Clinical Relevance of Social Character and Social Unconscious

The author discusses his recollection of Erich Fromm's views on psychoanalytic work with patients, including the author's treatment of a patient. The remembrance involves Fromm's clinical thinking on social character and the social unconscious, and its relevance to present-day clinical work. The author presents, in detail, his treatment of a 37-year old successful woman which addresses certain of today's clinical views on gender differences that resonate and differ with Fromm's thinking on the treatment of the marketing personality.     

Disbelief and Trust in Psychoanalysis - A Case Study

A case of unorthodox psychoanalysis with a 27-year-old woman, during the years 1994-1998 is presented. The patient, Silja, suffered from severe character neurosis with depression. She studied humanities at the University of Helsinki with poor results, because of severe inner demands of perfection. The therapy was unorthodox, because it was necessary to change the method a few times. After two years of psychoanalysis, a life-threatening crisis occurred in 1996, and I was obliged to take a more active role and even give direct advice concerning her studies. This was successful, and she could achieve her B.A., the lower university degree. The change of method was necessary to avoid suicide. In the end we could resume psychoanalysis and analyse what had happened. Suddenly in the summer of 1998 Silja's depression disappeared and her looks improved. Therapy ended in November 1998, when she was ready to try on her own. According to her both the holding and love and also the direct advice were the most important elements in her cure. After a three years' follow-up her condition had further improved, she was married, had a job and was expecting a baby.     

Human Rights and Pluralism in CatholicSocial Thought

The essay argues that a Catholic tradition of natural law and its conception of human rights depend on the continuing life of institutions that stand apart from and sustain standards of justice independent from the modern state and its corresponding economy. Christians contribute to a defense of human rights precisely as members of their Churches, through their social and institutional presence across the globe. Catholic social thought deals with matters of human rights from within a tradition of natural law that assumes a common human end, a common good. This ecclesiological tradition of the human good is precisely what Catholics have to offer in a context of pluralism. The Church has a task of sustaining institutions where its practical rationality about human goods offers a practical alternative in a world where the self-interest of states and purely economic interests win the day.     

The Institute on Human Values in Medicine: Its Role and Influence in the Conception and Evolution of Bioethics

For ten years, 1971–1981, the Institute onHuman Values in Medicine (IHVM) played a keyrole in the development of Bioethics as afield. We have written this history andanalysis to bring to new generations ofBioethicists information about the developmentof their field within both the humanitiesdisciplines and the health professions. Thepioneers in medical humanities and ethics cametogether with medical professionals in thedecade of the 1960s. By the 1980s Bioethics wasa fully recognized discipline. We show the rolethat IHVM programs played in defining thefield, training faculty and helping schools todevelop programs. We review the beginnings ofthe IHVM in the crucible of social andtechnological change that led to theestablishment of the IHVM's parentorganization, the Society for Health and HumanValues. We then turn to the IHVM programsthrough which Faculty members receivedfellowships to explore new crossovers betweenthe humanities and the health professions. Wehave not only described the Fellows Program asit existed in 1973–1980, but have completed asurvey of the fellows a quarter of a centuryafter they held their fellowships. We describeother IHVM programs designed to facilitate theinitiation and development of new humanitiesprograms, to explore conceptual issues betweenmedicine and five humanities fields, to conductissue driven or educational method conferencesand to advance humanities programs intograduate education through the Directors ofMedical Education.