GRADIVA: FREUD,FETISHISM, AND POMPEIAN FANTASY

This paper is a critical reconsideration of Freud's analysis (1907) of Wilhelm Jensen's novella Gradiva: A Pompeian Fantasy (1903). Freud's interest was aroused by the parallels between Jensen's presentation of dreams and Freud's model of dream formation just published in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). Freud also acclaims Jensen's presentation of the formation and “cure” of his protagonist's delusion about a marble bas‐relief of a woman walking. This paper argues for the centrality of the phenomenon of fetishism, briefly considered but excluded from Freud's analysis. The fantasy of Gradiva as “the necessary conditions for loving” (Freud 1910, pp. 165–166) is also a key thesis of the essay, which makes use of the newly translated Freud–Jensen correspondence contained in this article's Appendix.     

The basic tools of psychoanalysis

The objective of psychoanalysis is to help the analysand make the contents of his or her psyche conscious to him- or herself In this paper, the author identifies four tools central in the attempts to reach this goal: (1) the analysand's self- observation; (2) the analyst's assistance in identifying the obstacles to self-observation (i.e., resistance analysis); (3) the analysand's bringing unconscious contents into the sphere of self-observation with the help of the analyst's interpretations; (4) turning the analysand's tendency to account for the listener into an object of self-observation (i.e., the analysis of transference). Of these tools, the first is regarded as the most fundamental; all methodological instruments used in psychoanalysis aim at enhancing the scope of the analysand's self-observation. Some difficulties in keeping this aim are identified, and the analysand's autonomy in this work is pointed out, leading to the conclusion that the analysand never becomes changed in an analysis; the analysand might, however, change him- or herself as a consequence of a newly-won self-observation.     

雌激素替代疗法的利与弊

随着妇女社会地位的提高,以及人们对健康与生活质量要求的提高,绝经后雌激素替代疗法(HRT)日益成为人们关注的话题,越来越多的妇女选择在进入围绝经期后开始接受HRT,以改善因内源性雌激素分泌不足而引起的种种不适,确实提高了生活质量。但是,这种方法有增加子宫内膜癌、乳腺癌等其他疾病发病率的潜在危险,于是我们在临床应用时应该用辨证的眼光去看待它,试图抓住其主要矛盾,尽可能扬其利,避其害,以达到安全而有效地提高广大中老年妇女生活质量的目的。     

Response to Peter Fonagy

Peter Fonagy highlights the therapeutic efficacy of new experience, 'a way of being with the other', while the author gives priority to interpretation, insight into and the working through of unconscious conflict. The recovery of the repressed memories and fantasies of childhood is now an intermediate goal of psychoanalysis, largely superseded by transference interpretation and genetic reconstruction. Transference, like symptoms, is a return of the repressed. The author believes Fonagy's theoretical and technical focus on the non-conscious, rather than the dynamic unconscious, devalues the persisting influence and pathogenic significance of the infantile unconscious.     

Repression, transference and reconstruction

Whereas Peter Fonagy almost dismisses the importance of repression and the recovery of repressed and suppressed memory, the author believes that the analysis of repression retains importance in clinical psychoanalysis. Transference is a return of the repressed, with repressed memories embedded within a fundamental unconscious fantasy constellation. Moreover, transference is an essential, but not the only, route to the understanding and analysis of the patient. Nor should transference be confused with the real or new analytic relationship. The author does not regard the dynamic unconscious as definitely registered and retrieved in procedural memory, awaiting further research. A focus on the present 'self with other' model of therapeutic action neglects pathogenesis and the importance of childhood and its psychoanalytic reconstruction.     

Fallout from the Women’s Health Study: A Short-lived Vindication for Feminists and the Resurrection of Hormone Therapies

The Women’s Health Initiative studies were begun in 1997, in large part the result of women’s health activists who for 40 years questioned the safety of hormone use at menopause and criticized the menopause as disease ideology. The studies were prematurely discontinued when investigators found that heretofore acclaimed benefits of hormone use were not supported. Risks to health such as stroke, breast cancer, and thrombophlebitis were found. A feeling of vindication was experienced by feminists but was quickly replaced by cautious optimism as strategies to continue hormone use were published and quality of life issues tied to symptom management emerged. The focus of this article is a review of the hormone story, a discussion of the implications of the Women’s Health Initiative results, and strategies for resolution of the continuing hormone dilemma.