The affective experience of the analyst in the extra-analytic moment

This exploration of the extra-analytic moment focuses on the analyst’s affective experience of encountering her patient outside the boundaries of the consulting room. Two complex interactions are presented in which the analyst is challenged to confront known and unknown aspects of herself and negotiate her next move. The authors discuss the value of examining oneself beyond the traditional boundaries, and highlight the potential for personal and professional growth in moments when the analyst’s fallibility and humanity are unwittingly revealed. In allowing the unpredictable to become less of an unwanted event and more of an opportunity to express that which makes us human, our analytic work is enriched.Janet Rivkin Zuckerman, Ph.D., is Visiting Instructor at the Westchester Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, Adjunct Clinical Supervisor at the Derner Institute, Adelphi University, and Ferkauf Graduate School, Yeshiva University, and Faculty Member and Supervisor at The Center for Preventive Psychiatry, White Plains, New York.Lisa Horelick, Psy.D., is Faculty Member and Supervisor at the Suffolk Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, Adjunct Clinical Supervisor at the Ferkauf Graduate School, Yeshiva University, and Supervisor at the Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, Derner Institute, Adelphi University, New York.     

The Analyst in the Pharmacy

The merging of medication and analysis has been more widely endorsed in recent years. However, the issue of the analyst needing pharmacotherapy and how its use presses on the analytic frame has not been considered. This essay will look at how the analyst's need for medication threads into the structure of treatment. Issues of stigma and shame triggered by medication use are discussed, as well as the treatment consideration of self-disclosure as an intervention. The author offers both objective and subjective data on this subject, and includes a clinical case example to illustrate how self-disclosure of medication status can offer greater degrees of freedom in a patient's analysis.     

Losing a training analyst for ethical violations: A candidate's perspective

The author presents her experience as the analysand of a training analyst who was investigated and expelled for ethical violations with another patient, including sexual-boundary violations, during her analytic training. While boundary violations by training analysts are not uncommon, the particular trauma experienced by 'bystanders' such as candidates and supervisees is not discussed in the literature, nor the response of institutes to the educational problems that are generated. The author illustrates the complications for candidates that arise from the dual roles of training analyst as educator and analyst when he or she faces investigation or censure, including isolation and secrecy, which promote various splits in the candidate, analytic dyad and group, as well as loyalty conflicts. The discussion covers three phases of the author's experience as a candidate-analysand, namely the period encompassing the institute's ethics investigation, the announcement of findings to her and to the institute as a group, and the ensuing individual and group dynamics generated by her analyst's expulsion from the institute and revocation of his medical license. Theoretical perspectives are utilized to understand the group regression, including contamination and contagion fears, which occurred in the wake of the training analyst's expulsion, and the impact of these processes on the candidate, including the pressure to function as a 'container' for projections of the group. Implications and recommendations for candidates and institutes are made for dealing helpfully with trainees who are affected by the process of dealing with a training analyst's ethical violations. Short-term and longer-term outcomes of the experience are considered.     

‘The essay method’ a qualitative method for studying therapeutic dialogues

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a qualitative research method for analysing therapeutic dialogues called ‘the essay method’. A central part of the method uses the format of the literary essay as a model. The method consists of a close monitoring of clinical material guided by an overall psychoanalytic/psychodynamic theoretical frame. It combines both clinical details and global patterns of clinical material and is especially fitted for studying relational qualities of psychotherapeutic dialogues. In this paper, the background for qualitative analysis in studying psychoanalytic material is discussed, and the procedures for using the method are demonstrated. A study of therapeutic competence in a group of student therapists is used as an example of the method in practice, demonstrating that the essay method may have potential for revising theory and establishing new concepts based on empirical findings. The essay method is compared with other qualitative methods, and it is argued that it is suitable for psychoanalytic research.     

PSYCHOTHERAPY AS PHASE-SPECIFIC INTERACTION

I am writing this paper to help myself, and hopefully some readers, to a better understanding of why some analysands in certain phases of the analysis develop the idea that they are homosexuals or that their analyst is homosexual. My basic thought is that even if these ideas have their individual roots and differ from case to case, they are also dependent on certain phenomena that are included in the analytic encounter and specified by different gender constellations constituting the analytic couple. I will present two examples from my own practice. From these two vignettes, I will draw some conclusions which are supported by my general psychoanalytic experience. The first example concerns male analysands. I have often seen male patients develop the fantasy that they “in reality” are homosexual. This fantasy is so common that it is a rule in my experience. I see it as a product of the fact that the psychoanalytic constellation consists, as in my case, of two men. The second example concerns female analysands. In a few cases with female analysands, I have seen the fantasy emerge that I, the analyst, am homosexual—a fantasy not seen in my male cases. Another difference is that I can't see this as a rule like the fantasy of the male analysands. In both the male and the female cases, I see the homosexual fantasies as a protection against discovery of the mother-transference to me. However, the fantasies have found different expressions depending on the specific gender constellation of the analytic couple: man and man and woman and man, respectively.     

Evaluating progress in training: character or competence?

Jung was mercurial in his attitudes to method and technique, leaving us a problematic legacy when it comes to evaluating the progress of trainees. Some would say that those of us involved with the assessment of candidates during their training continue to rely too heavily on intuition and subjective assessments. However good our admissions' procedures and the structures in place to review progress, the emotional and financial demands for trainees of embarking on an analytic training, the tendency for analytic institutes to remain opaque and slow to link up with the external world and the cliques within our profession make more objective assessments of progress and readiness to qualify at best haphazard and at worst inadequate. Some trainees have an immediate talent for analytic work; others develop their gifts more slowly; some never find this capacity. Working from a definition of analytic talent, the paper begins to map out a Jungian framework for assessing progress, emphasizing the significance of both character and competence and the developing relationship between them.     

Alchemy in the image of the analyst

The author aims to demonstrate the activation in the transference relationship of a figure representing 'sameness' in a number of forms. In the first clinical vignette, she shows how a child projects his own difficulty symmetrically on to the analyst, with the aim of creating the conjunction of opposites which the psyche needs for its growth.
During the archetypal reworking which adolescence provides we again find this figure of 'sameness' in the foreground, in the phase of homosexual object choice. A second clinical vignette shows how this figure of 'sameness' can be represented in the fantasy or the desire of becoming an analyst.
The author puts forward the hypothesis that this fantasy represents an imago whose characteristics include being a tool for linking feeling and thinking in the inner world; it is constituted in the entre deux , the space between self and other, and, like Winnicott's transitional object, it facilitates the capacity to symbolize. Being 'off centre' with regard to infantile positions in relation to the parental imagos, this imago offers a vantage point for 'evaluation' ( sich auseinandersetzen ) and 'consideration' ( betrachten ). Finally this imago is transistory, because its destiny is to be deconstructed (as shown in the third clinical vignette which concerns an adult patient), in order to be integrated through the work of analysis.     

A model‐based process to improve robustness in Multicriteria Decision Aiding interventions

A model‐based process is a methodological approach that facilitates interventions in new and ill or not structured problem situations. It is oriented towards improving the robustness of the intervention and its results in an incremental definition of both the problem formulation and the model, in order to reduce the uncertainty that is not only associated with the model parameters but also with the model structure, and sometimes also with the problem formulation. The nature and results of this approach, which consider the interaction between an analyst and the actors of the decision system as the decision aiding core, are proposed in relation to some actual interventions.     

Working at the frontier and the use of the analyst: Reflections on analytic survival2

Certain connotations of ‘working at the frontier’ for the practicing psychoanalyst and for psychoanalysis are discussed in terms of movement along spatial and temporal dimensions. I then selectively highlight three currently significant frontier areas: moving between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy; psychoanalysis under conditions of terror and social traumatization; and the pursuit of the definitive as against the elusive subject. I suggest ‘the use of the analyst’ as the theme that underlies and epitomizes analytic presence and activity at these frontiers. Psychoanalysts are ‘used’ in innumerable ways, but especially by surviving the destructiveness‐deliberate and unconscious, real and symbolic‐aimed at them. The psychoanalytic presence at these frontiers fashions and reaffirms its unique, life‐embracing stance out of chaotic formlessness.     

How I became a Jungian analyst

This paper is a reflection on the significance of 80 years of my life and the 40 years of it I have spent working as a Jungian analyst in Europe and in Israel. If my Jewish identity and my experience of the tragic events of the Holocaust have profoundly influenced the course of my life, it has been my training as a Jungian analyst in Zürich that permitted me to establish a new relationship with the traditional Jewish symbols and created the possibility of a new way of experiencing what it means to be a Jew. This new understanding has in turn helped me both in my work with Holocaust survivors and victims of Israel's various wars and in my theoretical reflections on this subject.     

Transference,relationship and the analyst as object: Findings from the North American Comparative Clinical Methods Working Party

Data from the North American Comparative Clinical Methods (CCM) Working Party a is used to 1) explore how psychoanalysts in North America conceive and address the transference and the relationship between analyst‐analysand and 2) to study what kinds of ‘objects’ psychoanalysts become, explicitly and implicitly, within psychoanalytic treatments. The North American CCM Working Party closely studied 17 clinical cases presented by North American psychoanalysts across the spectrum of analytic schools at their meetings. We found that the 17 analysts fell into three different groupings according to the internal consistency of their method and their approaches to transference, relationship and analyst‐as ‐object. We also found that analysts' individual work, while heavily influenced by their schools of thought, also involved unique interpretations of their particular paradigms.     

On the analysand's need to know the real person of the analyst

But the conscious achievement of inner unity clings to human relationships as to an indispensable condition. C.G.Jung (1946, p.233) Based on personal experience the main part of this paper explores the theme of the analysand's need to know the real person of the analyst and the importance, on occasion, of the analyst's disclosure of subjectivity. The concluding part offers suggestions about working with analysands where there is early emotional damage and deficits in relationship.     

The reality of the other: Dreaming of the analyst1

The author discusses the obstacles to symbolization encountered when the analyst appears in the first dream of an analysis: the reality of the other is represented through the seeming recognition of the person of the analyst, who is portrayed in undisguised form. The interpretation of this first dream gives rise to reflections on the meaning of the other’s reality in analysis: precisely this realistic representation indicates that the function of the other in the construction of the psychic world has been abolished. An analogous phenomenon is observed in the countertransference, as the analyst’s mental processes are occluded by an exclusively self‐generated interpretation of the patient’s psychic world. For the analyst too, the reality of the other proves not to play a significant part in the construction of her interpretation. A ‘turning‐point’ dream after five years bears witness to the power of the transforming function performed by the other throughout the analysis, by way of the representation of characters who stand for the necessary presence of a third party in the construction of a personal psychic reality. The author examines the mutual denial of the other’s otherness, as expressed by the vicissitudes of the transference and countertransference between analyst and patient, otherness being experienced as a disturbance of self‐sufficient narcissistic functioning. The paper ends with an analysis of the transformations that took place in the analytic relationship.     

The making of an analyst: from 'ideal' to 'good-enough'

This paper addresses the issue of variances in training modalities and how this is linked to one's personal experience of training and to one's analytic lineage. The author, who bases his reflections on discussions held during the yearly directors of training meeting of the North American Jungian Societies, suggests that, while each institute aims to provide an 'ideal' training programme for its candidates, the philosophy underlying how this ideal is defined depends, in large part, on the theoretical and philosophical orientation of the founding fathers and mothers. This results in a form of analytic lineage that necessarily impacts on the form and content of the 'ideal' programme. Shadow issues related to analytic lineage in the admissions procedures, case consultation, exam committees and review committees are presented. Motivation for why we choose to train and reflections on what makes an analyst 'Jungian' are explored.     

The morality of evolution and a return to subjectivity

Today societies display, almost uniformly, an aggressive demeanor that can hardly be covered by diplomacy; they are always prepared for war. The prophecy is repeatedly fulfilled and today we are engaged in protracted wars while fearing universal destruction. This basic attitude irremediably corrupts our consciousness and blemishes our self. The biological underpinnings of how we got to this point, psychologically, and the historical sublimations involved are explored here. The result, today, is that we live using a minimum of our human capacity at the huge cost in crucial energetic waste, while nature has started to protest. The self-feeding destructive mechanism is inordinate objectification, at the expense of our unique subjective power. Evolutionarily designed for balanced self-regulation—the sublimation of a dual instinctual disposition backed up by a dimorphic body and brain—nature warns us we have detoured from the moral blueprint and, were we to continue it will be at our own risk. We need to review our moral theories and return to our critical pre-patriarchal subjectivity, which was resourceful, dually-fed, balanced, and discriminating. That subjectivity is now largely replaced by pre-emptive, ideological cognitive modules and stereotypes that block intelligent dialogue and appear to be already modeled on a false Utopia of artificial intelligences.

     

Navigating in a challenging semiarid environment: the use of a route-based mental map by a small-bodied neotropical primate

To increase efficiency in the search for resources, many animals rely on their spatial abilities. Specifically, primates have been reported to use mostly topological and rarely Euclidean maps when navigating in large-scale space. Here, we aimed to investigate if the navigation of wild common marmosets inhabiting a semiarid environment is consistent with a topological representation and how environmental factors affect navigation. We collected 497 h of direct behavioral and GPS information on a group of marmosets using a 2-min instantaneous focal animal sampling technique. We found that our study group reused not only long-route segments (mean of 1007 m) but entire daily routes, a pattern that is not commonly seen in primates. The most frequently reused route segments were the ones closer to feeding sites, distant to resting sites, and in areas sparse in tree vegetation. We also identified a total of 56 clustered direction change points indicating that the group modified their direction of travel. These changes in direction were influenced by their close proximity to resting and feeding sites. Despite our small sample size, the obtained results are important and consistent with the contention that common marmosets navigate using a topological map that seems to benefit these animals in response to the exploitation of clustered exudate trees. Based on our findings, we hypothesize that the Caatinga landscape imposes physical restrictions in our group’s navigation such as gaps in vegetation, small trees and xerophytic plants. This study, based on preliminary evidence, raises the question of whether navigation patterns are an intrinsic characteristic of a species or are ecologically dependent and change according to the environment.

     

On experimental philosophy and the history of philosophy: a reply to Sorell

In this paper, we reply to Tom Sorell’s criticism of our engagement with the history of philosophy in our book, The Theory and Practice of Experimental Philosophy. We explain why our uses of the history of philosophy are not undermined by Sorell’s criticism and why our position is not threatened by the dilemma Sorell advances. We argue that Sorell has mischaracterized the dialectical context of our discussion of the history of philosophy and that he has mistakenly treated our use of the history of philosophy as univocal, when in fact we called on the history of philosophy in several different ways in our text.     

Answering to Future People: Responsibility for Climate Change in a Breaking World

Our everyday notions of responsibility are often driven by our need to justify ourselves to specific others – especially those we harm, wrong, or otherwise affect. One challenge for contemporary ethics is to extend this interpersonal urgency to our relations with those future people who are harmed or affected by our actions. In this article, I explore our responsibility for climate change by imagining a possible ‘broken future’, damaged by the carbon emissions of previous generations (including ourselves), and then asking what its inhabitants might think of our current behaviour, our moral thinking, and our excuses. In particular, I will focus on a simplified scenario where present people can only avoid a broken future by sacrificing Rawlsian favourable conditions. Suppose we refuse to avoid a broken future, on the grounds that we cannot be expected to make such great sacrifices. If the broken future lacks favourable conditions, will its inhabitants accept our excuses? Will they hold us responsible for things we regard as excusable? If so, should we be guided by their judgements or by our own?     

A Commentary on Religious Conflicts and a Call for a Focus on the Best the Traditions have to Offer

The casual observer of the religious traditions cannot get a very good impression when attending to the daily news. One might easily conclude that much of the troubles in the world today are caused by religious conflicts and the inability of the religious communities to get along. Sometimes, it appears that the planet would be better off without religion at all. Tragically, most of the general population are perhaps religious illiterates who focus on religious differences and conflicts rather than similarities and what they offer at their best. While there are a number of efforts by scholars and others to improve interfaith respect and conversation, our world would be better off if we focused on the best the religious traditions have to offer rather than the worst as well as respecting and being open to traditions other than our own. This could be accomplished if religious education and training were greatly altered.     

New Grounds for a Re-Union Between Science and Spirituality

Science is recovering its basic mission of making sense of the world. As a search for meaning it is similar to spirituality. The difference between science and spirituality is not in the end they seek, but in the way they seek it. Science uses rational thinking in analyzing and interpreting what experience and experiment discloses, whereas spirituality combines experience with the immediacy of an intuition that speaks to a reality that underlies the world conveyed by the senses. In our day science and spirituality, the great streams of human endeavor, are on a converging course. They share the realization that the cosmos is not a domain of unconscious matter moving about in passive space; it is a dynamic, self-evolving whole, integral at all scales and in all domains. This convergence is important in itself, and it is also important in regard to its consequences. On the one hand it tells us that our intuitive insights about the nature of life and reality are not illusory: they are confirmed in their essence by cutting-edge science. On the other, it offers motivation for entering on a positive path to our common future because wholeness is a defining characteristic of the kind of civilization that could overcome the problems created by the mechanistic manipulative rationality of today's dominant civilization.