Space and time in psychoanalytic listening1

The analytic situation is by definition traumatic because it evokes hilflosigkeit, the state of helplessness of the newborn infant, which is the prototype of the traumatic situation, and at the origin of the experience of anxiety. The author addresses the chain of associations between the state of helplessness, repetition compulsion, trauma, infantile sexuality, pleasure and displeasure, which lie at the core of the transference experience, and which find their ultimate expression in the analyst's listening. The discovery of the compulsion to repeat instituted a paradigmatic shift in Freud's formulations, emphasizing the process of repetition of trauma, and instituting a link between the network of concepts indicated above. In the clinical example discussed, the author defines the psychoanalytic process by the primacy of sexuality, the erotic passivation in the transference that evokes the traumatic childhood sexual scene. Sexuality and sexual phantasies are at the centre of the elaboration of meaning. Furthermore, the author distinguishes between two types of interpretations, namely ‘open’ and ‘closed’.     

Reconstruction and perceptual experience: further thoughts on psychoanalytic listening

Freud's monumental shift to the fantasy theory heralded the view that "it is psychical and not material reality" which is our sole domain of inquiry. Yet despite theoretical agreement and cogent technical admonitions against concerning ourselves with absolute or "external" truths, psychoanalytic listening betrays a stance in which the analyst attunes to a reality other than that of the patient's inner world, assuming the position of arbiter--even if a silent one--of what is or is not "distorted" in the patient's perceptual experience. The central impact of perception as a significant component of the patient's inner experience--past and present--goes unattended. Clinical examples from differing theoretical persuasions are reviewed to demonstrate this occurrence. An alternative mode of listening is considered which assumes an underlying shift in outlook, suspending any notion that we can "know" what is "correct" in the patient's perception, while sharpening attunement to its clinical impact--as may be evidenced by a shift in affect or state, a turn of phrase, or the transient appearance of a symptom or old behavior. It is argued that such a stance will lead to a more singular focus on the patient's psychic reality, permitting the emergence of a deepening realm of psychic phenomena, enhancing the capacity of self-observation, and richly facilitating the reconstructive process.     

The language of empathy: an analysis of its constitution, development, and role in psychoanalytic listening

Viewed from an epistemological perspective, empathy in psychoanalytic practice is described as that aspect of a specialized attentional stance that opens channels of interaction facilitating the formation of a trusting bond and enabling one to gain access to the emotional qualities of another's experience. A literature overview traces the origins of the concept in Freud and its role in psychoanalytic listening (including its controversial, divisive evolution in our field). Empathy is then examined from a semiotic-developmental framework. Its constitutional origins, differentiated forms, and distinctive purpose in clinical discourse are discussed. A developmental line is proposed, and clear distinctions are drawn between empathy in everyday life and its specialized technical application in clinical work.     

Opening to the otherwise: The discipline of listening and the necessity of free‐association for psychoanalytic praxis

It is argued that only free‐association methodically opens the discourse of self‐consciousness (the representations available to reflective awareness) to the voicing of the repressed. The method is key to Freud's originality and the sine qua non of any genuinely psychoanalytic process. Clinical procedures which do not prioritize a steadfast and ongoing commitment to this method (instead emphasizing either interpretative formulations, as decisive acts that appear to fix and finalize the meaning of a particular lived experience, or the vicissitudes of transference‐countertransference in the immediate treatment situation) all too readily entrap the treatment, limiting its capacity to divulge the power of unconscious processes. Influenced by Laplanche, Freud's 1920 principles of lifefulness and deathfulness (the binding and unbinding of psychic energy in representations) facilitate an understanding of the unique significance of free‐associative discourse in opening the representational textuality of self‐consciousness to the voicing of that which is otherwise than representationality and reason. The ‘otherwise’ is intimated as the returning force of the repressed, as the ‘unfathomable navel’ of ‘thing‐presentations,’ experienced and expressed within the text of awareness, yet not translatable into the law and order of its logical and rhetorical reflections. Free‐associative discourse thus affects self‐consciousness in a way that is radically different from other creative procedures (‘psychosynthetic’ or integratively interpretive). In this respect, the status of free‐associative praxis as necessary for a genuinely psychoanalytic process is justified.     

Meditation and self-control

This paper seeks to analyse an under-discussed kind of self-control, namely the control of thoughts and sensations. I distinguish first-order control from second-order control and argue that their central forms are intentional concentration and intentional mindfulness respectively. These correspond to two forms of meditation, concentration meditation and mindfulness meditation, which have been regarded as central both in the traditions in which the practices arose and in the scientific literature on meditation. I analyse them in terms of their characteristic intentions, distinguish them from concentration and mindfulness in general, and examine the relations between them. Concentration involves keeping the mind focused on a single object, while mindfulness requires noticing whatever mental states occupy the focus of one’s consciousness. In the course of the investigation I examine the role of phenomenology and volition in the activity of meditating, and how they change as meditative capacities develop.     

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).     

Meditation and Appropriation: Best Practices for Counselors Who Utilize Meditation

Support for meditation is found across academic communities and popular culture. Although the application of meditative practices has yielded positive treatment outcomes, larger purposes of the practice are perhaps lost in the empirically driven West, thus driving a risk of appropriation. In response, the authors outline 4 implications for best practice for counselors who aspire to engage in the culturally responsible use of meditative practices.     

Meditation and the unconscious

This paper begins by describing the practice of meditation. It goes on to discuss George Kelly's view of the unconscious and uses meditation to illustrate this view. Some similarities between meditation and psychotherapy are also described within their mainly Kellian perspective. It is concluded, inter alia, that meditation practice sensitizes the world within, which includes subverbal and unconscious material. With increased adeptness its practice may lead to the temporary suspension of our habitual, dualistic, cognitive construing, and thus facilitate the experience of no-thought, tranquility and a sense of oneness or unity. In the long-term, meditation practice may elaborate both subverbal and transverbal construing.     

Idealization and psychoanalytic learning

Idealization is an intrinsic part of psychological maturation, but it is also a potential barrier to psychoanalytic learning, and must to some degree be outgrown if an analyst is to develop a natural authority and individual style. Unrecognized idealizations stifle analysts' engagement in the transferences of their patients, and so compromise the ability to freely experience and analyze them. Attention to real life and the lessons it teaches counterbalances the tendency to idealize and encourages lifelong psychoanalytic growth.     

Homosexuality and psychoanalytic hypocrisy

The author criticizes the common practice in the national and international psychoanalytic associations of denying homosexual applicants admission to training even though all parties know full well that there are more than a few homosexual psychoanalysts within their ranks, some of whom enjoy the high professional esteem of their colleagues. The author refers to his earlier article "Homosexuality and psychoanalysis" (Psyche, 1985, 39, 750-759).     

Thirdness and psychoanalytic concepts

Many psychoanalytic concepts lend themselves to the notion of thirdness. Starting from a basis of Freudian thought, the author discusses some of the elaborative contributions of Winnicott, Lacan, and Bion, as well as the ideas of Saussure and Peirce, noting how all these incorporate an appreciation of the value and relevance of thirdness in both the theory and practice of psychoanalysis.     

Suggestion and psychoanalytic technique

The role of the analyst's suggestive influence on the course and outcome of psychoanalytic treatment is explored, and traditional and newer perspectives on analytic technique are contrasted. The intersubjective critique of the neutral, objective analyst in relation to suggestion is examined. The inevitable presence and need for suggestive factors in analysis, and the relationship of suggestion to transference susceptibility, are emphasized. The manner in which the analysis of suggestive factors is subsumed in transference analysis as part of traditional technique is highlighted.