The Therapist's Subjective Appraisal and Acceptance of Multidimensional Reality in the Therapeutic Work

Psychotherapists are often required to suspend their perspectives during critical moments within the therapeutic work to understand the participants' mutual subjectivities. This suspension of the psychotherapist's perceptions and representations as relativistic, often arouses feelings of discomfort and anxiety as they threaten the therapist's sense of integrity, coherence and wholeness. Containing these feelings within while delaying immediate responses to alleviate the discomfort and anxiety during such moments, may enrich and deepen the therapeutic interventions, create new sparks of enthusiasm in the therapy, while finding insight and creative solutions to various enigmas encountered in the therapeutic process.     

Integrating different types of knowledge in supervision

The present article examines ways to integrate two, often contradictory, types of knowledge in supervision, which are sometimes represented either by supervisors or supervisees, and sometimes by different parts in the supervisee. These types of knowledge are in a dialectic relationship: they may define each other and at the same time influence and shape each other, yet remain two separate sources for understanding the therapeutic experience. One type is the primary, vague, and intuitive knowledge about patients and therapist–patient interactions, derived from actual participation in the therapeutic relationship. The other type is knowledge derived from theory, experience acquired mainly outside of the specific therapy, and dialog with colleagues.     

Paradox and Personal Growth During Crisis

This paper considers situations of personal crisis, which lead to experiences of extreme helplessness and emotional upheaval. It is suggested that although crises may be precipitated by either external or internal events, all crisis situations have a common denominator. What is common to all crises is the disruption and then restitution of the ability to withstand paradox in the experience of the self. Although there is wide variety in the nature of the personal crisis, all crisis situations have similar structural features. Crises are so dramatic and so frequent a phenomenon in the human experience that they warrant serious and thorough investigation of their nature. Because crisis situations are on the one hand so disabling and potentially destructive and on the other hand can open doors to growth and development, they are extremely valuable to deepen our understanding of how crises develop and unfold.     

LONELINESS,CLOSENESS AND SHARED RESPONSIBILITY IN SUPERVISION

This paper examines the meaning of stepping in and out of the formal supervisory roles and allowing relational unbidden experiences in the supervisory space. Such episodes evolve the supervisory relationship because they help to relieve the supervisees of their sense of aloneness in bearing a burdensome clinical responsibility: they change the supervisees’ perspective on therapeutic processes from first person singular to first person plural. Despite their evaluative function and the professional community that they share with supervisees, supervisors can facilitate the emergence of these episodes with the widely accepted practice of imagining therapeutic interactions. Such activity changes the hierarchy and reduces the tension in the supervisory space, and allows unbidden relational experiences to emerge. Thus, challenging the supervisory framework and temporarily stepping out of the formal roles not only strengthens the supervisees’ ethical clinical position but also allows for productive and creative processes in supervision.     

Legacies,archives, afterlife: re-envisioning the Li-La-Lo theatre (Tel Aviv, 1944–1948)

This article suggests re-reading documents that remain from Li-La-Lo theatrical events, which include playbills, programmes, photos, archive files, and television shows. Through this historiographic way of working, that is, the re-reading of what remains from past performances but differently, this article will demonstrate what Tel Aviv offered to the artists, what the theatre as a cultural institution offered to the residents of the city and, in the broader circle, how Li-La-Lo was an intersection of performance traditions. Historical circumstances brought the Li-La-Lo artists to Tel Aviv, and the leaders and residents of the city, who cultivated normalcy, enabled them to continue to do what they knew best: perform. Thus, performance artists strengthened Tel Aviv’s status as a cultural centre, a symbol, and embodiment of cultural heterogeneity.     

On paradoxes and the experience of duality

Abstract

Opposing attitudes, emotions, or perceptions of self and other that set the stage for experiences of duality influence our interactions and self–other schemas. The experience of duality that has been conceptualised as “conflict,” “self state,” and “paradox" in psychoanalytic theory has been extensively considered, particularly in terms of its manifestation in transference–countertransference relations and in the analytic material from patients' experiences. They have not, however, been compared and contrasted as entities that lead to similar kinds of experience. Scant attention has been paid, moreover, to paradox as a mental organisation that underlies certain experiences of duality. The concept of paradox has thus been emphasised and developed in this paper.     

Effects of the Gulf War: Identifying dangers to integrity of the psychoanalytic process

This paper deals with aspects of psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy taking place during a period of political and dangerous military events in the Gulf War. The situatiOn threatened the physical existence of the civilian population, including the therapist and the patient. Presented are number of potential dangers to the integrity of the therapeutic process. These military-oriented dangers produce in therapists an occasional inability to contain their own feelings. This may lead to therapists' unconscious use of patients for their own intrapsychic needs, and harm their patients. Another source of danger is the vagueness and ambiguity of the objective reality of the outside world. This may disrupt the ability to help the patient differentiate between inner and outer reality. Moreover, discussed are the ways in which therapy may facilitate personal growth in both the therapist and the patient. These external events may also serve to accelerate the course of therapy, as patients identify with their therapist' coping ability. Similarly, therapists may also gain and benefit by perceiving their patients' healthy growth and development.     

Sexuality,Intimacy, and Recovery

Human sexuality is an inseparable part of the yearning for intimacy, merging, and touch, both for people in general and for those with severe mental disorders. The exploration and acceptance of sexuality and the yearning for intimacy are vital to the recovery process of people with severe mental disorders. Despite this importance, therapists appear to disregard sexual issues in therapy with people with severe mental disorders. This article discusses the sexuality difficulties of these patients resulting from their personal history and examines the difficulties of therapists and therapeutic institutions in dealing with these patients’ sexuality-related issues.     

On the Presence and Absence of Supervisors

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - The presence or absence of another person, and the relationship between these two contradictory and complementary relational phenomena, significantly...     

TOWARD A BALANCED HISTORY: “OHEL,” THE “WORKERS THEATRE OF ERETZ YISRAEL” AS A CULTURAL ALTERNATIVE TO HABIMA (1935–1946)

Ohel (Hebrew: tent) is the only theatre among the troupes established in Tel Aviv in the 1920s that survived the serious threat posed by the famous Habima when the latter settled in Tel Aviv in 1931. This article offers a history whose aim is to balance between Habima and its central position, and the marginal position of Ohel in traditional history, as well as offering an interpretation of new materials that undermine the accepted myths of the Hebrew theatre. The article examines the discourse obtaining between Ohel and Habima, and focuses on the alternative that Ohel offered the public. It thereby provides the field of Hebrew theatre with a “living historical depth” that is sorely missing in the conventional history.