A Review of “The Relational Origins of Prejudice: A Convergence of Psychoanalytic and Social Cognitive Perspectives”

Abstract

Key concepts in social welfare and clinical social work - concepts such as person-in-environment, women's rights, prevention and outreach-had as precedents the pioneering theory and practice of Europe's free psychoanalytic clinics of the 1920s. Sex-Pol, a Viennese community-based clinical network created in 1927 by Wilhelm Reich, perhaps the most overtly political of the first psychoanalysts, was motivated by reformist social goals he shared with Sigmund Freud. This historical study of Sex-Pol draws on Reich's own words to explore his use of the term “social work” where clinical work is predicated on an activist ideology of human liberation.     

Discovering the Inner Life of a Child

Abstract

Using Winnicott's concept of transitional space, joint attention, theory of mind, and a case vignette, the author describes techniques in elucidating and elaborating a child's play space, hence, psychic life. Explicating the child's theory of mind uncovers the dynamics, motives, conflicts, and unconscious material used by the analyst to form interpretations and encourage the child's self-reflective function (Fonagy & Target, 1996). Finally, a case vignette illustrates the enhancement of play space by elucidating the child's theory of mind.     

Ferenczi's “Confusion of Tongues” Theory and the Analysis of the Incest Trauma

Abstract

The tender-mother transference of Ferenczi's humanistic analytic orientation was as important an advance in pioneering times as was Kohut's selfobject transference in contemporary psychoanalysis. Ferenczi's clinical theory and method began a focus on pre-oedipal experiences, which eventually became an alternate to the oedipal theory. Freud was critical of Ferenczi's formulation, leading a successful attempt to suppress his work and remove it from mainstream psychoanalysis because he believed it was “regressive.” In actuality, Ferenczi's “Confusion of Tongues” theory and “Relaxation Therapy” were prophetic and pioneering attempts to understand and treat the incest trauma (ironically the clinical data upon which Freud founded psychoanalysis 100 years ago). In the case of Miss T., Ferenczi's ideas are applied to the contemporary analysis of the incest trauma.     

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.     

Case history of Farida: A year of psychotherapy with a girl who said she was sexually abused

This paper discusses how thinking about a playroom involves our thinking about the setting in psychoanalytical work with children in general - the physical as well as the human aspects - and how this encourages us to rethink some of the basic aims in psychoanalytic work. The paper describes the importance of the setting being such as to help the therapist to have the freedom to think and to feel what is going on in the child and himself. Links are then made with aspects of transference and counter-transference, and brief examples given.     

Regulation and standards for psychoanalysis: The place of the Other in psychoanalysis and its teaching

In numerous Western countries, psychotherapies have come under increasing governmental regulation. A more recent development is the increasing scrutiny given to psychoanalysis in the United Kingdom, in France, and in the United States. This paper examines a particular document that was created by four professional psychoanalytic organizations that are based in the United States. The document called Standards of Psychoanalytic Education aims to develop criteria that would guide accreditation and the organization of psychoanalytic institutes. The document is part of a set of concerns and actions related to the state regulation of psychoanalytic practice, its professional status, and the protection of those who seek its services. The essay examines the putative theoretical neutrality of this document by unfolding its tenets in terms of Lacanian psychoanalysis, a school of psychoanalysis that would take exception to many of the ideas suggested in the document's template for psychoanalytic education. The paper follows one line of argumentation throughout: what is the place of the Social Field, the Symbolic Other, within psychoanalytic process and as a recourse for professional legitimization that stands outside of psychoanalysis? As a practice of particularity, what relation does the discipline bear to other mental health fields and to the norms and knowledge systems of the mental health professions? Using a Lacanian orientation, two senses of the Other are discussed, and the specificity of psychoanalysis is asserted. This specificity is contrasted with some of the goals and constraints that are introduced by current approaches to regulation.      

Psychoanalysis is becoming an impossible profession within the public welfare system in Sweden

Abstract

The preconditions for psychoanalytic practice within the Swedish public welfare system are analyzed in this article. Psychoanalysis remains a one-to-one treatment and relies on the analyst's capacity to use his or her own subjective response. The development of the psychoanalytic process is dependent on unconscious reality, making it impossible to work with a model that has a strict relation between diagnosis, treatment method, and result. Objectivity and the desire to predict treatment outcomes characterize the immanent logic in the complex system of laws and recommendations that affects most practices within the field of medicine. As a consequence of this development, psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy are marginalized, since our treatment methods are not adapted to the present industrialization and economization of the medical health sector, with the result that the preconditions for psychoanalytic training have changed dramatically. The exclusion of psychoanalysis from the national health insurance scheme is a demanding challenge at a time when the Swedish welfare model is undergoing fundamental changes.     

Sexuality and Death (Discussion)

Abstract

The case is presented to show how the fear of death, triggered off by sexuality, is related to the fear of castration. Instead the discussant develops the hypothesis that the fear of death depends on a shift of deep regression towards a primary identification with the figure of the dead father.     

On Theoretical Edges and Exclusionary Borders: Towards a Genealogy of “Analyzability” in Jungian Psychoanalysis1

An oft-repeated and largely unexamined assumption in Jungian psychoanalysis is the notion of “analyzability”, that is, of an individual's ability or present capacity to think symbolically. It is often taught that if someone is unable to think symbolically, a depth analysis is not possible. Such an individual may be more aptly suited for supportive psychotherapy, the argument goes, an experience that may very well lead to the development of the ego's capacity for symbolic thought but is not, in and of itself, a Jungian analysis. While this sort of categorical thinking has, at times, crossed over into ontological claims about individuals and groups, the notion of analyzability encountered in psychoanalytic theory and praxis is often cloaked in facially neutral language. The impact, however, has been anything but neutral in effect. In this paper, I propose a softening of our theoretical edges through a genealogy of the category of analyzability within the broader history of psychoanalysis. Through this excavation, I explore the contingent nature of the category of analyzability, how it has constricted knowledge, perpetuated inequality, and, more broadly, obscured ways of knowing. In so doing, I recover the radically democratic potential that lies at the heart of Jungian psychoanalysis.     

Milieu therapy for neglected children: Treatment in a caring relationship

The central thesis of this paper is that treatment of neglected children can better take place in a caring relationship than in psychotherapy or analysis. In order to create the basis for this idea, Part 1 introduces a milieu therapy for neglected children, developed by the author. In Part 2 of the article, it is proposed that treatment in a caring relationship is in line with the child's dependence on a caring person. It is also argued that the traditional distinction between problems in the child's environment and internal psychological difficulties seems imprecise. Instead, it is proposed that a problem has both an external and an internal aspect. This supports the idea that it may be possible to solve problems that are traditionally considered internal through environmental strategies, for example milieu therapy. The article is hypothesis-generating and builds upon clinical experience inspired by works of, among others, Erikson, Bowlby, Winnicott, and Fonagy and collaborators. Part 1 of the article is the first presentation in English of the main points of the author's books on milieu therapy. The ideas in Part 2 are published here for the first time.