DEN TÄNKANDE KROPPEN

In this paper, the author thematizes guilt through a reading of Camus' novel “The Fall”. The first part of the novel is presented as describing a state of mind in which the main character has not been able to become his own self, and this is conceptualised through Kierkegaard's concepts “sickness unto death” and “sickness of despair”. The second part of the novel is described as picturing a “fall”, i.e., the coming into being of a self that realizes itself and becomes conscious of its own guilt. This guilt is finally described through Freud's “scientific myth” of patricide, and the “nachträglich” realization of this ancient deed.     

Psychoanalyse mit Traumatisierten

Extreme and complex traumatisation represents a severe problem in today’s world. There is a need to develop treatment approaches that are efficient for traumatised persons who often live under very difficult circumstances. There are moreover certain societal conditions that are important for the treatment and rehabilitation of the traumatised patient. The paper will discuss how psychoanalytic therapy may be helpful for severely traumatised patients and what are the mechanisms of change in the therapeutic process. A focus is on how traumatic experiences are actualised in the transference and brings the analyst in a situation where enactments inevitably occur. It will be demonstrated how these processes may lead to symbolisation of these traumatic experiences. What are the therapeutic and societal preconditions for treating traumatised patients?     

‘The essay method’ a qualitative method for studying therapeutic dialogues

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a qualitative research method for analysing therapeutic dialogues called ‘the essay method’. A central part of the method uses the format of the literary essay as a model. The method consists of a close monitoring of clinical material guided by an overall psychoanalytic/psychodynamic theoretical frame. It combines both clinical details and global patterns of clinical material and is especially fitted for studying relational qualities of psychotherapeutic dialogues. In this paper, the background for qualitative analysis in studying psychoanalytic material is discussed, and the procedures for using the method are demonstrated. A study of therapeutic competence in a group of student therapists is used as an example of the method in practice, demonstrating that the essay method may have potential for revising theory and establishing new concepts based on empirical findings. The essay method is compared with other qualitative methods, and it is argued that it is suitable for psychoanalytic research.     

Our Relations to Refugees: Between Compassion and Dehumanization*

After the so-called refugee crisis of 2015–2016 European reactions to foreigners had come to the fore and we are seeing xenophobic political and populist movements become increasingly mainstream. The massive rejection of refugees/asylum seekers taking place has made their conditions before, during and after flight, increasingly difficult and dangerous. This paper relates current xenophobia to historical attitudinal trends in Europe regarding Islam, and claims that a much more basic conflict is at work: the one between anti-modernism/traditionalism and modernism/globalization. Narratives on refugees often relate them to both the foreign (Islam) and to “trauma”. In an environment of insecurity and collective anxiety, refugees may represent something alien and frightening but also fascinating. I will argue that current concepts and theories about “trauma” or “the person with trauma” are insufficient to understand the complexity of the refugee predicament. Due to individual and collective countertransference reactions, the word “trauma” tends to lose its theoretical anchoring and becomes an object of projection for un-nameable anxieties. This disturbs relations to refugees at both societal and clinical levels and lays the groundwork for the poor conditions that they are currently experiencing. Historically, attitudes towards refugees fall somewhere along a continuum between compassion and rejection/dehumanization. At the moment, they seem much closer to the latter. I would argue that today’s xenophobia and/or xeno-racism reflect the fact that, both for individuals and for society, refugees have come to represent the Freudian Uncanny/das Unheimliche.