Politics and psychoanalysis in Vienna before 1938

On the basis of personal reminiscences the author describes the political climate of Vienna between the end of the Monarchy and Anschluss of Austria. At the same time she clarifies the extent to which politics impinged on psychoanalysis.     

1931-1936年中国共产党宗教政策研究

从1931年“九·一八事变”到1936年”西安事变”前后,中国共产党的宗教政策根据其自身发展的历程,以1935年1月遵义会议为界,可以将其分为前后两个时期。遵义会议前,中国共产党执行了比较激进的宗教政策,其中有积极的方面,也有消极负面的影响。遵义会议后,为建立国共合作的统一战线,在宗教政策上也日趋务实,形成了团结一切抗日宗教团体和宗教人士的宗教政策。     

The golden section and American psychology, 1892–1938

The golden section has been said by many to be the most beautiful proportion. Fechner was the first to investigate it experimentally, and several late‐nineteenth‐ and early‐twentieth‐century American psychologists followed up on his work. Among these were four prominent names: Lightner Witmer (1867–1956), Edward L. Thorndike (1874–1949), Robert S. Woodworth (1869–1962), and Robert M. Ogden (1877–1959). Why did such well‐known psychologists bother with the golden section? In attempting to answer this question we discovered that the golden section was surprisingly well known during this period, not only in psychology but also in advertising and design. It would have been entirely congruent with their stature for prominent psychologists to take an interest in it. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

On destructiveness in the analyst

The paper describes the therapeutic relationship, specifically the countertransference enactments of the analyst whose own destructive impulses were inevitably mobilised in the treatment of a narcissistically disturbed patient. They are discussed in the light of other authors’ theoretical understanding of the described dynamics. The societal context of the analyst’s work is being discussed.     

The cult of experiment: the Psychological Round Table, 1936-1941

The Psychological Round Table (PRT) was an important yet anomalous society founded by young American experimental psychologists. Although it was secretive, it encouraged contact among young experimental psychologists. Although it was motivated by perceived inequities in professional psychology, it was governed by an autocratic minority. And although it was self-consciously informal and irreverent, it clandestinely used formal selection procedures. These aspects of the PRT are documented and explained (counter to L. Benjamin, 1977) as manifestations of the PRT's devotion to psychological experimentation, specially understood. Secrecy, specifically, served not to protect PRT participants from senior colleagues but to create an environment free of political and professional influences and thus taken to be well suited to the vetting of experiments. In this regard, the PRT is distinguished from more familiar scientific societies.     

Transference,relationship and the analyst as object: Findings from the North American Comparative Clinical Methods Working Party

Data from the North American Comparative Clinical Methods (CCM) Working Party a is used to 1) explore how psychoanalysts in North America conceive and address the transference and the relationship between analyst‐analysand and 2) to study what kinds of ‘objects’ psychoanalysts become, explicitly and implicitly, within psychoanalytic treatments. The North American CCM Working Party closely studied 17 clinical cases presented by North American psychoanalysts across the spectrum of analytic schools at their meetings. We found that the 17 analysts fell into three different groupings according to the internal consistency of their method and their approaches to transference, relationship and analyst‐as ‐object. We also found that analysts' individual work, while heavily influenced by their schools of thought, also involved unique interpretations of their particular paradigms.     

Life-threatening illness in the analyst

The literature on practicing throughout a life-threatening illness is reviewed and important differences about attitudes toward self-disclosure are understood by noting a division between two perspectives on transference: "one-body" and "two-body" views. The analyst's use of self-disclosure is informed by the prominence given the interpretation of transference as against that given the patient's needs in the collaborative relatedness supporting the therapeutic alliance. Themes and illustrative clinical vignettes are presented from the author's own experience practicing during such an illness. Three phases of working during illness are delineated, each somewhat different regarding the analyst's state, and hence patients' needs and reactions. Recommendations are made regarding conditions that make it possible to work effectively during a life-threatening illness. The analyst needs help from his or her own analyst to make the clinically and sometimes ethically appropriate decisions about practice; while this is important in instances in which the analyst recovers, it is essential should the analyst become terminal and face more certain death.     

The role of the analyst in the analytic cure during times of chronic crises

The role of the analyst in psychoanalytic treatment during periods of chronic crises is illustrated with material from two case studies. The first clinical vignette shows an analyst able to stay with fears evoked in the patient by the traumatic external reality, even as the analyst tried to explore with the patient an inner universe that handled this reality in unique ways. The second case study focuses on how the analyst's countertransference during this period of chronic crises, which she was experiencing along with the patient, made it difficult for her to contain the patient's fears and anxieties, because of the threat to her own existence, as well as to her identity as an analyst. In this second case the analyst, out of denial of the external situation, focused blindly on the patient's internal reality in order to counteract her own sense of passivity and helplessness in the confrontation with death and destruction. She clung to "classical" analysis by trying to analyze the patient's defenses, work them through, etc., thus making so-called analytic interpretations rather than staying with the patient's fear, as well as her own, and helping the patient more directly. A turning point came with the birth of the analyst's granddaughter; fear for the new arrival's safety made the analyst sharply aware that it is impossible to ignore external reality, that it must be given a place both in everyday life and in analysis. This awareness enabled the analyst to contain the patients' fears, which helped him feel more supported and facilitated change.     

毛泽东、陈伯达和"马克思主义中国化"(1936-1938)

导言1938年毛泽东倡导的“马克思主义中国化”依然是中国共产党意识形态史上最有吸引力的话题之一。奇怪的是,虽然这个概念在大量的中国共产主义运动研究中受到过短暂的关注,但几乎没有被置于细致入微的历史和理论分析。①大致而言,这个概念包含两个相互独立又密切相关的维度。     

Alchemy in the image of the analyst

The author aims to demonstrate the activation in the transference relationship of a figure representing 'sameness' in a number of forms. In the first clinical vignette, she shows how a child projects his own difficulty symmetrically on to the analyst, with the aim of creating the conjunction of opposites which the psyche needs for its growth.
During the archetypal reworking which adolescence provides we again find this figure of 'sameness' in the foreground, in the phase of homosexual object choice. A second clinical vignette shows how this figure of 'sameness' can be represented in the fantasy or the desire of becoming an analyst.
The author puts forward the hypothesis that this fantasy represents an imago whose characteristics include being a tool for linking feeling and thinking in the inner world; it is constituted in the entre deux , the space between self and other, and, like Winnicott's transitional object, it facilitates the capacity to symbolize. Being 'off centre' with regard to infantile positions in relation to the parental imagos, this imago offers a vantage point for 'evaluation' ( sich auseinandersetzen ) and 'consideration' ( betrachten ). Finally this imago is transistory, because its destiny is to be deconstructed (as shown in the third clinical vignette which concerns an adult patient), in order to be integrated through the work of analysis.     

Coherence,anti-realism and the Vienna Circle

Some members of the Vienna Circle argued for a coherence theory of truth. Their coherentism is immune to standard objections. Most versions of coherentism are unable to show why a sentence cannot be true even though it fails to cohere with a system of beliefs. That is, it seems that truth may transcend what we can be warranted in believing. If so, truth cannot consist in coherence with a system of beliefs. The Vienna Circle's coherentists held, first, that sentences are warranted by coherence with a system of beliefs. Next they drew upon their verification theory of meaning, a consequence of which is that truth cannot transcend what can be warranted. The coherence theory of knowledge and verificationism together entail that truth cannot transcend what can be warranted by coherence with a system of beliefs. The Vienna Circle's argument for coherentism is strong and anticipates contemporary anti-realism.