Will psychoanalysis fulfill its promise?

Although Freud had aspirations of a university structure for psychoanalytic education the sociopolitical structure of the Austro-Hungarian empire precluded this, and psychoanalysis developed by default in the central European heartland within a part-time, private-practice educational structure. With its rapid spread in the post-World-War-II United States, and its ready penetration of American academic psychiatry, a counter educational structure arose in some quarters: the department-of-psychiatry-affiliated institute within the medical school. This article outlines beyond these other, more ambitious, academic vistas (the David Shakow model, the Anna Freud model, the Menninger Foundation, Emory University (USA), AP de BA (Argentina)); conceptions even closer to the ideal (idealized) goal of full-time placement within the university, with strong links to medicine, to the behavioral sciences and to the humanities. The putative advantages of such a structure are presented.     

Psychoanalysis in the university: A full‐time vision1

Psychoanalysis may be unique among scholarly disciplines and professions in having grown as an educational enterprise in a private part‐time setting, outside the university. Freud would have liked it to be otherwise, but in Central Europe, when it was created, university placement was not possible. In America, after World War II, the concept of the medical school department of psychiatry psychoanalytic institute was established in some psychoanalytic training centers but it could only partly overcome the educational and research inadequacies of traditional psychoanalytic training. The possibilities for a true university‐based full‐time training structure are explored.     

On the need of fundaments in psychoanalytic thinking

The questions concerning the foundations of psychoanalytic knowledge have been pressing from the beginning. Beside as a therapeutic practice, Freud conceived psychoanalysis as a science, maintaining that like other sciences psychoanalysis should have sound empirical and conceptual fundaments. Freud claimed that there is an inseparable bond (ein Junktim) between cure and acquiring knowledge in psychoanalysis. One of his aims in developing a metapsychology (analogously to metaphysics) was to explicate the conceptual structure of psychoanalytic knowledge. After Freud psychoanalysts have not reached a consensus in the questions concerning the foundations. What kind of foundations does psychoanalytic knowledge need? Are they to be found from the psychoanalytic practice and research on the couch, or rather from metapsychological constructions? In what way should psychoanalysis rely on external scientific research? The article addresses these questions, arguing that even though psychoanalytic work and knowledge do gain justification from various external sources, in the end psychoanalysis stands on its own foundations. It is further argued that especially under the prevailing plurality of theoretical and clinical approaches, psychoanalysis does not have – and does not need – a foundation that could not be further questioned. Thus a coherentist picture of psychoanalysis is defended.     

IUSAM-APdeBA: A higher education institute for psychoanalytic training

The history of the last century shows the almost constant presence of psychoanalysis in the academic setting and, simultaneously, the incredible absence of analytic training at the universities. This paper outlines the project of the Buenos Aires Psychoanalytic Association (APdeBA) to create a higher education institution of its own (IUSAM) specifically aimed at lodging psychoanalytic training within a university setting. The project was approved by the Argentine educational authorities in 2005 and received the economic support of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). The academic structure of the university is described, whose goal is broadened to the interdisciplinary field of mental health with psychoanalysis as an integrating axis. Some of the characteristics of the traditional 'university model' as well as its relationship with psychoanalysis are pointed out. With the IUSAM, psychoanalytic training is not included as a part of an already established university, it rather creates a new one, with the support of a well-known psychoanalytical association (APdeBA) which endorses its activities and guarantees its identity. IPA's requirements for analytic training (didactic analysis, supervisions and seminars) have been fully preserved in this new context. Finally, some of the advantages and disadvantages of including analytic training into an academic environment are listed .     

Subjective education in analytic training: drawing on values from the art academy

Abstract: Kernberg and others have observed that psychoanalytic education has tended to promote the acquisition of theoretical knowledge and clinical technique within an atmosphere of indoctrination rather than of exploration. As a corrective, he proposed four models that correspond to values in psychoanalytic education: the art academy, the technical trade school, the religious seminary and the university. He commended models of the university and art academy to our collective attention because of their combined effectiveness in providing for the objective and subjective education of candidates: the university model for its capacity to provide a critical sense of a wide range of theories in an atmosphere tolerating debate and difference, and the art academy model for its capacity to facilitate the expression of individual creativity. In this paper, I will explore the art academy model for correspondences between artistic and analytic trainings that can enhance the development of the creative subjectivity of psychoanalytic candidates. I will draw additional correspondences between analytic and artistic learning that can enhance psychoanalytic education.     

The plight and promise of contemporary psychoanalysis in the light of its social history

This paper addresses the many changes which have beset psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic community since the widespread, general acceptance of both by the educated, middle-class public in the 1950s. It attempts to explain these changes, at least in part, by reflecting upon them in the light of the history of the psychoanalytic movement and upon the rise of dynamic psychology as well. Many in the psychoanalytic community think that their work is being ignored, devalued, and even attacked by an increasing number of influential persons and organizations. Critics claim that, epistemologically, psychoanalysis is scientifically invalid; therapeutically, it is ineffective; economically, it is too costly and takes too long; and theoretically, it is pluralized to the point of fragmentation. This is the plight of psychoanalysis. This paper argues that many of the major problems which once beset Freud and his colleagues, and which beset the psychoanalytic community today, are best understood in terms of two sociological processes, legitimation and institutionalization. Legitimation is the socio-cultural process whereby a new idea (e.g., Freud's theories, Jung's theories) contests the established web of ideas which give coherence and meaning to social and personal identity. Institutionalization refers to the way legitimated ideas replace once-contested views of reality. The single most decisive factor generating the plight of contemporary psychoanalysis is the ‘decision’ (1) to socially locate (institutionalize) psychoanalysis in institutes, rather than in clinics or universities, and (2) to represent psychoanalysis to the public (legitimation) as a medical science. In order to illustrate and advance these claims, I first define and distinguish sociologically the institute, the clinic and the university. Second, I describe the origins and development of the ‘decision’, made by Freud and his followers, to locate or institutionalize psychoanalysis in institutes. Third, I compare and contrast this early pattern of legitimation and institutionalization with that of the present-day psychoanalytic movement in England (relatively benign institutionalization) and in the United States (relatively destructive institutionalization). Throughout this discussion I draw upon the new literature on the history of psychoanalysis, past and present. As for the ‘promise’ for psychoanalysis, it can materialize insofar as psychoanalysis establishes contact with the clinic and the university (re-legitimation) and insofar as that contact becomes so self-evident that it is taken for granted (i.e., it is re-institutionalized).     

MAX EITINGON AND THE STRUGGLE TO ESTABLISH AN INTERNATIONAL STANDARD FOR PSYCHOANALYTIC TRAINING (1925‐1929)2

This paper deals with the first years of the IPA's International Training Commission (ITC). The author begins by outlining the Berlin model of training, including some less familiar aspects, and he describes how the foundation of the ITC in 1925 was designed for promoting the general establishment of institutionalised training according to this pioneer model. In relation to lay analysis, he highlights the issue of central power versus local autonomy with regard to admission policy. The latter part of the narrative is devoted to an ITC subcommittee (‘Eitingon Committee’), appointed in 1927, which tried to formulate training guidelines for the whole IPA, again with a clear Berlin profile. The discussion of the draft of these guidelines among all branch societies (with Freud himself participating) revealed some interesting disagreements, while the ‘closed’ nature of the system, as opposed to what later came to be called an ‘open system’, was hardly challenged. The initiative failed, apparently through American opposition, but essentially because of the developmental gap between local societies as to the institution of specialised psychoanalytic training. The paper is based largely on unpublished material and also provides some information about Max Eitingon, the least well known of the early leaders of psychoanalysis.     

The Dawning of a Thought and the Role of Play and Trauma

A critical scrutiny of Freud's case the Rat Man elucidates the implications of the built-in contradictions that Freud made while evolving the psychoanalytic method. By comparing the published case of the Rat Man with Freud's private notes we get access to two different perspectives. Wishing to mould a clinical situation that would confirm his theories and uphold the image of the psychoanalyst as an authority figure, Freud was partly blind to some irrational distortions in how he perceived the interaction between the patient and himself. Contradictory explicit and unconscious “theories” and the emergence of a more modern understanding of transference, which includes inter-subjective dimensions, are expounded.     

Editorial

This paper discusses contraindications to psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic training. From Freud onwards, there has been a clear understanding that not all patients are helped by psychoanalysis, but there has been considerable controversy as to who might benefit from treatment, and whether this depends on the diagnosis, the personality or the rather vague concept of “analysability". Increasing emphasis has been placed on the analyst-patient relationship and its characteristics, without this clearly solving the dilemma. Moreover, while psychoanalysis was previously perceived rather uniformly in its classical version, treating mainly neurotics, increasing differentiation between psychoanalytic schools has appeared in the last fifty years, which would seem to give grounds for a widening of indications. This development has increased the need for rational criteria for indications and contraindications. In this article, research findings relating to outcome and process and the therapeutic relationship will be examined in parallel with clinical experience. As the therapeutic relationship is probably decisive for the outcome of the treatment, scrutiny of who is suited to be a psychoanalyst should have been an important focus of research. This has not been the case. Available research on this issue and the experiences of practitioners in the evaluation of candidates will be discussed in the following.     

Catharsis: Psychoanalysis and the theatre

The notion of catharsis, in relation to tragedy, was introduced by Aristotle in his work Poetics. Over the centuries, Aristotle's innovative and enigmatic reference to this process has been widely commented on and given rise to intense controversy. In 1895, Freud and Breuer reconsidered this notion in their Studies on Hysteria, where they present the so-called cathartic therapeutic method. It is not, however, this aspect of psychoanalytical theory that the author of this article seeks to elucidate: drawing on a detailed study of the references to tragic catharsis in the work of Freud and Lacan, the author proposes to examine their implications for psychoanalytic treatment.With specific reference to Freud's article Psychopathic characters on the stage (1905) and Lacan's commentary on Sophocles' Antigone (1960), the author argues that catharsis is to be understood not so much as a mechanism of discharge linked to abreaction, but rather as the actual analytic process itself during which the Subject is 'unveiled' and thus faced with the enigma of his own desire.     

Freudian modalities of disbelief

This article can be characterized as a ‘rediscovery’ of a notion of psychoanalysis that had disappeared or had been confused by later operations. The authors explore a Freudian notion that has been unjustly misunderstood, especially because of the multiple ways in which ‘Unglaube’ – disbelief – has been translated. We shall establish the archaeology of this term in Freud by extracting its three significant modes. Firstly, paranoiac disbelief designates an unconscious process of the rejection of belief in the subject's first encounter with a sexual reality that is always traumatic. Secondly, the obsessional neurotic's disbelief, which we shall call ‘incredulity’, is a secondary, less radical refusal of belief, one that is different from its paranoiac counterpart. Finally, we shall envision a third – dialectical – type of disbelief, which Freud called ‘act of disbelief’ and which will enable us to approach the fundamental epistemic and ethical stakes for psychoanalysis.     

Ferenczi and Freud – From psychoanalysis as a “professional and personal home” to the creation of a “psychoanalytic home” for the patient1

Abstract

The author explores the relationship between Sándor Ferenczi and Sigmund Freud in the light of their correspondence. This allows us to see how Freud was able to offer and create for Ferenczi a “professional and personal home” that enabled the latter to find a much more meaningful and creative contact with himself. According to the author, this experience played an important role in Ferenczi’s later readiness to offer to and create with his patients a similar “psychoanalytic home.” As Freud was not able to share such clinical research work with Ferenczi, a conflict developed between them whose nature has occupied psychoanalysts ever since, and whose seeds can be found in the 1246 letters that they exchanged between January 1908 and May 1933. From this point of view, Ferenczi’s Clinical diary (written in 1932 and published only in 1985) can be seen as the continuation of the dialogue they had entertained for so many years, as well as Ferenczi’s attempt not to give up the “professional and personal home” that they had created together.     

A mixed-model for psychoanalytic education*

Abstract

If psychoanalysis is to avoid total marginalization, something has to be changed in the way future generations are prepared for working with patients and doing research. Reformation of psychoanalytic education may easily be the crucial issue when it comes to the survival of psychoanalysis. Its current organizational scheme has been criticized for various reasons, and various models of its structure have been proposed. I advocate a model that would combine the best features of the university education (training in clinical skills together with philosophy of science and research methodology) with personal analysis as part of psychoanalytic institutes. Although universities can remedy some of the problems of psychoanalytic institutions, they cannot contain the subjective experience of being analyzed.     

‘For our garden of remembrance is somewhere else’: Narratives of separation through the eyes of Freud's patients

This article presents a unique collection of narratives of separation – unique because the separation here is from psychoanalysis and from Freud as analyst. These narratives were published as part of memoirs written about Freud by three of his patients. Their narratives of separation give us an innovative point of view on the psychoanalytic process, in particular with respect to the importance they place on the termination phase of the analysis at a time when Freud himself had not given it much consideration. The three autobiographical texts are Abram Kardiner's memoir (1977); the memoir of Sergei Pankejeff, known as the Wolf Man (Gardiner, 1971a ); and ‘Tribute to Freud’, by the poet H.D. ( 1974 ). These three distinguished narratives are discussed here as works of translation, as understood by Walter Benjamin (1968 [1955]), Paul Ricoeur (2006 [2004]), and Jean Laplanche (1999 [1992]). They express translation under three aspects: reconstruction of the past (the work of memory), interpreting the conscious residues of the transference (the work of mourning), and, as a deferred action, deciphering the enigmatic messages received from Freud as the parental figure. This representation of the analysand's writing suggests that the separation from analysis is an endless work of translation within the endless process of deciphering the unconscious.     

The early history of lay analysis,especially in Vienna,Berlin and London: Aspects of an unfolding controversy (1906‐24)1,2

Before the First World War, it had been taken for granted that psychoanalysis was carried out by doctors. The IPA, however, also included non‐physicians. This corresponded to Freud's view that psychoanalysis was a basic science (psychology of the unconscious) with manifold fields of application in medicine as well as in the humanities. It was for the latter application that Freud specifically recruited a number of researchers, e.g. Rank. After 1918, helped by a general boom in psychotherapy, these people too began to work as therapists. This led to a debate about lay analysis within the ‘Secret Committee’ that has so far received little attention and is one focus of this paper. Abraham had only allowed doctors to become members of his group. Similarly the Berlin Policlinic was established as a place for the postgraduate training of doctors. On the other hand, Freud (together with Rank) continued to maintain his broader view of psychoanalysis. In 1920/21, he already wished that analysts would not become a subgroup within the medical profession, but a profession of their own, defined by their special training. The big problem of the late 1920s, that different attitudes to the lay question threatened the autonomy of local or national groups and the integration of the IPA, also became visible at that early time in a conflict between London (Jones) and Vienna/Berlin.     

Off the beaten track: Freud,sound and music.Statement of a problem and some historico‐critical notes1

The authors note that the element of sound and music has no place in the model of mental functioning bequeathed to us by Freud, which is dominated by the visual and the representational. They consider the reasons for this exclusion and its consequences, and ask whether the simple biographical explanation offered by Freud himself is acceptable. This contribution reconstructs the historical and cultural background to that exclusion, cites some relevant emblematic passages, and discusses Freud’s position on music and on the aesthetic experience in general. Particular attention is devoted to the relationship between Freud and Lipps, which is important both for the originality of Lipps’s thinking in the turn‐of‐the‐century debate and for his ideas on the musical aspects of the foundations of psychic life, at which Freud ‘stopped’, as he himself wrote. Moreover, the shade of Lipps accompanied Freud throughout his scientific career from 1898 to 1938. Like all foundations, that of psychoanalysis was shaped by a system of inclusions and exclusions. The exclusion of the element of sound and music is understandable in view of the cultural background to the development of the concepts of the representational unconscious and infantile sexuality. While the consequences have been far reaching, the knowledge accumulated since that exclusion enables us to resume, albeit on a different basis, the composition of the ‘unfinished symphony’ of the relationship between psychoanalysis and music.     

Psychoanalysis and the university: a difficult relationship

A critique of present-day isolation of psychoanalytic institutes and of their lack of emphasis on research and scientific development is followed with concrete proposals for reorienting psychoanalytic education toward university settings, with the ultimate purpose of bringing together psychoanalytic theory and scientific contributions with the contemporary contributions of neurobiological science and the humanities. Efforts already under way in this direction and practical recommendations for further steps to integrate psychoanalytic education and research within university settings are outlined.     

'This is not psychoanalysis': On the stony way of the Danish Psychoanalytical Society

When Freud founded the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), he wanted a network of local groups responsible for psychoanalytic training. The groups would function as ‘headquarters whose business it would be to declare: All this nonsense is nothing to do with analysis; this is not psychoanalysis. Today, with psychoanalytic pluralism, Tuckett (in press) has asked ‘Does anything go? He has pointed out that the psychoanalytic community has been increasingly willing to accept within its ranks apparently very varied approaches to theory and practice, and that this increasing diversity has many negative consequences for psychoanalytic institutions and especially for training schemas. The aim of this paper is to give an example of psychoanalysis that ‘did not go’, and how that led to a shaky start for the new Danish Psychoanalytical Society, with confusing boundary relations between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy and no training institute. Beginning with the written psychoanalytical contribution of the three founders of the Danish Society, the paper will try to identify factors that contributed to the ‘shaky start’. The paper will also examine how stones were removed from the path, thus paving the way for the members of the Society to discover ‘competent psychoanalysis’.     

The cryptomnesic origins of Jung's dream of the multi-storeyed house

Abstract :  Jung first recounted his dream of the multi-storeyed house in the 1925 seminars to illustrate the concept of the collective unconscious and explain the influence of phylogeny on his split with Freud. However, his telling the story of the dream belies a cryptomnesic influence of the early writings of psychoanalysis because Josef Breuer used a similar image to illustrate the structure of the psyche which Édouard Claparède associated with a phylogenetic inheritance. When telling the story of the dream, Jung misrepresented Freud's position, creating the impression of there being a bigger difference between their theories than was actually the case, and giving the dream a fictional significance for the breakdown of their relationship. In fact, Jung followed Freud into the fields of mythology and phylogenetics, and their split was due primarily to their different attitudes towards sexuality rather than phylogeny. The dream image has therefore led to a misunderstanding of Freudian theory when viewed from within a Jungian perspective. Freud believed there was a phylogenetic layer in the psyche, though he held a different view to Jung on its nature and importance.