Temenos regained: reflections on the absence of the analyst

The importance of the temenos as a metaphor to conceptualize therapeutic containment is discussed. Jung drew the analogy between the consulting room and the temenos, at the centre of the Greek Temple as a sacred and inviolate place where the analysand might encounter the Self. Although Jung believed that whether called or not, the gods would appear, under certain conditions, patients may experience 'temenos lost', the loss of the holding function of the analytic space. Two cases are presented in which temenos issues played a central role. In one case, an unorthodox method was used to preserve the analytic container during the absence of the analyst and in the other, the impact of an extra-analytical encounter had a dramatic effect on the holding function of the temenos. A discussion is presented of the appropriate circumstances in which analysts may deviate from traditional analytic practice in order to preserve the temenos and transform a 'temenos lost' into a 'temenos regained'.     

Supporting Romantic Relationships During COVID-19 Using Virtual Couple Therapy

The novel coronavirus disease pandemic (COVID-19) has profoundly impacted people’s lives, resulting in economic turmoil, death and suffering, and drastic changes to everyday life. The adjustment and strain of such challenges can spill over into couples’ relationship processes, including how partners spend time together, talk to one another, and manage conflict. Drawing from our experiences conducting virtual couple therapy (VCT) in a university-based training clinic and community-based clinic, as well as themes from an informal survey of 29 couple therapy clinicians, the current paper discusses the unique challenges that couples face in therapy during COVID-19. Such challenges include renegotiating quality time together, navigating less personal space and time alone, experiencing individual anxiety and stress prompted by the pandemic, and increases in conflict. We discuss our clinical recommendations for addressing these challenges for couples and utilize clinical case examples to illustrate our points. Despite these challenges, we also comment on several positive aspects of COVID-19 on couple relationships. Guided by these considerations and recommendations, our observations suggest that clinicians can effectively support couples’ growth and progress using VCT during COVID-19.     

Adolescents coping with the COVID-19 pandemic: ‘every day is like another Sunday’

COVID-19 has upended the way analysts and psychotherapists practice. Many use the phone for their sessions, many are using video platforms, and many use a combination of the two. Work with adolescents is very challenging in this new modality because of the loss of in-person connection and immediate non-verbal cues. The public health restrictions put in place to manage COVID-19 spread are at odds with the adolescent tasks of adventuring, experimenting and gaining new experiences. In addition, increased anxieties about infection, contamination and invasion are often manifest and adolescents can regress in the face of them. Using seminal ideas from Bion, this article looks at two process examples from adolescent boys who struggled with parts of themselves that felt disturbing and unacceptable. The author discusses the clinical exchanges in detail and offers ideas about the difficulty of creating psychic space when working virtually.     

Goal disruption during COVID-19: Reimagining goals during a global pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major source of professional and personal disruption and has had both direct and downstream consequences on almost every aspect of peoples' lives, including their personal goal pursuits. In the face of unexpected hardships and obstacles, people have had to find new paths to goal achievement. In the present work, we examined whether difficulty adjusting goal pursuit during the global disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic is related to negative affective, cognitive, and behavioral goal-related outcomes. Across two studies, we found that people who had more difficulty adjusting their goal pursuit during the pandemic experienced more negative feelings toward their goals, were less satisfied with the status of their goals, and were less likely to actually achieve their goals. Moreover, individual differences in planning tendencies, need for predictability, general adaptability, and perceived pandemic disruption were related to more difficulty adjusting goal pursuit. This work demonstrates the importance of flexibility in the face of setbacks and obstacles, especially during times of disruption and uncertainty.     

Experiences of psychotherapists transitioning to private practice during COVID-19

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to gain insight into the lived experiences of psychotherapists transitioning to private practice during the COVID-19 pandemic. With an ever-expanding need for targeted and accessible mental health care, it is vital to understand this phenomenon and how it impacted patient access and care, and the providers themselves. Eighteen licensed psychotherapists were interviewed and their responses highlighted meaningful professional and clinical implications. As a result of the participant interviews, three major themes were identified: (1) the unknown related to COVID-19, (2) ease of transition and (3) work–life balance. Eleven additional subthemes emerged. Results suggested that psychotherapists had various personal and professional stressors exacerbated by the pandemic, along with a desire to balance work and life, manage the changes brought on by the pandemic, and gain or retain autonomy in their professional careers. Ultimately, the results of the study point to some shared experiences among psychotherapists, potential issues of access to psychotherapy, issues related to career satisfaction among psychotherapists, as well as some important areas for future research.     

The Jewish Cultural Complex

Although 70 years have passed since the Nazi Holocaust, the aftereffects resulting from it and centuries of Jewish oppression persist in Jewish tribal identity and in the mechanisms for its survival. In much the same way that PTSD affects individuals who have suffered life-threatening situations, a history of collective trauma has produced within Jewish psyches symptoms such as hypervigilance, reactivity, and a sense of profound danger in the world. The author proposes that such sedimented responses form a Jewish cultural complex with a hypermuscular defense system armed against further psychic attacks. Healing involves a restoration of the feeling function and a return to the rich body of Jewish ethical principles that balance personal security with compassion for self and other.     

Never Turn Your Back on a Wave

This article reviews the intersections of personal and professional life development for the author. She offers perspective on three important life lessons that have guided her in this rewarding life path. First, be responsible in fulfilling and seeking professional opportunities. Second, be nice—respectful, warm, collegial, collaborative; treat others with the respect you want to receive yourself. Finally, “Never turn your back on a wave”—face the challenges that life presents, forthrightly, with energy and enthusiasm, and enjoy a full and fulfilling career and personal life.     

Perceptions of sense of control,relative deprivation,and expectations of young Jews and Palestinians in Israel

The author focused on the impact of personal deprivation, sense of control, and social context on the future expectations of advantaged and discriminated groups. Analysis of 6,430 Jewish and Palestinian high school students in Israel showed that Palestinian students had lower expectations and stronger feelings of deprivation than Jewish students. Also those who felt deprived had lower expectations regarding the prospects of marriage and the probability of owning a home and a car and of holding a permanent job. However, sense of control influenced these expectations more than did feelings of deprivation. The findings indicated that the processes by which future expectations are formed might be different for Jewish and Palestinian students and that these differences are--at least in part--related to long-term discrimination against Palestinians in Israel.     

Perceptions of Sense of Control,Relative Deprivation,and Expectations of Young Jews and Palestinians in Israel

Abstract

The author focused on the impact of personal deprivation, sense of control, and social context on the future expectations of advantaged and discriminated groups. Analysis of 6,430 Jewish and Palestinian high school students in Israel showed that Palestinian students had lower expectations and stronger feelings of deprivation than Jewish students. Also those who felt deprived had lower expectations regarding the prospects of marriage and the probability of owning a home and a car and of holding a permanent job. However, sense of control influenced these expectations more than did feelings of deprivation. The findings indicated that the processes by which future expectations are formed might be different for Jewish and Palestinian students and that these differences are—at least in part—related to long-term discrimination against Palestinians in Israel.     

Moderating factors explaining stress reactions: comparing chronic-without-acute-stress and chronic-with-acute-stress situations

The author compared patterns of moderating factors explaining stress reactions during 2 states: chronic-without-acute-stress and chronic-with-acute-stress. She hypothesized that personal dispositions would contribute more to understanding stress reactions during a prolonged stress state than during an acute state. The participants were Israeli Jewish adolescents living in West Bank settlements during the prolonged (chronic-without-acute-stress) state of the intifada (the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation) and during the chronic-with-acute-stress state, immediately after the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin. The author examined 5 variables as moderating factors--trait anxiety, sense of coherence, cognitive appraisal of the political situation, family sense of coherence, and sense of community--and measured 2 stress reactions--state anxiety and psychological distress. Data were collected from 266 8th-grade students during the chronic-without-acute-stress state and 448 students at the same grade level at the chronic-with-acute-stress state. The overall magnitude of variance explanation was different at each state: The author found a relatively high explained variance of state anxiety and psychological distress in the chronic-without-acute-stress situation but not in the chronic-with-acute stress state. These data support the value of developing a model that would recognize the different types of stress situations for moderating the effects of stress.     

Spiritual Tools for Enhancing the Pastoral Visit to Hospitalized Patients

The tradition of visiting the sick is a practice that brings comfort to patients who are suffering, offers prayers for healing, and keeps the connection with family and community alive. It is a practice recognized from ancient times through today, one which underscores the mission of the field of Pastoral Care. This paper describes the creative use of multi-sensory spiritual tools, such as music, singing, personal prayer, psalms, and traditional texts, to enhance the sick visit to the hospitalized patient. This brief structured model is replicable and teachable to lay and professional caregivers. Both patient, family members, and caregivers can benefit from sharing in these moments of inner spiritual attunement and connection with others. Israela Meyerstein, LCSW-C, LMFT, is a social worker and family therapist in private practice in Baltimore, Maryland. An Approved Supervisor for the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, Ms. Meyerstein has trained therapists of all disciplines and has published over two dozen articles relating to Family therapy, medical issues, and spirituality. She is co-founder of the Baltimore Jewish Healing Network. Correspondence to Israela Meyerstein, Imeyerstein@hotmail.com. Gila Ruskin has served as a congregational rabbi, psychiatric hospital chaplain, adult and day school educator, and pastoral counselor. Rabbi Ruskin currently teaches Bible, Holocaust Studies, and Creative Writing at the St. Francis Academy in Baltimore, Maryland. She is co-founder of the Baltimore Jewish Healing Network.     

The Root of Dance Therapy: A Consideration of Movement,Dancing, and Verbalization vis-à-vis Dance/Movement Therapy

How and when does dance become therapy? And why is there a need for such intervention? The author, one of the great choreographer Balanchine's prima ballerinas and a professional choreographer in her own right as well, ranges far in seeking societal as well as individual causes for the creation of a new psychotherapy. She uses her passionate adherence to dance per se as a vantage point from which to view humanity's trials and tribulations. She also opens a door into the realm of professional, performing dancers who wanted to give their dancing to the world. Her ironic wit takes note of the nondancers who want to be dance therapists. She also draws a loving portrait of one of the originators of dance therapy in the United States, Marian Chace, who became her friend and mentor.     

Working Online During the Contemporary COVID-19 Pandemic1

Within the psychoanalytic school there has been substantial and ongoing debate about the efficacy of teleanalysis. However, as a result of the current COVID-19 pandemic and the online work with which the Jungian analytic community has now had to engage, this paper initially focuses on analysts’ actual experiences of working by teleanalysis. These experiences highlight a range of issues like “Zoom fatigue”, “online disinhibition”, dissonance, confidentiality, the frame and working with new patients. Alongside these issues, there were ample experiences by analysts of both productive psychotherapy apace with analytic work involving transference and countertransference phenomena, all indicating that a genuine and good enough analytic process can occur with teleanalysis. An overview of the research and literature both prior to the pandemic and as a result of it, confirms the validity of these experiences so long as analysts are cognizant of the specifics of such an online modality. Conclusions to do with the question, “what have we learned?”, alongside training, ethics and supervision issues are subsequently discussed.     

Ripples in mental space caused by dark matters and twisted tales: Some reflections on memory,memoirs and therapeutic work

In this paper, the author reflects on the issues of memory and the writing of personal memoirs, and how this impinges on our professional work. Her title is drawn in part from the work of theoretical physicists who can hypothesise about the existence of dark matter by measuring the deformations it causes in surrounding stars and galaxies. What she suggests is that there may be limitations in keeping strictly to disciplinary boundaries, and our professional lives may defy our efforts to box them in. The opening of doors to a more extensive world of ideas is often helpful, both for psychoanalysis and for the fields which it can illuminate and by which it can also be illuminated. She uses the example of the publication and critical reception of her own memoir, Pieces of Molly to make links with our professional selves and our clinical work. She draws on the work of Freud, and other seminal thinkers in the field, as well as her own clinical work to illustrate the ways in which mental space and the memories within it can be contained and transformed over time, but also can be beset by both internal and external saboteurs.     

Temenos Lost: Reflections on Moving

This article examines some clinical dilemmas engendered by moving. At such times, certain patients (or the analysts themselves) may lose their sense of containment that the therapeutic space has provided. When such a disruption threatens the course of treatment, this changed condition may be archetypaily termed 'temenos lost'. Consideration of this condition has led the author to reconceptualize healing as composed of two distinct components: the healing relationship and the healing space. Together, these components define the healing archetype. Using two historical examples, the King's Evil in Tudor England and healing pilgrimages in Israel, he shows how each component may indeed operate independently. More often, however, they function together. Using an extended published case (Volkan 1984), the author examines various aspects of how patients and analysts cope with 'temenos lost'. He emphasizes the importance of the emotional atmosphere in the physical setting, anticipatory anxiety of losing the temenos, and the basic anxiety that the move will damage the analysis. The importance of the rite of re-entry for the patient is emphasized as a symbolic way of resolving 'temenos loss' that permits a healing move into a 'temenos regained'.     

The collective past,group psychology and personal narrative: Shaping Jewish identity by memoirs of the Holocaust

Through honing its collective memory, especially after the Holocaust, the Jewish community has attempted to sustain its culture, bolster the Jewish identity of its members, and regain a resolute sense that its narrative is again proceeding. To some degree, all these aims are realized by instilling in its members the Jewish modal character structure: a psychological configuration with two contrastable entities. One chronically discomposed self-structure, defining itself as polluted and helpless, trembles with the appalling imagery of historical and imminent community disasters. The other entity believes in its unmatched capacity for reparative, socially beneficial actions. The paradigm of this psychological organization is found in many children of survivors. The memory of a tragic history abides alongside the community's hopes in the Jewish modal personality. The need to set forth and accommodate these two motifs imprints upon the Jewish "national" character many of its distinctive qualities. The designs of the Jewish community for this particularly Jewish twofold personality formation are augmented by the personal revelations of survivors. Therefore, Holocaustic testimonies are invested with a sacred aura. In measure, these recitals of the disaster with their stark images, plus the clashing affects aroused in the reader toward main characters of the narrative, dictate the way Jews define themselves in the world and the way they live. A confluence of being covertly commissioned by the Jewish community joins with the narrators' more idiosyncratic longings. Together they generate a steady stream of Holocaustic accounts. Complementary vectors drive the reader to peruse these records. The results therefrom, intimate knowledge of the disaster, plus the twofold personality motifs stamp many Jews as scions of the Holocaust.     

COVID-19 and pre-tenure counseling faculty: A collaborative autoethnographic investigation

Higher education faculty worldwide experienced heightened stressors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, from completing their professional roles and responsibilities virtually to balancing personal and professional stressors. Consequently, the pandemic created many adjustments for pre-tenure counseling faculty across research, teaching, and service. In response to this pandemic, we explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the personal and professional lives of four pre-tenure counseling faculty members. Accordingly, we used collaborative autoethnography to investigate our experiences and narratives as pre-tenure counseling faculty, which resulted in seven overarching themes. We discussed the implications for practice, advocacy, education, and faculty training.     

EDITOR'S NOTE

The article deals with the ways in which Mizrahim—Jewish immigrants who came to the State of Israel after 1948—influenced the local Jewish sacred geography. Besides taking part in rituals in the older and more established holy places such as King David’s Tomb on Mount Zion, Mizrahim tended to adopt and develop holy places where only hints of ancient Jewish sanctity were to be found. These places were used before 1948 mainly by the local Muslim population and were adopted now by Jews. This reality prevailed mainly in the social and geographical periphery of Israel, in regions and places where immigrants were usually settled by the Israeli establishment during the 1950s and 1960s. Mizrahim, in need of accessible and informal holy sites near their new settlements, brought now to the development of such places as the Tomb of Raban Gamliel in Yavne, the Tomb of Judah in Yahud, and the Tomb of Benjamin near Kfar‐Saba. The emergence of this sacred space, in a state that had just come into being and into which there had been mass immigration of Mizrahim, displacing or replacing the indigenous population of Arabs, is at the heart of the paper.     

A First-Person Account of Using Mindfulness as a Therapeutic Tool in the Palestinian Territories

This is a personal account of the clinical work done in the Palestinian Territories by a clinical psychologist working with an international medical Non Governmental Organization (NGO). In her interventions the author used mindfulness-based therapy with people who suffered from severe psychological distress due to the political conflict. Such interventions can be therapeutic and heal deep suffering, whilst offering clients coping strategies when possibly facing other traumatic events in a situation of “chronic emergency” such as the one that people have to face in a country that has been under military occupation for over 40 years. Using a case study approach, the author discusses the intervention with two women, one suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following the loss of her baby after being kept at a military check-point, and the other suffering from depression following the killing of her son. The mindfulness-based intervention allowed them to explore a therapeutic approach which helped them to overcome their symptoms and “get unstuck”.     

Joseph Heller's Jewish War Novel Catch-22

Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (1961) is considered one of the most important American novels of the twentieth century. It was a massive bestseller that sold over 10 million copies, and it introduced a new phrase into the English language for an unsolvable conundrum or paradox. Catch-22 was groundbreaking because it was the first broadly successful American novel that offered a post-modern, satirical take on the Second World War. Ostensibly the novel had nothing whatsoever Jewish about it beyond the ethnicity of its author. Instead it was about the Assyrian/Armenian protagonist, Yossarian, a USAAF bombardier in the European theatre. As I will argue, while outwardly the novel aims to represent the war and the protagonist, Yossarian, as American rather than Jewish, the work is, in fact, packed with signs that it is about a Jewish airman confronting the Holocaust. Heller's attempt to hide this was part of a tradition established by Jewish authors in the post-war years who sought to distance themselves from their ethnicity in order to speak to “universal” themes of rebellion. However, to overlook the “Jewish” semiotics of Catch-22 is to miss many of its major themes. I am thus offering a reading of the novel that will delineate what it tells us about the post-war Jewish life in America.