Religious and national radicalism in Middle-Eastern countries: A psychoanalytical point of view

Abstract

This article explores the Adlerian concept of inferiority complexes that serve as a possible source of unconscious motivation for religious and national radicalism. The Middle-Eastern countries of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey serve as examples. Religious extremism and national radicalism are described as a result of the overcompensation of underlying inferiority complexes caused by belonging to ethnic and religious minorities.     

Opening the closed heart: affect-focused clinical work with the victims of early trauma

This paper begins with the understanding that early trauma leads to powerful dissociative defenses which injure the capacity to feel. It further explores ways to restore this capacity through body-centred attention to affect-in-the-moment in the psychoanalytic situation. Using the author’s personal experience while in analysis as well as a case of severe early trauma, he demonstrates the consciousness-killing effect of primitive defenses and shows how body-sensitive techniques hold the promise of restoring the patient’s sense of aliveness and hence, opening the unconscious to those affect-images that are the building blocks of the human imagination. A final section focuses on the neglect of feeling in Jungian psychology and suggests that the “creation of consciousness” which Jung described as his personal myth, is quintessentially a process of emotional transformation – of bringing unconscious suffering into consciousness – as feelings.     

Collective complexes--total perspectives

A much greater part of our identity than we generally believe is collectively determined. Awareness of the causal link between identity, its connected values and the influence exerted by these values on perception is therefore crucial. In the implicit personality model of Peabody and Goldberg (1989), the apparent wide variety of human characteristics is broken down into three broad dimensions: general evaluation, impulse control and assertiveness. My hypothesis is that the regulation of impulses can be equated with the Jungian concept of the mother and father complexes, and assertiveness with the relation between individualism and collectivism. I have utilized Montgomery's perspective theory and Jung's concepts of the union of opposites, the complex and the shadow in order to provide an alternative interpretation of the implicit personality model. According to my interpretation, the traditional values of any culture can be read against these three dimensions. These values can be seen as the greatest treasure of a culture but, at the same time, they can also be devastating if they become complex-like.     

Perversion and infancy and adolescence

Abstract

Studying the works of Freud and Lacan, the authors carried out research on perversion in childhood. Their work covered the perverse polymorphism of infantile sexuality and the perception of the anatomic difference between the sexes that leads the child to create sexual theories and fantasies. The phallic mother and the fetish are viewed as imaginary solutions directly related to the Oedipus and castration complexes. In perversion, a particular position is taken in relation to the Oedipus complex: a serious flaw occurs in the symbolization of the law, and the mechanisms of denial and disavowal take form. Sexuality requires a second “logical time,” separated from infancy by the latency period, in order to confirm (in action) that a fixed position of jouissance (enjoyment) has actually been established. This can only happen in a period after adolescent enhancement. The distinction between perverse traces and a perverse structure is made, taking into account the fact that, in the case of child analysis, the analyst should free the child from the family fantasy and help him/her to build his/her own fantasy.

Campos Santoro V. et al. Perversion und Kindheit und Adoleszenz.

Im Studium der Arbeiten von Freud und Lacan haben die Autoren Forschung über Perversion in der Kindheit gemacht. Die Studien behandeln den perversen Polymorphismus der infantilen Sexualität und die Wahrnehmung des anatomischen Unterschiedes zwischen den Geschlechtern, welche das Kind dazu führt, Sexual-Theorien und Phatasien zu schaffen.

Die phallische Mutter und der Fetisch werden als imaginäre Lösungen angesehen, die sich direkt auf den Ödipus- und Kastrations-Komplex beziehen. Bei der Perversion wird eine besondere Position in Bezug auf den Ödipus angenommen; ein ernsthafter Mangel tritt bei der Symbolisierung des Rechts auf; die Mechanismen der Verneinung und der Verleugnung bilden sich. Sexualität erfordert eine zweite “logische Zeit”, von der Kindheit durch die Latenz Periode getrennt, um (in der Handlung) zu bestätigen, daß eine fixierte Position der jouissance (Vergnügung) sich tatsächlich etabliert hat. Das kann sich nur in einer Periode nach der adoleszenten Verstärkung ereignen.

Es wird die Unterscheidung zwischen perversen Spuren und einer perversen Struktur gemacht, in Rechnung stellend, daß im Fall der Kinder-Analyse der Analytiker das Kind von der Familien-Phantasie befreien sollte und ihm/ihr helfen sollte, seine/ihre Phantasie auszubilden.

Campos Santoro V. Perversión e infancia y adolescencia.

Estudiando los trabajos de Freud y Lacan, los autores han investigado la perversión en la niñez. Los estudios cubren la sexualidad infantil perversa polimorfa y la percepción de la diferencia anatómica entre los sexos, que llevan al niño a crear teorías sexuales y fantasías.

La madre fálica y el fetiche son vistos como soluciones imaginarias relacionadas directamente con el complejo de Edipo y de castración. La perversión, toma una posición particular en relación al Edipo; un fallo importante tiene lugar en la simbolización de la ley; los mecanismos de negación y repudio toman forma. La sexualidad requiere un segundo “tiempo lógico” separado de la infancia por el periodo de latencia, para confirmar (en acto) que una posición fija de jouissance (goce) se ha establecido. Esto solo puede ocurrir en un periodo posterior a la intensificación adolescente.

La distinción entre las huellas perversas y la estructura perversa se ha hecho, teniendo en cuenta que, en el caso del análisis de niños, el analista debe librar al niño de la fantasía familiar y ayudar a el/ella a construir su propia fantasía.     

Supervising away from home: clinical,cultural and professional challenges

This paper explores some challenges of supervising clinical work of trainees, known as ‘routers’, who live in countries with diverse cultural, social and political traditions, and the analysts who travel to supervise them. It is written as an evolving dialogue between the authors, who explore together the effects of their own culture of origin, and in particular the legacy and values of their own training institutes on the styles and models of analytic supervision. Their dialogue is framed around the meaning of home and experiences of homesickness for analysts working away from home in an interactive field of strangeness in countries where analytical psychology is a relatively new discipline. The authors outline the findings from their own qualitative survey, where other supervisors working abroad, and those they have supervised, describe their experiences and their encounters with difference. The dialogue ends with both authors discussing what they have learned about teaching and supervising abroad, the implications for more flexible use of Jungian concepts, and how such visits have changed their clinical practice in their home countries.     

fMRI responses to Jung's Word Association Test: implications for theory,treatment and research

Jung's Word Association Test was performed under fMRI conditions by 12 normal subjects. Pooled complexed responses were contrasted against pooled neutral ones. The fMRI activation pattern of this generic ‘complexed response’ was very strong (corrected Z scores ranging from 4.90 to 5.69). The activation pattern in each hemisphere includes mirror neurone areas that track ‘otherness’ (perspectival empathy), anterior insula (both self‐awareness and emotional empathy), and cingulated gyrus (self‐awareness and conflict‐monitoring). These are the sites described by Siegel and colleagues as the ‘resonance circuitry’ in the brain which is central to mindfulness (awareness of self) and empathy (sense of the other), negotiations between self awareness and the ‘internal other’. But there is also an interhemispheric dialogue. Within 3 seconds, the left hemisphere over‐rides the right (at least in our normal subjects). Mindfulness and empathy are central to good psychotherapy, and complexes can be windows of opportunity if left‐brain hegemony is resisted. This study sets foundations for further research: (i) QEEG studies (with their finer temporal resolution) of complexed responses in normal subjects (ii) QEEG and fMRI studies of complexed responses in other conditions, like schizophrenia, PTSD, disorders of self organization.     

Floating worlds and their phantoms in the aftermath of social catastrophes

In this paper the author describes certain kinds of images (phantoms) that appear in the aftermath of social catastrophes. These phantoms come with an underlying narrative structure, which the author describes as phantom narratives. Phantom narratives show how the unconscious, working at the group and individual levels, provides political and social contexts within which the individual may find a different kind of containment for these catastrophes. In this way their suffering may be potentially processed psychologically and related to symbolically.     

The analyst's Rorschach: gateway to opening the dialectical field

The author offers an account of his evolving relationship with the Rorschach test which for over 20 years as a private practice psychologist, he used in his clinical practice with the intent of mining patients’ psyches for useful information about personality organization and functioning . Coinciding with having found himself on the homestretch of analytic training and during a time when he desired clarity on how Rorschach assessment and Jungian analysis could fruitfully merge, there was an unexpected shift in emphasis wherein the Rorschach suddenly became a method for looking at himself as well. This challenge to identify and integrate aspects of self hitherto neglected was found to enrich his clinical practice. An historical perspective on this experience is offered which highlights the enigmatic relationship that existed between Carl Jung and Hermann Rorschach. The proverbial question of ‘What might this be?’ has been asked when administering the Rorschach for nearly a century. From an analytic perspective, the question is more fully and meaningfully asked when the person doing the asking has also been willing to step in, look around, and take notice of what happens.     

Displacement as trauma and trauma as displacement in the experience of refugees

This paper investigates the relations between displacement, home, trauma and the self in the experience of refugees, which has become an issue of unexpected and far-reaching proportions in recent times. It questions to what extent and under what conditions displacement in the world may be traumatic and how trauma may be considered the effect of an inner displacement. Refugees’ lives are marked by forced migration that is related to a certain suffering due to the changes in their family, relational, social and cultural lives. The paper explores the extent to which these changes can represent a break so significant as to be traumatic. It outlines the way in which traumatic experiences can produce an inner displacement and reorganization of one’s mental life that leads to a focus on traumatic complexes. Under the most severe traumatic conditions, this can be understood as a displacement of the central axis of Self, in which the ego complex yields its position to other complexes, with a deep change in the organization and functioning of self. The experience of refugees highlights the way in which we live in a matrix of conscious and unconscious links between inner and outer worlds that need deeper and simultaneous consideration to understand their implications and mutual resonances for the psyche. Clinical cases of refugees will illustrate some aspects of these interconnections.     

Healing cultural trauma and its application to the Router programme

This paper explores the issue of cultural trauma, which is an area of concern in psychology generally and has emerged as one within the International Association for Analytical Psychology’s Router training programme. A summary of responses to the issues of cultural trauma and complexes (alongside cultural differences) within analytical psychology are presented, followed by an overview of findings from the IAAP’s evaluation of the Router training programme. These findings are then aligned with contemporary sociological research. The significant issues involved in healing cultural trauma seem to be ‘working through’, as well as the place of imagination, dreamwork, symbolism and metaphor. Research in Poland has specifically highlighted the importance of good governance, economic vitality, personal and social capital (as in education and social participation), a meaning system, certain external contingencies, channels of mobility and ritualism.