Facts and Sensibilities: What Is a Psychoanalytic Innovation? (original) (raw)
Related papers
Lost Objects: A Genealogy of the Psychoanalytic Setting (Science in Context 2006)
The psychoanalytic setting counts today as one of the familiar therapeutic rituals of the Western world. Taking up some of the insights of the anthropology of science will allow us to account for both the social and the material arrangements from which Freud's invention emerged at the end of the nineteenth century out of the clinical laboratories and private consulting rooms of practitioners of hypnosis. The peculiar way of neglecting or forgetting the object world and the institution of the psychoanalyst as a "transference object" will be traced back to multiple reconfigurations in the history of hypnotism in France and in Germany. In this process, different practitioners tried to achieve a synthesis of clinical work and experimental psychology, with the aim of objectifying knowledge about human subjectivity. While Freud retained the claim of psychoanalysis performing an experimental situation, he set apart his own setting from the objectifying practices which were characteristic of this experimental psychology located in the clinic and the private consulting room.
Psychoanalysis and its critics
Psychoanalytic Psychology, 2007
This article discusses the question of the basis of changes in psychoanalytic concepts, theory, and treatment. Illustrative examples discussed include the "widening scope" of the use of "parameters" in psychoanalytic treatment; the rejection of the "Enlightenment Vision" and the concomitant de-emphasis on the role of insight; the concept of "narrative truth"; and the "totalistic" reconceptualization of the meaning of countertransferase. I then discuss the relationship between research and clinical practice and argue that if it is to grow, psychoanalysis must be open to and attempt to integrate findings from other related disciplines.
British Journal of Psychotherapy, 1997
This paper examines the contradiction between the advances of psychoanalysis over the near century since Freud invented it, and its apparent divergence from the procedures of the other sciences. It argues that developments in the sociology and history of science since the 1960s enable the different dimensions of scientific activity to be more objectively identified. The work of Bruno Latour is discussed, focusing on his account of the laboratory as the key site of scientific discovery, and leading to a comparison between the laboratory and the psychoanalytic consulting room. However, significant differences between laboratory-based science and psychoanalysis are also pointed out. The most important of these is the degree to which the control of the outside world routinely sought by normal sciences is made impossible and undesirable for psychoanalysis by its distinctive commitment to the autonomy of its human subjects. This article argues that psychoanalysis has developed since its`revolutionary' invention in the form of a`normal science' (Kuhn 1962). It argues that, through the routinized procedures of its clinical consulting room, psychoanalysis has been fertile in developing new theories and techniques. This model of how psychoanalysis works, grounded in the sociology of science, is illustrated with examples of some key discoveries within the British psychoanalytical tradition. The linked article which follows, by Susan Reid, offers examples of some contemporary new developments in the psychoanalytic understanding of autism. These ideas, like the earlier examples given, are based on the evidence of the clinical consulting room, but also on another setting, infant observation, which is proposed as an additional site for empirical psychoanalytic study. There is a disjunction between the remarkable success of psychoanalysis as an intellectual and professional practice, since its invention by Freud at the end of the nineteenth century, and its lack of legitimation by the conventional canons of scientific method. How can a form of investigation and clinical practice which is, according to its critics, so deeply flawed have not only survived, but grown to assume the appearance of a mature scientific inquiry? Has this been merely a giant deception practised on a gullible and needy public? (The recurrent attacks on Freud's intellectual honesty, e.g. Crews et al. (1995) , display this suspicion.) Or is it, as Ernest Gellner (1985) has suggested, an instance of the attraction of non-rational forms of thinking in a world being transformed by`modernizing' forces-not a form of science but part of a reaction
Psychoanalysis has had a long gestation, during the course of which it has experienced multiple rebirths, leading some current authors to complain that there has been such a proliferation of theories of psychoanalysis over the past 115 years that the field has become theoretically fragmented and is in disarray (Fonagy & Target, 2003; Rangell, 2006). In this paper, I survey the past and present landscapes of psychoanalytic theorizing and clinical practice to trace the evolution of Freud's original insights and psychoanalytic techniques to current theory and practice. First, I sketch the evolutionary chronology of psychoanalytic theory; second, I discuss the key psychoanalytic techniques derived from clinical practice, with which psychoanalysis is most strongly identified; third, I interrogate whether Freud's original theoretical conceptualizations and clinical practices are still recognizable in current psychoanalytic theory and practice, using four key exemplars – object relations theory, attachment-informed psychotherapy, existential/phenomenological and intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy; and fourth, I discuss recent unhelpful, disintegrative developments in psychoanalytic scholarship. To this end, I critique the cul-de-sacs into which some psychoanalytic scholars have directed us, and conclude with the hope that the current state of affairs can be remedied. Psychoanalysis is simultaneously a form treatment, a theory, and an " investigative tool " (Lothane, 2006, p. 711). Freud used each of these three facets of psychoanalysis iteratively to progress our understanding of human mental functioning. Among Freud's unique theoretical insights into the human condition was the historically new idea that humans are primarily animals driven by instincts (Freud, 1915a, 1920) who undergo growth via universal developmental (psychosexual) stages that are influenced by family and social life. This was in opposition to the prevailing view of his time that humanity was God's highest creation. Freud (1908) challenged the cherished belief that humankind is rational and primarily governed by reason, replacing it with the disturbing notion that we are in fact driven by unacceptable and hence repressed aggressive and sexual impulses that are constantly at war with the " civilized " self. Freud himself and Freud scholars (Jones, 1953; Strachey, 1955) consider that the Studies on Hysteria (Breuer & Freud, 1893) mark the beginning of psychoanalysis as a theory and a treatment. These early papers place the causes of the symptoms of hysteria firmly in the psychological, not the neurological domain (although such a distinction is no longer sustainable), thus moving thinking about the cause of hysterical and other psychological symptoms from the brain to the mind. This insight underpinned a paradigm shift in thinking about the mental functioning of human beings, for which there was a scant vocabulary and embryonic conceptualizations. The theory that organized early clinical observations gradually unfolded, many precepts of which have entered the psychological lexicon as givens, concepts that are now taken for granted. Three of these bedrock concepts are the existence of the Unconscious, the notion of hidden meaning and the idea of repression.
Freud's relevance for contemporary psychoanalytic technique
Psychoanalytic Psychology, 2006
It is argued that Freud's influence on contemporary technique is best seen by separating Freud as a hermeneuticist from Freud as a natural scientist. Freud's hermeneutic work is elucidated by a depiction of his earliest model of technique and its application in The Interpretation of Dreams. The division of the latter work into the first 6 chapters as a hermeneutic and the last chapter as a metapsychology is used to show not only the split but the conflict in Freud between his hermeneutic of the mind and his attempt to found psychoanalysis as a natural science. It is shown that the shift in analytic thinking from the primacy of drives to the growth and transformation of the self has maintained interpretation as a necessary, although insufficient, condition for the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis and that interpretation continues to bear the stamp of Freud's hermeneutic of the mind.
A Brief History of Psychoanalysis: From Freud to Fantasy to Folly
Psychotherapy and Counselling Journal of Australia
Psychoanalysis has had a long gestation, during the course of which it has experienced multiple rebirths, leading some current authors to complain that there has been such a proliferation of theories of psychoanalysis over the past 115 years that the field has become theoretically fragmented and is in disarray (Fonagy & Target, 2003; Rangell, 2006). In this paper, Kenny surveys the past and present landscapes of psychoanalytic theorizing and clinical practice to trace the evolution of Freud’s original insights and psychoanalytic techniques to current theory and practice. First, the article sketches the evolutionary chronology of psychoanalytic theory; second, it discusses the key psychoanalytic techniques derived from clinical practice, with which psychoanalysis is most strongly identified; third, it interrogates whether Freud’s original theoretical conceptualizations and clinical practices are still recognizable in current psychoanalytic theory and practice, using four key exemplar...
II—Psychoanalytic Theory: A Historical Reconstruction
2012
In this paper I sketch a reconstruction of the basic psychoanalytic conception of the mind in terms of two historical resources: the conception of the subject developed in post-Kantian idealism, and Spinoza's laws of the affects in Part Three of the Ethics. The former, I suggest, supplies the conceptual basis for the psychoanalytic notion of the unconscious, problem, however, is that psychoanalysis is not consistently Kantian, either, and that its ambiguity cannot be resolved in either the one direction or the other. This should not, I have urged, be made an objection to psychoanalysis. But if correct, it means that psychoanalysis does not offer a philosophically safe home for Kant's 'I ought' to the extent that Longuenesse supposes.
Contested Issues in Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice
Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 2019
perspective on the nature of psychoanalysis. All of these trends, called for throughout this volume, are evident today. This book is written for a psychoanalytically sophisticated audience. Some of the difficult theory (Jurist, Naso, Lichtenstein) and research (Graf and Diamond; Waldron et al.) material is unlikely to find a readership among nonanalysts, but the ideas and information the book contains must be circulated beyond analytic circles. It is important for the larger world to know that psychoanalysis has changed, and that analysts have changed. We might suggest that progress begets progress (unless it doesn't), but that at least we can mark as progress whatever makes further progress more likely. And the attitudes presented by the contributors to this book are welcoming of new theory and applications. This is a crucial message to convey to analysts and nonanalysts alike.
After pluralism: towards a new, integrated psychoanalytic paradigm
The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2007
After a restatement of the isolationism of psychoanalysis from allied disciplines, and an examination of some of the reasons for the diversity of schools of thought and the fragmentation of psychoanalytic knowledge, the author suggests the need to adopt principles of correspondence or external coherence along with those of hermeneutic coherence to validate psychoanalytic hypotheses. Recent developments in neurocognitive science have come to the aid of psychoanalysis in this period of crisis, resulting in the proposition of integrating both areas to form a new paradigm for the construction of the theory of the mind. This emerging paradigm tries to integrate clinical knowledge with neurocognitive science, fi ndings from studies on the process and outcome of psychotherapy, research into the early mother-infant relationship, and developmental psychopathology. The author examines theoreticaltechnical models based on the concept of drives and of relationships in the light of interdisciplinary fi ndings. He concludes that the relational model has a broad empirical base, except when the concept of drives is discredited. Interdisciplinary fi ndings have led to the positing of the replacement of the Freudian model of drives with a model of motivational systems centred on affective processes. He draws certain conclusions which have a bearing on the technique of psychoanalytic treatment. These arise from the adoption of the new integrated paradigm.
British Journal of Psychotherapy, 2012
Reading this book was a rather humbling experience in that I realized that there is so much more research on the impact of early life trauma than I knew, even though I was familiar with quite a number of seminal papers in the field. One of the remarkable aspects of the book is the range of research that it covers, from the epidemiology of childhood trauma and the history of professional attitudes to the problem, through diagnostic controversies, psychosocial issues, longitudinal studies on the immediate and long-term neurobiological, psychological and physical effects of early relational trauma, to the implications all these hold for clinical work with children and adults who have suffered early-life trauma. This huge body of research is discussed and summarized in three sections, each of which has short co-authored chapters, so that the expertise of key researchers and clinicians across the whole field of traumatology is represented. The editors of the book are three psychiatrists, Ruth Lanius and Claire Pain from Canada, and Eric Vermetten from the Netherlands, all neuroscience and trauma research specialists who also explore the implications of empirical research for clinical psychotherapy practice. The focus of almost all these papers is on the hugely damaging impact that neglect or abuse by primary caregivers has on the psychological and emotional development of the human infant, creating lifelong consequences in terms of brain development, attachment and affect dysregulation, altered stress responses and a range of psychological symptoms, from the flashbacks and hyper-arousal of PTSD to altered perception, epileptic-type phenomena and dissociative states of varying degrees of severity, including borderline personality and dissociative identity disorder. This evidence from neurobiology powerfully supports the argument that it is real-life experience rather than innate unconscious phantasy that determines most of the problems our patients bring to the consulting room and so is highly relevant to our clinical practice. In Section I, the epidemiology and history of childhood trauma are first described, with several authors commenting on the reluctance of some professional groups to accept the link between childhood trauma and a range of physical and psychological symptoms they see in their patients. In the synopsis to this section, McFarlane suggests that: 'Clinicians' capacities for observation and description of patients' predicaments are more determined by the models of psychopathology that clinicians adhere to than the history presented to them by the patient' (p. 44). McFarlane suggests that psychoanalytic theory carries considerable responsibility for 'the millions of patients whose stories were told but not believed, being dismissed as oedipal fantasies' (p. 44). But medicine, psychology and psychiatry also failed to recognize the destructiveness of childhood abuse, as part of a broader denial of the significance of trauma. Van der Kolk highlights the shocking example of one psychiatric textbook, published in the 1970s that actually extolled 'the possible benefits to a child of incest' (p. 58).