American Journal of Psychoanalysis

A deep understanding of the subjective experience of time in traumatized individuals may require a comprehensive framework that takes into account both psychoanalytic and phenomenological contributions. Referring to the retroactive interpretation of past experiences, the concept of Nachträglichkeit is critical to analyze how trauma can be signified in the form of the après-coup, in which the original traces of traumatic experiences are signified only at a later time. Trauma alters the temporal sequence of past, present, and future, thus leaving the psyche in a time-shifted dimension, where the shadow of the past extends over the present, and the unbearable present hinders growth and development...

Courage requires us to persist and persevere despite fear. We make choices everyday-some are courageous, and some are not courageous at all. This dimension of psychoanalytic work is significant, yet relatively neglected in the psychoanalytic literature. Maintaining a courageous stance as an analyst can be challenging and threatening. Often, the therapist faces deeply rooted fears about abandonment, envy, competition, anger, or other forms of intense emotional arousal. This requires us to confront ourselves but also, at times, confront our patient's behaviors...

In this paper I have chosen the topic of psychoanalysis in the age of neuroscience, with the aim of showing why the cultural history of psychoanalysis still matters. To make myself better understood I shall refrain from evaluating the current findings in neuroscience and limit myself to reporting briefly on them. Although I do not regard myself by any means as an expert in that field, I may be permitted to offer a few ideas about it. In this regard, there is presently a significant predominance of biological ideologies and practices regarding the treatment of mental illness, which implies an increase in the interest in etiology, nosology, definitions, and the effectivity of treatments...

Freud, early in psychoanalytic history, modified hypnotic technique and recommended, in its stead, free association. This paper takes a close look at the theoretical foundations of that technique in light of theoretical developments over the past hundred plus years. It is argued that free association is similar to an asymptote, which is never quite reached. Moreover, it is argued that the direction to free associate is contraindicated in many, if not most, psychological disturbances. Guided association or avoidance of free association is sometimes required...

Beginning in 1920 and in keeping with Freud's sustained encouragement, the first two generations of European psychoanalysts initiated a progressive mental health movement by offering very low cost and free psychoanalytic services that were in harmony with Austrian social democratic and socialist political leaders' commitment to societal reforms in light of the economic and social inequities after the First World War. This synthesis of biographical and autobiographical accounts of early Freudian, Ego Psychology and Neo-Freudian theorists' contributions highlights their consideration of the effects of social injustice as central challenges to the development of psychological growth...

This paper offers a new take on friendship, its specific qualities, how it is subjectively experienced and changes over the course of a patient's life and how it might serve as catalyst for positive change in the therapeutic process. The premise is based on the Aristotelian definition of friendship as a friendship of virtue, as well as on insights stemming from intersubjective thinking, and observations about horizontal relationships in contemporary psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. A review of the scant psychodynamic and psychoanalytic literature on friendship is presented and the author notes its marginal place in the lexicon compared with other more extensively studied relationships...

The paper analyzes Ferenczi's contributions to contemporary debates on gender. It does not strictly adhere to what he wrote about masculinity and femininity, where he reveals himself as a man of his time, with the some of the prejudices of his time. Instead, the paper highlights the utraquistic method and the pluralist monism of Ferenczi, whereby he appears as an analyst who remains in synch with current problems. Against the purity of dualisms, Ferenczi embraced multiplicity, mixtures, and the transit between different spaces, beyond divisive frontiers...

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Inspired by the work of Fonagy (2008) and Dent and Christian (2019), this study applies a form of quantitative textual analysis to 300 terms of psychoanalytic interest in the PEP archives by tracking their historical prevalence in five-year increments using the aggregate number of articles featuring each term in the field's journals. Our results confirm some of the more well-known inflection points in the history and application of psychoanalytic theory, while also revealing some intriguing surprises. Psychoanalysis remains fundamentally a depth psychology, yet it has increasingly acknowledged the external causes of distress and trauma...

This interview with Dr. Judith Dupont contains her reminiscences and thoughts about two topics of importance for the historiography of psychoanalysis. First, Dr. Dupont recalls her growing up among and meeting with pioneers, such as Vilma Kovács, Alice and Michael Balint, Melanie Klein, Imre Hermann and others. Second, Dr. Dupont reconstructs the chronicle of Ferenczi's manuscripts: how they were entrusted to Michael Balint by Ferenczi's widow, the complex reasons Balint could not publish them for more than 30 years, and finally, how Dr...

Beyond revealing unconscious pathological identifications and traits-including their past usefulness but current toxicity-what techniques in our psychoanalytic practice can lead to change? Radically different from mainstream philosophical views advocating that such undesirable self-aspects should not be endorsed as Self, psychoanalysts hold that these negative traits must instead be understood as part of one's Self. But then what? Investigating concepts from classical conditioning, neuroscience, the philosophy of mind and action, and psychoanalytic practice itself, this article will suggest a preliminary account of the mechanism of action of psychoanalytic work after insight...

In May 2020, within the cultural and emotionally regressive chaos of the pandemic, the analyst witnessed a violent Black Lives Matter protest. Myriad unprocessed feelings subsequently impacted her handling the treatment of a patient who abruptly left a session to attend a protest herself. The analyst describes her own personal experience and the cascade of events that affected the treatment. She suggests that analysts can be armed with the awareness that enactments are more likely to happen when the analyst, as well the patient, are under extreme duress as is the case in the time of Covid...

In this article I seek to clarify the different ways in which religious ultra-Orthodox Jewish patients, accustomed to the continuous presence of God in their daily lives, relate to God in times of crisis and within the therapeutic framework. While the accepted, ongoing dialogue with God is characterized by prayer and a highly respectful relationship towards a divine, spiritual authority, in times of distress we find that patients may "use" God in other ways as well. These "uses of God" may be categorized into four main groups: a relationship to God as a projection of the patient's relationship to his/her parents; the idealization and glorification of God, from a place of distance, authority and supremacy; a relationship to God of "closeness" and mutuality; and a relationship of "objectification"-the idea that God exists for me as an object, to serve or help me in my daily life...

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No abstract text is available yet for this article.