The concept of termination and the evolution of psychoanalytic thought

Termination is a post-Freud contribution to the psychoanalytic process, which is never complete. The concept is illuminated in its analytic history and development. A formal well-defined terminal phase led to a tripartite psychoanalytic process which derived from and contributed to advances in psychoanalytic theory and knowledge. The terminal phase is a valuable addition and conclusion, but may be invested with irrational expectation and analytic myth. Various features and formulations of the terminal phase are explored, and the limitations of termination are noted.     

Psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic science, and psychoanalytic research--1986

The present standing of psychoanalysis as a science and the vitality of psychoanalytic research effort are reviewed. The two are interdependent, since the possibilities for empirical research rest on the necessary assumption that psychoanalysis is indeed enough a science to be susceptible to knowledge advance by the (research) methods of science. Concerning our status as a science, I review attacks on our scientific credentials (both from within our ranks and without) by the logical positivists, by the hermeneuticists (a rubric comprising a variety of hermeneutic, phenomenological, exclusively subjectivistic, and/or linguistically based conceptualizations of our field), and the most recent by the philosopher of science, Adolf Grünbaum. I try to demonstrate what I feel to be the failure of each of these assaults, and why I feel there is no reason to see psychoanalysis as anything other than a scientific psychology and, therefore, in theory amenable to empirical research approaches. I then review the history and the current status of these systematic research efforts in psychoanalysis, and the reasons why these have been far less in scope and in accomplishment than has been possible or than has been needed. Here I have focused especially on research involving technique and our theory of change and cure--i.e., research on the analytic process; on what changes take place (outcome) and how those changes come about or are brought about (process).     

The reassembly of the body from parts: psychoanalytic reflections on death, resurrection, and cannibalism

Terror of the dismemberment, disintegration, and decay of the body after death has been represented in ritual, myth, legend, art, and religious belief throughout the ages. So too has the wished-for triumph over these inevitable processes. Commonly, bodily experience after death is represented mentally in cannibalistic ideas of eating and being eaten, which are then countered by the wishful undoing of cannibalistic destruction through its reversal: swallowing as regurgitation, dismemberment as rememberment, disintegration as reassembly. Luca Signorelli's fresco The Resurrection of the Flesh is part of his celebrated group of decorations (1499-1504) of the Cappella Nuova in the cathedral at Orvieto. The doctrinal, iconographic, social, and political contexts of this admired and influential work are explored in order to illustrate how and why this painting represents our greatest fears, along with our triumph over them, as well as our most destructive urges and their reparative counterparts. The photographer Sally Mann has explored these same themes. In What Remains (2003), a series of pictures with accompanying text, Mann documents her exhumation and reassembly of the body of her beloved pet greyhound. Two clinical examples illustrate some ways these concerns (cannibalism and reassembly) may make their appearance in psychoanalytic work.     

Surviving death: how to refute termination theses

When deciding how ‘death’ should be defined, it is helpful to consider cases in which vital functions are restored to an organism long after those vital functions have ceased. Here I consider whether such restoration cases can be used to refute termination theses. Focusing largely on the termination thesis applied to human animals (the view that when human animals die they cease to exist), I develop a line of argument from the possibility of human restoration to the conclusion that in many actual cases, human animals continue to exist after they die. The line of reasoning developed here can be extended to show that other organisms survive death in many actual cases. This line of reasoning improves on other arguments that have been offered against termination theses. And if my argument regarding human animals surviving death is successful, then assuming that human persons are animals, we can also conclude that human persons in many actual cases continue to exist after death.     

The death drive: Conceptual analysis and relevance in the Spanish psychoanalytic community1

Based on a six‐year doctoral research, the author carries out a historical, epistemological and paradigmatic assessment of the controversial concept of the death instinct. The author analyses this notion’s speculative nature; its relation with the second principle of thermodynamics; the feasibility of a return to an inorganic state; the death drive’s metaphorical and isomorphic uses, as well as its theoretical and doctrinaire approaches; its relationship with repetition compulsion and masochism; the influence of Freud ’s scientific background on its formulation; and its context‐dependent meaning. Although this paper stems mainly from the theoretical aspects of the study, it also offers some clinical thoughts on the basis of a clinical vignette. The author stresses the underlying healing aspects of repetition in the analytic situation. Next, he presents concise comments on his empirical research on the current professional usage of the death drive in the Spanish psychoanalytical community. This research covered more than 27% of Spanish psychoanalysts (IPA) and psychotherapists (EFPP). The essay’s conclusions point to the ambiguous character of the death drive concept and its literal unacceptability and the absence of consistent arguments for its acceptance.     

Convergence,commonality, and context in psychoanalytic supervision

ABSTRACT

What are the binding commonalities that demark and define any and all psychoanalytic supervision perspectives? What do we all do as psychoanalytic supervisors that practically matters? Furthermore, might there be a unifying model that anchors those binding commonalities together into a supervision meaning-making, explanatory framework? In this two-part paper, I take up those questions. In Part I, based on a century-spanning literature review, I identify 50 (non-exhaustive) common Support and Learning factors that appear present across the panoply of psychoanalytic supervision perspectives. Relational, educational, and interventional, these 50 factors reflect the very stuff of which psychoanalytic supervision is made. In Part II, I present and elaborate upon the Contextual Psychoanalytic Supervision Relationship Model (CPSRM) – a theoretically-grounded model that anchors and contextualizes those common Support and Learning factors. Because common factors can be seen as nothing more than atheoretical amalgamation (i.e., lists of desirable characteristics endlessly strung together), the CPSRM is proposed as a theoretically-based antidote. A supervisory extrapolation of Wampold’s contextual psychotherapy relationship model, the CPSRM accentuates relational connection, expectations/goals, and educational action as preeminently supervisee change inducing and learner affecting.