Psychoanalytic psychodrama in France and group elaboration of counter‐transference: Therapeutic operators in play therapy

In France, psychoanalytic psychodrama is mainly envisioned in its individual form – that is, a single patient working with a group of therapists. Its originality consists in bringing together several clinicians within a clinical experience that is shared as a group. This experience is fundamentally different from traditional individual therapies, psychotherapies or group co‐led therapies. Its configuration may be confusing or overwhelming due to the large number of co‐therapists involved in the setting. However, thanks to group elaboration based on the transferential‐countertransferential dynamics induced by the treated patient, this potential ‘cacophony’ can lead to fruitful psychic development embedded in play. This is tied to the co‐therapists' positioning in the transitional space shared with the patient as well as to the patient's subjective appropriation of their initiatives. By reflecting on clinical material taken from actual sessions as well as from the exchanges and elaborations occurring at their margins, this article shows how psychodrama and group come to metabolize the transferential elements, shaping the engagement of participants in the context of improvised play.     

The philosophy of self-care,individuation and psychodrama: exploring creative means to encountering the “unknown other” in self

ABSTRACT

In this article I investigate creative means to encounter otherness in oneself as a prerequisite for intercultural education. Firstly, I look at ancient Greek philosophy and the concept of self-care. Secondly, I draw from C. G. Jung’s individuation as a process of incorporating shadow parts in the self and thirdly I explore psychodramatic methods. The article is concluded with the example of a concrete application of the “Inner Team” model in a workshop on intercultural competence for caregivers in the context of elderly care.     

'Talk to me baby, tell me what's the matter now': Semiotic and developmental perspectives on communication in psychoanalytic infant treatment

Infants suffer to a considerable degree from disturbances in nursing, sleep, mood, and attachment. Psychotherapeutic methods are increasingly used to help them. According to case reports, psychoanalytic work with infants and mothers has shown deep‐reaching and often surprisingly rapid results, both in symptom reduction and in improved relations between mother and child. The clinical urgency of the method makes it important to study its results and theoretical underpinnings. Among the theoretical issues often raised in discussions on this modifi ed form of psychoanalysis, those addressing the nature of communication between analyst, baby, and the mother are the most frequent. For example, how and what does an infant understand when the analyst interprets to her? What does the analyst understand of the infant's communication? These issues are addressed by investigating the infant's tools for understanding linguistic and emotional communication, and by providing a semiotic framework for describing the communication between the three participants in the analytic setting. The paper also investigates problems with the traditional ways of using the concept of symbolization within psychoanalytic theory. The theoretical investigation is illustrated by two brief vignettes from psychoanalytic work with an 8 month‐old girl and her mother. demand for the breast. Like the two lovers in the blues, they seemed to be slaves to     

Anna Freud's contribution to the psychoanalytic theory of development

This paper elaborates key areas of Anna Freud's theory of development, setting these in the context of Freud's structural model and its influence on her early work. The centrality of the role of the ego and the beginnings of one of her major achievements, the elaboration of a psychoanalytic developmental psychology, are shown in evidence in 1936, in The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence. The author develops this theme in an exploration of the 1965 work Normality and Pathology in Childhood, looking from the base of normal development, via defence and conflict, to regression and significant developmental factors.     

Some aspects of the psychoanalytic psychology of physicians

An earlier publication ( Halpert, 1994 ) dealt with patients' magical expectations of physicians. In this presentation, aspects of physicians' expectations of themselves as doctors will be explored. This exploration will include material from the history of medicine, a series of interviews with non-patients and the analyses of two physicians. One element in the psychology of physicians not previously appreciated that can be drawn out of this material is the role and importance of knowledge and knowing and their relation to illness, death, rescue fantasies and reality in the psychology of physians.     

Movement,Stagnation, and Renewal of Movement in the Therapeutic Session

This article examines the term potential space in the therapeutic session and the pathological situations in which this space collapses. The article suggests that such failures occur in the weaving of transference and countertransference between patient and therapist. The potential to free and repair this space can be found in emotional thinking that occurs between the therapist and the patient. When the object-therapist can play or dream, the infant-patient can do so too. Thus, a new shared experience may be created in the therapeutic session and in the patient's mind. This article reviews the different types of collapse of the potential space, as suggested by Ogden, and offers a new additional type.     

试析对象关系学派的精神分析思想

对象关系学派是在英国发展起来的精神分析学的分支,它把对象关系特别是亲子关系置于理论和临床的视野中心,形成独特的对象关系理论。这一理论代表与传统驱力结构模式相对应的关系结构模式,是精神分析的一种新范式。Klein发展起来的游戏疗法是这一理论的重要临床技术。     

Minding the gap between neuroscientific and psychoanalytic understanding of autism

This paper offers an integrative approach to the increasingly complex puzzle of autistic spectrum disorders. The author demonstrates how the work of one group of neuroscientists in Parma, on a special class of brain cells called ‘mirror neurons', and the work of researchers at the University of California in San Diego, applying these findings to the problem of autism, intersect with Frances Tustin's discoveries about the nature, function and meaning of psychogenic autism in children and even autistic states in neurotic adults. Included in the author's considerations are the results of some by now well-known studies conducted by a group of biologists at the University of California at Berkeley in the 1960s on the effects of ‘enriched’ versus ‘deprived’ environments upon the development of the brain, and a study of autistic children diagnosed as brain damaged and treated psychoanalytically at the Paediatric Neuro-Psychiatric Institute of the University of Rome in the 1980s. The author concludes with a coherent picture of various dimensions of autistic phenomenon that may constitute more than just the sum of its parts, and points towards new areas for discussion and study.     

Recent developments in the technical approaches of English-language psychoanalytic schools

This paper summarizes developments in the major approaches to psychoanalytic technique derived from the ego psychology, Kleinian, British independent, self psychology, intersubjectivist, and interpersonal schools over the past fifty years. The author proposes that two major contemporary currents may be differentiated from each other, namely, the psychoanalytic "mainstream"--derived from contemporary Kleinian, contemporary Freudian, and British independent sources, and the "intersubjectivist-interpersonal-self psychology" current. In significant contrast to these two major currents within the English-language psychoanalytic approaches, the French psychoanalytic school has evolved a unique third approach to analytic technique. The author proposes that these three currents constitute the dominant trends regarding technique in contemporary psychoanalytic practice. The paper concludes with a brief outline of the characteristics of each of these technical approaches.     

Effectiveness of child psychoanalytic psychotherapy in a clinical outpatient setting

The objective of this study was to evaluate the outcome of child psychoanalytic psychotherapy in a clinical outpatient setting in a city in southern Brazil. Three psychological tests (Rorschach, Bender and WISC III) were administered to 23 children, aged 6–11 years old, and the Child Behaviour Check List (CBCL) was completed by the parents. All testing was completed before the beginning of the individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The same measures were repeated after 12 months of intervention. The 23 children who received individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy were compared with a control group who did not receive any kind of intervention. In the clinical group, the results indicated a statistically significant reduction of anxiety symptoms (0.002) and school problems (0.031), improvement in interpersonal relationships (0.022), and positive change in the following CBCL scales: withdrawn (0.010), thought problems (0.022), anxiety and depression (0.017), internalising (0.008) and total (0.003). An effect size of 0.696 was calculated based on the CBCL total scale before and after the intervention. The results revealed that child psychoanalytical psychotherapy is mostly effective in the treatment of female children who present internalising disorders.     

The research couple: a psychoanalytic perspective on dilemmas in the qualitative research interview

The relational, collaborative values of the qualitative research paradigm frequently require us to consider sharing the ongoing analysis of data with our research participants for comment and feedback. However, qualitative researchers may experience some tension between balancing participants' narrative accounts with their own analytic perspective and use of psychological theory. In using a psychoanalytic framework to explore this predicament, this paper adopts the notion of the ‘research couple', analogous to the psychotherapeutic ‘analytic couple', to consider possible oedipal dynamics within the qualitative research interview. The paper explores some of the emotional and ethical tensions in analysing and presenting research results and briefly discusses some implications for research training.     

Suspicious circumcisions: a psychoanalytic exploration of the connection between Antisemitism and Misogyny

The historical dominance of Classical Greek attitudes, beliefs, and meaning structures has directly contributed to the “otherness” status of women, establishing an implicit misogynistic undercurrent in the history of Western society. The privileging of certain Greek ethos within the foundation of Christendom has likewise amplified and institutionalised Antisemitism, solidifying the Jew as an “other”, atavistic and vestigial nation of people. The biblical world view, in contradistinction, offers an important reappraisal of masculine and feminine ideals, undercutting misogynistic attitudes and in so doing delimiting space for an authentic feminine other to find expression. The alternative gender conceptualizations endorsed by the Bible and more generally embodied in Hebraic thought render Jews a target for displaced misogynistic rage. Particular attention is given to the domains of rationality vs. irrationality, activity vs. passivity, and the dramatically different ways that the Graeco-Roman, psychoanalytic, and Jewish traditions understand ritual circumcision, specifically how after being filtered through a Hebraic lens ritual circumcision, can be psychoanalytically re-conceptualised as a potent mechanism for forging intergenerational connectedness.     

The challenge of professional identity for Chinese clinicians in the process of learning and practicing psychoanalytic psychotherapy: the discussion on the frame of Chinese culture

One important element in psychoanalysis, which is derived from Western culture, is individualization: the independency and autonomy of an individual are highly valued. However, one of the significant essences in Chinese culture is that the collective interests transcend the individual interests and the interests of social groups are more important than those of families. Therefore, when learning and practicing psychoanalytic psychotherapy, Chinese clinicians inevitably experience conflicts derived from this difference of cultural values. This article attempts to use a historical perspective to discuss the current challenges of professional identity for Chinese clinicians learning and practicing psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.     

‘The newspaper reader’: On the meaning of concrete objects in a psychoanalytic treatment1

The author investigates the meaning of concrete objects in the psychoanalytic treatment of a severely disturbed patient for the development of his inner world and the analytic process. She includes a survey of relevant theoretical concepts with an emphasis on Winnicott and Bion. It is shown that the objects served basic defensive functions both within the analytic relationship and for the precarious intrapsychic state of the patient. The author describes the technical dealing that led to a structural change. From the comparison of the initial dream and a later dream, Mr N's inner development from total inclusion in the object to triadic reality of separated, repaired objects becomes discernible. The author shows how this progress was facilitated by his use of concrete objects as links between his psychotic and non‐psychotic parts, as well as by the specifi c way the analyst handled the paradoxical transference‐ countertransference. She also illustrates the thesis that the developmental steps described are crucial for the capability to digest psychic pain by symbolization instead of discharging it in a destructive‐violent way.     

A successful trial utilizing the Leuzinger-Bohleber methodology for evaluation of psychoanalytic treatment: Preliminary report

Utilizing audio-recorded psychoanalytic interviews of both patients and their analysts, group discussions of these interviews, and the application of questionnaires commonly used in psychotherapy research, the authors investigate the potential use of the Leuzinger-Bohleber methodology as an objective evaluative instrument to assess the quality of psychoanalytic treatment. Preliminary study results were obtained through interviews conducted with seven analysts and their respective patients, three of whom were treated with psychoanalysis (three or more sessions per week, for a duration of no less than one year) and four with psychotherapy (one or two sessions per week, for a duration of no less than one year). Patients were found to be eager to participate, and no adverse experiences were reported by analysts, patients or the research team. In addition to the interviews, further data were obtained through review of mailed-in questionnaires completed by 21 patients. The authors present both preliminary observations regarding the methodology as a whole, as well as the detailed results of one specifi c case subject treated with psychotherapy. Review of study fi ndings supports the utilization of this methodology as an evaluative instrument which may ultimately advance current knowledge of the process and outcome of psychoanalytic treatment.     

Pichon Rivière's psychoanalytic contributions: Some comparisons with object relations and modern developments in psychoanalysis

Enrique Pichon Rivière's work, fundamental to Latin American and European psychoanalytic development, is largely unknown in English‐language psychoanalysis. Pichon's central contribution, the link (el vinculo), describes relational bonds in all dimensions. People are born into, live in, and relate through links. Psychic structure is built of links that then influence external interaction. Links, expressed in mind, body and external action, continuously join internal and external worlds. Links have two axes: vertical axis links connect generations through unconscious transgenerational transmission; horizontal axis links connect persons to life partners, family, community and society. For Pichon, treatment constitutes a spiral process through which interpretation disrupts existent structures, promoting new emergent organizations at successively deeper levels. Psychic and link structures evolve over time unless repetitive cycles stunt growth. For Pichon, transference is constituted in the here‐and‐now‐with‐me because of the analytic link. Pichon also undertook family and group psychoanalysis where individuals become spokespersons for unconscious links and family secrets. He developed operative groups that apply psychoanalysis to both analytic and non‐analytic tasks. After describing Pichon's major contributions, the paper compares Pichon Rivière's ideas with those of Klein, Fairbairn, Bion, Winnicott and Bowlby, and contemporary writers including Ogden, Kaës, and Ferro whose works echo Pichon Rivière's thought.