Interpretation as Shaped by Projective Identification

How to make interpretations during the course of psychoanalytic treatment is a recurring clinical question. Certain aspects of the analysis serve as helpful signposts along the way. Patients have particular interpersonal ways of presenting themselves. The unique intrapsychic manner the patient has of relating to us (transference) and our feelings (countertransference) to these matters give us clues to study. Our understanding of these situations may lead to the development of a hypothesis we may or may not choose to share with the patient. Projective identification is a complex mental mechanism that can often shape the content and manner of an interpretation.     

Children's drawings of significant figures for a peer or an adult audience

The present study assessed if children would present different information in their drawings of emotion eliciting stimuli when they believed that an adult or a child audience would view their drawings. Seventy‐five 6‐year‐olds (44 boys and 31 girls) were allocated to three groups: the reference group, the child audience group and the adult audience group. All children completed a drawing session where they first drew a neutral uncharacterised figure, followed by drawings of a sad and a happy figure in counterbalanced order. Findings demonstrated that children did consider who would be viewing their drawings when communicating emotional affect and included different features within their drawings. In particular, almost all happy drawings included a smile, but only those drawings where an audience was specified included a wave, and only the adult drawings included flower giving. Within the sad drawings tears and frowns were drawn regardless of audience type, whereas stomping was more likely to be portrayed in drawings with a child audience and thumbs down were more likely to be portrayed in drawings with adult audiences. The findings are discussed in terms of the need to further examine communicative aspects of children's drawings. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inside and outside the window: some fundamental elements in the theory of psychoanalytic technique

The underlying concern of this paper is that psychoanalysis as practised today is in danger of losing its specificity and so losing its way. The author suggests this is possible for three reasons: the problem analysts face in responding to the strong emotional demands the great majority of patients necessarily place on them, the unintended consequences of the apparent success of 'here and now technique' and the absence of good clinical theory. The paper mainly discusses the author's ideas about some core elements of the clinical theory that all psychoanalysts must use when they are working and proposes (at the risk of being facile) some relatively simple heuristics related to them which are meant to be helpful. Recalling Kurt Lewin's maxim that 'there is nothing so practical as a good theory', he will suggest that continuous reflection on how one is using theory in daily practice is highly practical, if the theory is good enough. Theory in fact is a necessary 'third' in psychoanalytic practice which, if kept in sufficient working order close enough to clinical experience, provides an ongoing and very necessary check on our sense of reality. But, of course, as a third it can, like reality itself, be the focus of both love and hate with equally problematic consequences. The paper starts with a clinical example of a difficult but apparently successful analysis reaching its end, which will be used throughout the paper to illustrate and elaborate the theoretical ideas set out.     

Trying to enter the long black branches: some technical extensions of the work of Frances Tustin for the analysis of autistic states in adults

The author suggests a number of technical extensions/clinical applications of Frances Tustin's work with autistic children, which are applicable to the psychoanalysis of neurotic, borderline and psychotic adults. These are especially relevant to those individuals in whom early uncontained happenings (Bion) have been silently encapsulated through the use of secretive autosensual maneuvers related to autistic objects and shapes. Although such encapsulations may constitute obstacles to emotional and intellectual development, are consequential in both the relational and vocational spheres for many analysands and present unending challenges for their analysts, the author demonstrates ways in which it may be possible to detect and to modify these in a transference-centered analysis. A detailed process of differential diagnosis between autistic states and neurotic/narcissistic (object-related) states in adults is outlined, along with several clinical demonstrations of the handling of a variety of elemental terrors, including the 'dread of dissolution.' The idiosyncratic and perverse use of the analytic setting and of the analyst and issues of the analysand's motivations are considered and illustrated. A new model related to 'objects in the periphery' is introduced as an alternative to the more classical Kleinian models regarding certain responses and/or non-responses to transference interpretation. Issues a propos the countertransference are also taken up throughout.     

Art,Ethics, and Critical Pluralism

Those who have views about the relation between aesthetic and ethical value often also have views about the nature of art criticism. Yet no one has paid much attention to the compatibility of views in one debate with views in the other. This is worrying in light of a tension between two popular kinds of view: namely, between critical pluralism and any view in the art and ethics debate that presupposes an invariant relation between aesthetic value and ethical value. Specifically, the tension with invariance arises insofar as critical pluralism accommodates the aesthetic value of interpretive richness, including the aesthetic value of ethically conflicted interpretive richness. Given this tension, a shift of focus is needed in the art and ethics debate; from specifying the criteria for the aesthetic relevance of a work's ethical qualities to defending the fundamental nature of the aesthetic‐ethical value relation.     

Phenomenology of Phenomenology

I explore some interpretations of the practice of international market reliance that forms the focus of Aaron James' book, and I wonder how our actual practices help to settle what we should go on to do now.     

Consequences of anticipatory processing on cognitive symptoms of social anxiety

Anticipatory processing is an anxious style of repetitive negative thought associated with social anxiety (SA) that was proposed by Clark and Wells. Considerable research has examined factors of Clark and Wells' cognitive model of SA (e.g. attention, interpretation), but few studies have examined anticipatory processing, which is hypothesized to interact with other components in the model. In the current study, individuals high in social anxiety symptoms (HSA; N = 56) and control participants [Normal Control (NC); N = 52] engaged in an anticipation or distraction task prior to a threatened social interaction. HSAs who anticipated had higher self-focused attention than NCs who anticipated and HSAs in the distraction condition, suggesting an important relationship between anticipation and self-focus that is specific to HSAs. Those who anticipated endorsed more negative interpretations than those who engaged in distraction, regardless of SA status. However, this relationship was mediated by self-focus. Implications in the context of Clark and Wells' model and future directions are discussed.     

Teaching Exegesis in Historically Black Theological Schools

This Forum collects the papers presented at a 2010 panel at the Society of Biblical Literature, an outcome of a Wabash Center funded grant project. The project examined the unique dimensions and experiences of teaching Biblical exegesis at the six historically black theological schools (HBTSs), including discussion of the unique needs of HBTS students and their communities, and appropriate learning goals and effective teaching practices for this context. None of the biblical studies faculty were prepared as graduate students for the unique challenges that they have encountered teaching at a HBTS, so they have all had to “learn on the job” how best to approach the unique needs of the student body. The brief statements collected here summarize the findings from the project, describe and analyze some effective teaching strategies, and offer suggestions for continuing the conversation.     

Epistemology and Psychoanalysis: A Fruitful Relationship

Abstract

Bowlby may be viewed as one of the strongest exponents of the alternative psychoanalytic approach initiated by Ferenczi. His most important contributions are, on a theoretical level, to have potentially placed psychoanalysis onto a firm evolutionary basis, and, at a practical level, to have generated an enormous amount of empirical research. The main traits he shares with Ferenczi are independence of mind and the stress on a loving relationship in normal development and on real-life traumatic events in psychopathology. The similarities between them seem to be due to a convergence, or at the most to an indirect influence of Ferenczi, due to Bowlby's associations with Melanie Klein and the British Middle Group. As regards the specific issue of real-life experience, although Bowlby acknowledges Ferenczi's priority, he seems to have arrived at this concept independently.     

About Teleological Behaviorism

Misconceptions abound about teleological behaviorism (TB). Because very few people other than the author publicly call themselves teleological behaviorists, the fault must be mine. The present article is an attempt to clear up those misconceptions. First I will try to indicate what teleological behaviorism is not. Then, in the form of six fables (loosely connected stories, allegories, analogies, fairy tales, and arguments), I will try to give the reader an understanding of what teleological behaviorism actually is.