Trauma and the Wise Baby

This paper expands upon Ferenczi's concept of the wise baby and explores the dynamics of ignorance and compensatory ideals of wisdom as reactions to trauma and as manifestations of "double conscience," shame dynamics and Oedipal shame. Focusing on feelings of ignorance, of knowing and not knowing and their relation to trauma, the author elaborates on the dynamics of fantasies of wisdom, adumbrating implications for psychoanalytic technique.     

Human Foibles and Psychoanalytic Technique: Freud,Ferenczi, and Gizella Palos

This paper explores relations between human conundrums and psychoanalytic technique and theory through the relationship between Freud and Ferenczi. Rather than vilify (or lionize) either figure, the paper seeks to see into their struggles and conflicts, and to draw from correspondence and writings a portrait of a relationship. The paper describes not two dusty figures drawn from the closet of history but rather two live, flawed, and struggling human beings whose rational ideas about what they were doing could never keep step with their emotions. There is therefore much to be learned from their relationship: about transference and countertransference, about boundaries and friendship, about rivalry and despair, and about shame.     

Shame conflicts and tragedy in The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter has much to teach psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. Perhaps no other American novel lends itself so well to an exploration in depth of the dynamics, conflicts, and defenses characteristic of shame. While most commentators on The Scarlet Letter have assumed Hester Prynne's pain to be shame-based, and the Reverend Dimmesdale's to be guilt-based, a rather different interpretation is proposed namely, that both are afflicted with shame, but that Dimmesdale's is more unbearable than Hester's because more conflictual, less representable, and less easily used protectively. Dimmesdale's shame is at once deeper and more toxic. What "deeper" and "more toxic" mean in the context of shame conflicts (including conflicts to which feelings of shame give rise) is explored.     

Superego Dilemmas

In this paper, the author suggests that there can be no adequate considerations of the functions of the superego without taking into account cultural attitudes toward authority. The current deconstructionist trends in academia seem to reflect a mistrust of authority that cannot but find its way into discussions (or avoidance of discussions) on the nature and function of the superego.     

Dreams,Katharsis and Anxiety

Over the centuries, the importance and the nature of the relationship of “inside” and “outside” in human experience have shifted, with consequences for notions of mind and body. This paper begins with dreams and healing in the Asklepian tradition. It continues with Aristotle’s notions of psuche and how these influenced his conception of katharsis and tragedy. Jumping then to the 17th century, we will consider Descartes’ focus on dreams in his theories of thinking. Finally, we will turn explicitly to Freud’s use of dreams in relation to his theories of anxiety, of psychic processes and of the Oedipus Complex.     

Oedipus and the Oedipal

Psychoanalysts have assumed that Sophocles can be seen through the lens of Freud, and that the Oedipus complex is about the incest taboo, guilt, and aggression. However, an examination of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex (as well as other plays) suggests that these themes are only a part of the central dynamics of the play, perhaps not the most central part. This article describes discrepancies between what Freud sees of oedipal dynamics and the oedipal dynamics at work in Sophocles and suggests possible explanations. A central theme of my discussion is the shame and blindness of Oedipus.     

Positivism and its vicissitudes: The role of faith in the social sciences

Positivism is a subject about which much is said, yet little understood. Of central importance for the history of the social and behavioral sciences, Postivism appears in widely various guises: as logical positivism of the Vienna School, as a sort of anti-theoretical empiricism against which many theoreticians have railed, and as a doctrine of faith for the regeneration of a broken society. Concentrating on the latter, the author inquires into the development of Positivism in nineteenth-century France in the writings of Saint-Simon, Comte, and Durkheim, all of whom emphasized the role of faith in determining certainty, or, at the very least, in keeping doubt at bay. The thinking of these French Positivists is then linked with the pragmatism of William James.     

In these pages

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -