Current controversies involving clinical, conceptual and empirical research shed light on how psychoanalysis confronts its nature and its future. Some relevant debates in which Wallerstein, Green, Hoffman, Eagle and Wolitzky, Safran, Stern, Blass and Carmeli, and Panksepp have participated are examined regarding the characteristics of their argumentation. Agreements and disagreements are explored to find ways that could have allowed the discussion to progress. Two foci are highlighted in these debates: (a) whether a clinical common ground exists in psychoanalysis and what kind of procedure could contribute to further clarification; (b) complementation of in‐clinical and extra‐clinical evidence. Both aspects are scrutinized: the possibility of complementing diverse methodologies, and the nature of the shared clinical evidence examined in clinical discussion groups such as those promoted by the IPA Clinical Observation Committee. The importance of triangulation and consilience is brought to bear regarding their contribution to the robustness of psychoanalysis. So as to strengthen a critical perspective that enhances the discipline's argumentative field, psychoanalysis should take into account arguments from different sources according to their specific merits. By doing this, psychoanalysis increases its relevance within the current interdisciplinary dialogue. 相似文献
Psychoanalysts’ written reports on initial consultations are a window into the complexities of a crucial aspect of psychoanalytic work. However, systematic research in this area has largely focused on patients’ demographic factors or standardized measures. The present study looked at reports of all the consultations taking place at the London Clinic of Psychoanalysis over one calendar year (N = 100). The aim was to explore psychoanalysts’ different explicit styles of working and reporting as well as further understanding implicit processes used in thinking and writing about each particular consultation experience. A thematic analysis revealed a set of themes that related to a style of working and thinking about the consultation process as a dyadic experience, where the interaction, affective reactions and contact made between the two are the focus when thinking of making a recommendation for psychoanalysis. The majority of the reports had an open, exploratory quality. The writing of reports appears to give the analyst an opportunity to process the consultation experience and arrive at a more triangular position. Writing reports is a more valuable part of the consultation process than has formally been recognized and acknowledged. The limitations of this study as well as the relevance of these findings for future research are discussed. 相似文献
One of the problems facing psychoanalysts of all schools is that theory has evolved at a much faster pace than practice. Whereas there has been an explosion of theory, practice has remained, at least officially, static and unchanging. It is in this sense that Murray Jackson's 1961 paper is still relevant today. Despite the rise of the new relational and intersubjective paradigms, most psychoanalysts, and not a few Jungian analysts, still seem to feel that the couch is an essential component of the analytical setting and process. If the use of the couch is usually justified by the argument that it favours regression, facilitates analytical reverie and protects the patient from the influence of the analyst, over time many important psychoanalysts have come to challenge this position. Increasingly these analysts suggest that the use of the couch may actually be incompatible with the newer theoretical models. This contention is strengthened by some of the findings coming from the neurosciences and infant research. This underlines the necessity of empirical research to verify the clinical effectiveness of these different positions, couch or face‐to‐face, but it is exactly this type of research that is lacking. 相似文献
Research has suggested that prenatal depression may be associated with disrupted maternal responses to infant stimuli, with depressed pregnant women not showing the bias toward distressed infants as that observed in nondepressed pregnant women. The current study examined the effects of depression on self‐ reported responses to infant stimuli, in early pregnancy. Women with clinical depression (n = 38), and nondepressed women (n = 67) were recruited from a wider cognitive behavioral therapy trial. They completed Maternal Response Scales in which they were presented with images of distressed, neutral, and happy infant faces, with no time limit. The women rated their responses to these images along three dimensions—wanting to comfort, wanting to turn away, and feelings of anxiety—using Likert scales via a computerized task. There was evidence that women with depression in pregnancy showed different responses than did women without depression. Women with depression were substantially more likely to be in the highest quartile for ratings of wanting to turn away, odds (OR) ratio = 4.15, 95% confidence intervals (CIs) = 1.63–10.5, p = .003, and also were substantially less likely to be in the highest quartile for wanting to comfort a distressed infant face, OR = 0.22, 95% CIs = 0.09–0.54, p < .001. Findings are consistent with there being both a heightened avoidant and a reduced comforting response toward distressed infants in depressed pregnant women, providing some support that depression disrupts maternal preparations at a conscious level. 相似文献