalytic critique, and existential‐humanistic psychotherapy, in perspective. After his separation from Freud, Rank's innovative thought blossomed; his later works have deep and lingering humanistic import. A look at convergences and divergences between Freud and Rank shows that Rank's art (of living, of theorizing, and of practicing therapy) is an uncannily familiar and inspiring model of humanistic practice in the world. The continuing relevance of Rank's ideas about art and artists is explored, and Rank is re‐introduced to humanistic psychologists who may recognize aspects of his work as consonant with their own.