The making of a tragedy: perversion in the perception of truth

A type of wilful blindness can pervert an individual's perception of truth or reality, not because that reality is too much to hold, but because it is distasteful. Undesired. The case of Adam will be used to explore perversion as it twists an analytic process, affecting the transference and countertransference in ways that are difficult to see. Theorists of Freudian, Kleinian, Lacanian, and Jungian traditions are drawn from to explore potential roots to this perverted turn, and the way it can rigidify an individuation process. The anxiety that haunts this case echoes Jung's anxiety as he wondered if the stone saw him or he saw the stone. Object and observer blend when both analyst and patient hide from themselves and one another, knowing the truth of what is being discussed but blind to it.     

Don't get stuck in the mother: regression in analysis

This paper was part of an afternoon workshop on regression. It re views the author's recollections of her own analysis and clinical work with the purpose of discovering the sources of her own ideas on regression. Two specific forms of regression are then delineated – negative therapeutic reaction as described by Rosenfeld and 'umbilical transference' as a possible future development.     

Sandplay in Jungian analysis: matter and symbolic integration

Jung described a way of thinking, tied to sensations and feelings, that is a thought connected to the body. Again in The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Jung (1954) speaks of the symbol as a 'live body', corpus et anima. If the mind cannot credit itself with the discomfort that manifests through the body, this is a sign of a separation between mind and body. A consequence of all this is the literalization of the discomfort which makes it impossible to have a symbolic dimension. Therapy activates a process in which the patient can move from a stage of separation to a possible connection between mind and body, resulting in changes in the level of communication and of awareness. The mind opens itself to symbolization and the body becomes a field for a common language. From our reflections we have come to ascertain that we can speak of analysis only when an imaginary space is achieved, an intermediate space between the patient and the analyst, a space that is created from the intertwining of the symbolic capability of the patient with that of the analyst. Focusing our attention on the use of sandplay in analytic therapy, we know that one puts in the sand box objects that are marks of our psyche, visible traits that contain actions, corporeal movements and feelings. When one focuses on the overall representation built, one can go beyond the literal image and the analyst, keeping alive the image through his symbolic capability, opens the possibility of a dialogue with the symbolic dimension. The imagination as a symbolic thought is the humus that allows the analyst to maintain the intermediate symbolic level open by activating a symbolic process within the dialectic of the analysis.     

Projection,Introjection, and Projective Identification: A Reformulation

In this essay, the author recommends a reformulation of the psychoanalytic concept of pojection. The author proposes that projective processes are not merely defensive maneuvers that interfere with perception, but rather an essential means by which human perception is rendered possible. It is the manner in which human beings test and-evaluate reality in terms of their experiential structure, and their needs for survival and nourishment. Projection is the early phase of introjection.     

Cognitive culture: theoretical and empirical insights into social learning strategies

Research into social learning (learning from others) has expanded significantly in recent years, not least because of productive interactions between theoretical and empirical approaches. This has been coupled with a new emphasis on learning strategies, which places social learning within a cognitive decision-making framework. Understanding when, how and why individuals learn from others is a significant challenge, but one that is critical to numerous fields in multiple academic disciplines, including the study of social cognition.     

Art within analysis: scapegoat, transference and transformation

Through clinical example and pictorial illustration, the author examines ways in which art offers a particular means of psychological transformation in states which may otherwise be in expressable. A transference to the art work itself is proposed. It is submitted that, mediated within the transference/ countertransference dynamic, this 'scapegoat transference' facilitates a particular process of psychological differentiation. The aesthetic qualities of art presented within analysis will resonate with other countertransference affects. Clinical material demonstrates how observation of this--aesthetic countertransference--leads to a distinction between the 'diagrammatic' and the 'embodied image. The process of integration of shadow material is furthered by the temporary safe-keeping of the art work by the analyst.     

Full scenes produce more activation than close-up scenes and scene-diagnostic objects in parahippocampal and retrosplenial cortex: an fMRI study

We used fMRI to directly compare activation in two cortical regions previously identified as relevant to real-world scene processing: retrosplenial cortex and a region of posterior parahippocampal cortex functionally defined as the parahippocampal place area (PPA). We compared activation in these regions to full views of scenes from a global perspective, close-up views of sub-regions from the same scene category, and single objects highly diagnostic of that scene category. Faces were included as a control condition. Activation in parahippocampal place area was greatest for full scene views that explicitly included the 3D spatial structure of the environment, with progressively less activation for close-up views of local scene regions containing diagnostic objects but less explicitly depicting 3D scene geometry, followed by single scene-diagnostic objects. Faces did not activate parahippocampal place area. In contrast, activation in retrosplenial cortex was greatest for full scene views, and did not differ among close-up views, diagnostic objects, and faces. The results showed that parahippocampal place area responds in a graded fashion as images become more completely scene-like and include more explicit 3D structure, whereas retrosplenial cortex responds in a step-wise manner to the presence of a complete scene. These results suggest scene processing areas are particularly sensitive to the 3D geometric structure that distinguishes scenes from other types of complex and meaningful visual stimuli.     

Destruction and guilt: Splitting and reintegration in the analysis of a traumatised patient

The author traces in detail how, in the analytic relationship, she was slowly able to read aspects of the trauma as 'quotations' and gradually, through transference, transform them into a symbolic language. Split-off aggression and guilt feelings became progressively accessible to interpretation through transferential projective identifi cations. During his analysis, the patient discovered he was the child of Nazi criminals: on his mother's side they were the third generation; on his father's side, the second.     

Stimulus factors and listening strategies in auditory memory: A theoretical analysis

A theory for the temporal course of perceptual coding during auditory short-term memory tasks is described. A low-level “sensor” and a high-level “identifier” process item and order information from stimulus word-strings. Both word durations and interword pauses are needed for this processing, and if adequate processing time is unavailable, perceptual delays will lead to degraded recall performance. Stimulus parameters and subject strategies interact to determine the quality and the order in which stimulus items are coded. These hypotheses are supported both by experiments using grammatical sentences and those using lists of unrelated words.     

Transference and dream in illness: waxing psyche, waning body

In times of change, crisis, and illness, the excited points of an individual's personal history are reactivated within the transference and may also be noted by observing countertransference. When there are anomalies in the emotional and imaginal circle of the therapeutic relationship, there is occasion for repetition and/or a transformative opening. In some cases, there is simultaneous treatment of severe developmental fixations and compulsions, and issues of individuation. Images may emerge both from the personal field and from the collective and archetypal imagination. These may be expressions of interpersonal experience, intrapsychic dynamics, and physical as well as psychic state.     

Interpersonal underpinnings of request strategies: general principles and differences due to culture and gender.

Several hypotheses derived from P. Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory were tested with Ss from the United States and Korea. Ss imagined themselves in situations in which they were to make a request. They then indicated exactly what they would say in each situation and what their perceptions of the request size, the hearer's power, and the closeness of their relationship with the hearer were. Consistent with P. Brown and Levinson's theory, power, distance, and size contributed significantly to politeness. Significant predictor variable interactions suggested that an additive model is not appropriate. Finally, there was evidence of cultural and gender differences in the weighting of these predictor variables. These differences can partially account for cultural and gender differences in language use.     

Memory for objects in real scenes: The development of recognition and recall

Subjects examined crowded semirealistic layouts of toy objects, or photographs of these layouts, and then tried to identify added, moved or deleted items. The main study, involving 1st-, 3rd, 6th-graders, and adults, showed that although successful recognition of added items was superior to both recall of deleted items and recognition of moved ones, all three scores improved with age. In addition, false reports of “new” items decreased markedly in the older groups. The results argue against the widely held view that recognition memory undergoes little or no developmental improvement. No significant difference between real layouts and photographs appeared either in the main experiment or in replications involving shorter exposure (Experiment 2) or retarded subjects (Experiment 3).     

The role and importance of interpretation in the talking cure

Starting with an exploration of how the concept of interpretation in analytical treatment has evolved, the author goes on to discuss the role and importance of interpretation in the changes that psychoanalysis brings about. Although interpretation is looked upon as the key element in psychoanalytic activity, the fact that it is subsumed within the transference raises questions as to its influence in the analytical domain. After discussing the foundations of interpretation with respect to the theory of psychoanalytic treatment and examining Strachey’s views on this, the author defines the conditions and constraints surrounding interpretation and preparatory interventions in order to outline the essential nature of the interpretative process as seen against the wider background of the analyst’s activity as manifested through speech. This leads to a discussion of the relative influence of insight and suggestion in bringing about therapeutic change. The author draws the conclusion that interpretation works as a metaphor in lifting repression.     

Tradition and originality in the transference: a Coleridgean commentary

Abstract :  Some of S.T. Coleridge's observations about ' the mind's self-experience of itself ' and the nature of faith and trust are discussed in relation to the implicit tensions between 'tradition' (formal structure, received wisdom) and 'originality' (creativity, individuation), especially in the transference. The existential doubts of some analysands may undermine their confidence that their integrity will be fostered by the analytic relationship: so instead the trappings of 'tradition' (e.g. in the case of a trainee the assumption of a professionally endorsed status) may be appropriated as a spurious substitute for 'originality'.
It is argued that an anticipatory 'faith', albeit initially rather cerebral, may be necessary to sustain the analytic endeavour until a more intimate, heartfelt 'trust' can release the potential for individuation. Further consideration is given to the 'analytic attitude' that might best facilitate this process, and to how sensitivity to these dynamics may inform one's reading of the transference.     

Sabina Spielrein: out from the shadow of Jung and Freud

Abstract: Since the 1982 publication of Aldo Carotenuto's book, A Secret Symmetry: Sabina Spielrein Between Jung and Freud, there has been renewed interest in the life and work of Sabina Spielrein. She was Jung's first psychoanalytic case at the Burghölzli Hospital in 1904, and was referred to several times in The Freud/Jung Letters. Spielrein recovered, enrolled in medical school, and went on to become a Freudian analyst. Her most famous paper, published in 1912, ‘Destruction as a cause of coming into being’, was referred to by Freud in 1920 in relation to his Death Instinct theory. In the few Freudian publications on this controversial theory since 1920, Spielrein's contribution is consistently omitted. Jung also neglected to refer to her ‘Destruction’ paper in his early 1912 version of ‘Symbols of transformation’, even though he had edited her paper and had promised to acknowledge her contribution. He did refer extensively to Spielrein's first paper, her medical thesis, ‘On the psychological content of a case of schizophrenia’, published in 1911, as yet unpublished in English. In her paper Spielrein sought to understand the psychotic delusions of Frau M, a patient at the Burghölzli, much in the style of Jung's ‘Psychology of dementia praecox’ (1907). The purpose of this paper is to explore to what extent Spielrein's Frau M paper, and its companion ‘Destruction’ paper, make an original contribution to both Jung and Freud's emerging theories on the possible creative versus destructive outcomes of neurotic or psychotic introversion, culminating in Jung's concept of the ‘collective unconscious’ (1916) and Freud's concept of a ‘Death instinct’ (1920).     

Abandonment, Religion, and Male Melancholia: A Psychoanalytic Study of Archpriest Avvakum's Religious Autobiography

The present study is a psychoanalytic reading of Archpriest Avvakum's autobiography and takes its cue from some observations made by Russian and Ukrainian historian Edward Keenan, who offered a tentative diagnosis of manic-depression to describe Avvakum's personality. In my view, Donald Capps's analysis of religious male melancholia supports Keenan's observations, and I argue that Avvakum carried his childhood experiences and conflicts over into his later religious life. His religious life manifested a series of transferences and displacements, with Mary the Mother of God, God the Father, and the Church functioning as his loving or positive relationships with his family; and Patriarch Nikon and his followers embodying everything he feared and resented about his own childhood—change and abandonment.     

The family myth: its deconstruction and replacement with a balanced humanized narrative

Abstract :  According to Carl Jung the mythopoeic activities of the collective unconscious contribute to the trajectory of personal individuation ( Segal 1998 ). The 'family myth' represents an imaginal narrative that emphasizes the importance of the family's founders, its collective values, and its position with respect to 'outsiders'. Sigmund Freud identified the importance of the Oedipal myth as the basis of nuclear family dynamics ( Rudnytsky 1992 ); however, the 'myth of the family' represents in reality a 'family of myths', each emphasizing different elements of potential interpersonal dynamics. But whereas some myths foster the child's optimal separation from parental influence and promote the process of individuation, others tend to hinder development.
One potentially deleterious form of the family myth tends to serve the narcissistic wishes of parents in their bid to maintain influence over the child by fostering the archetypal features of their role. The children who are the targets of the myth are thwarted in their psychological development by virtue of the fact that they are denied the opportunity to humanize their archetypal projections onto their parent(s). The result is a persistence of childlike attitude with respect to people and situations that they encounter outside the nuclear family. The persistent constellation of the child archetype is evidenced by features of the puer aeternus, with deficits in the ability to work, form stable adult relationships, and create a separate nuclear family. The significance of this type of family myth in the inappropriate preservation of puerile attitudes is examined and the desire of the offending parent(s) to promote their own immortality is explored. The contribution of the myth to the transference and transference resistance is explicated and suggestions are offered with respect to how to approach this critical issue in analysis.