Freud's Deshi: The coming of psychoanalysis to Japan

This paper presents an account of four Japanese men, three of whom had an audience with Freud and who, with differing experiences and ambitions, returned to Japan to practice and develop psychoanalysis. Only two received any formal training, and two were strongly influenced by Buddhist thought. Freud gave no clear sign as to whom to appoint as leader, leaving the situation unsettled. This may have contributed to the continuing split and rivalry between groups, a split which was not resolved until the formation of the Japanese Psychoanalytic Society for trained analysts and the Association for interested laymen in the 1950s. From the beginning the development of psychoanalysis in Japan was informed by a paradox: the need to get Freud's approval and hence appear orthodox, while assimilating some of the concepts to the dictates of the culture. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Dreamwork beyond psychoanalysis

Abstract

Dr. Montague Ullman's work with dream groups is the main subject of this paper. After detailing his method there follows an account of the author's experience in a dream workshop run by Dr. Ullman. The theoretical issues involved in this work are discussed, particularly the ideas of Trigant Burrow, an early American analyst who believed in species connectedness, and David Bohm's theory of implicate order. Dr. Ullman's intention to return to the healing process in dreams to ordinary people is connected with the author's paper “Thoughts on the Healing Process.” The implications for psychoanalysis of these holistic ideas are considered.     

Freud's Irma dream and the origins of psychoanalysis

This paper investigates Freud's Irma dream as a response, in part, to the publication of Studies on Hysteria (Breuer & Freud, 1893-1895). As such, Freud's dream and associations reveal a great deal regarding the origins of psychoanalysis. The preamble to the dream reflects Freud's concern with the ground rules and boundaries of the psychotherapeutic technique that he was in the process of developing. This paper cites evidence for Freud's concerns regarding the consequences of alterations in these basic tenets. The Irma dream and Freud's associations also convey a deep and apparently unconscious concern within Freud in respect to the concept of transference, which he may have realized on some level had been used to defensively deny disturbing inputs by the therapist into the treatment situation and patient. The dream may be understood also as reflecting a deep sense of concern regarding unrecognized harmful effects of psychoanalytic psychotherapy and Freud's concern that the treatment process might be more destructive than helpful. The curative aspects of psychotherapy are viewed in terms of action-discharge rather than insight. In all, this reanalysis of the Irma dream focuses on Freud's unconscious conflicts, fantasies, and anxieties at a time when he, along with Breuer, presented a burgeoning psychoanalytic treatment modality to the professional world.     

New heads for Freud's hydra: psychoanalysis in Los Angeles

This paper describes the transplantation of psychoanalysis from Europe to Los Angeles and the similarities and differences in followers, cultural attitudes, institutional organization, and patient symptoms. Psychoanalysis in both places attracted psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, artists, writers, and movie people, all committed to "modernism" and cultural change. But special American conditions created greater institutional rigidity, medicalization, and a more diffuse patient symptomatology centered on the maternal relationship. Such conditions also fostered bitter disputes over modifications of psychoanalytic theory and practice which have only recently become less acute as the status of psychoanalysis has declined in America.     

The dual impact of Freud's death and Freud's death instinct theory on the history of psychoanalysis

Since I have ranged over a rather large territory in this presentation I will summarize my main points. I claim that the very way Freud created psychoanalysis made it impossible for it to continue to grow and develop as a unified movement after his death. Unlike other sciences, psychoanalysis had no way of differentiating its basic findings from what is yet to be discovered. I then reintroduced my differentiation between heretics, modifiers, and extenders, claiming that after Freud’s death there was less opportunity for heretics and more space for modifiers. I assigned a crucial role to the fact that Anna Freud did not succeed in expelling the Kleinians. In the second part of the paper I presented the view of those who made use of Freud’s death instinct theory and those who opposed it. Many analysts preferred to ignore dealing with it rather than state their opposition. My presentation was biased in favor of those who chose to work with the death instinct as a clinical reality,highlighting Ferenczi’s construction. I made the claim, so far as I know never made before, that Freud’s death instinct theory had a traumatic impact on the psychoanalytic movement because it greatly limited the belief in the curative power of our therapeutic work. After his announcement of the dual-instinct theory Freud withdrew his interest in psychoanalysis as a method of cure. By doing so he inflicted a narcissistic wound on psychoanalysis. I believe that the creativity of psychoanalysis will improve if we face this difficult chapter in our history.     

Re-reading "Little Hans": Freud's case study and the question of competing paradigms in psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysts have long recognized the complex interaction between clinical data and formal psychoanalytic theories. While clinical data are often used to provide "evidence" for psychoanalytic paradigms, the theoretical model used by the analyst also structures what can and cannot be seen in the data. This delicate interaction between theory and clinical data can be seen in the history of interpretations of Freud's "Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy" ("Little Hans"). Freud's himself revised his reading of the case in 1926, after which a number of psychoanalysts--including Melanie Klein, Jacques Lacan, and John Bowlby--reinterpreted the case in the light of their particular models of the mind. These analysts each found "evidence" for their theoretical model within this classic case study, and in doing so they illuminated aspects of the case that had previously been obscured, while also revealing a great deal about the shifting preoccupations of psychoanalysis as a field.     

On the vicissitudes of Freud's early mothering. I: Early environment and loss

Utilizing case examples and published accounts of Freud's infancy, I attempt to demonstrate that an upheaval in Freud's life, with a desperate turning to his mother and to oedipal issues, was the result of the loss of his nurse.     

The mind of a rationalist: German reactions to psychoanalysis in the Weimar Republic and beyond

In this article, the author seeks to trace the various attempts on the part of well-known German psychologists in the Weimar Republic to emphasize the rational side of psychoanalysis. In doing so, the author tries to demonstrate that the early reception in this period often resembled a critique of Freud's rationalism. It is possible to discern one particular form of criticism that emerged time and again, namely the association of psychoanalysis with the rationalist mind. If researchers wish to pinpoint further what lay beneath this purported connection, then it is possible to perceive a pronounced desire to prevent analysis of what many deemed to be sacred and beyond scientific scrutiny: the soul. It is precisely this discontent with Freud's thought that survived well into the Federal Republic, when other forms of critique had been discredited or no longer commanded serious attention.     

On the vicissitudes of Freud's early mothering. III: Freiberg, screen memories, and loss

Utilizing clinical examples, I attempt to show that the memories Freud recalled on his return to his childhood home in adolescence screened the traumata he had suffered when he lost his Kinderfrau, then his playmates and the Freiberg countryside during his early childhood.     

Mourning Religion: A Response

Mourning Religion is a brilliant collection of essays responding both to Freud’s essay “Mourning and Melancholia” and Peter Homans’ assertion that the academic study of religion represents a creative expression of mourning the loss of religion in secular (western) society. This essay poses questions concerning the role of theology as a mode of analysis; Ricoeur’s concept of “second naiveté” in relation to disillusionment and religion; Celia Brickman’s reflections on globalization, marginalization, and a shift in psychological language from “primitivity” to “vulnerability”; the role of the body in the work of religious studies; melancholia as “re-membering” amid multiplicity and fragmentation; and mourning as protest and resistance. The essay concludes with a reflection on ambiguity and transcendence in dialogue with Freud’s essay “On Transience.”     

Metamorphosis and the aesthetics of loss: I. Mourning Daphne--the Apollo and Daphne paintings of Nicolas Poussin

The myth of Apollo and Daphne, as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is viewed through the self‐referential eye of the seicento painter, Nicolas Poussin. Collectively, the tree‐metaphoric myths are argued to metaphorically represent, mourn, and negate unbearable realities, including the developmental challenges of adolescence and adulthood – in particular, loss. Examined in the context of their aesthetic precedents and a close reading of Ovid ’s text, the two Apollo and Daphne paintings that bracket Poussin’s oeuvre are interpreted as conveying the conflict and ambiguity inherent to Ovid, as well as connotations more personal to the artist. The poetic and aesthetic reworking of the regressive, magical experience of metamorphosis restores it to the symbolic world of metaphor: for reparation, remembrance, and return.