Psychoanalysis On and Off the Couch

Harvey Schwartz MD
undefined
5 snips
Apr 2, 2023 • 50min

"Music Sounds the Way Emotion Feels": from the Piano to the Couch with Julie Nagel, PhD (Dexter, Michigan)

In this fascinating discussion, Julie Jaffee Nagel, a psychologist, psychoanalyst, and musician, blends her expertise from The Juilliard School and the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute. She explores the emotional resonance of Mozart’s music, drawing parallels between musical themes and psychoanalytic conflicts. Julie shares how music facilitates healing in therapy, her personal journey from musician to analyst, and recounts how her experiences with loss and grief are reflected in both music and psychoanalysis, embodying the therapeutic symbiosis of art and emotion.
undefined
Mar 19, 2023 • 58min

'Wearing the Attributes' - 50 years as an Analyst with Judith Chused, MD (Washington, DC)

"A child [patient] makes a mistake, upsets things - one doesn't console or complain, but just reflects whatever the patient's affect was at that moment, such as, 'that seems to bother you' or 'it's hard to put those two pieces together'- to just observe it, to not have an affective response of disgust or irritation. The same thing is true if a patient comes in bragging or talking about something that made them very proud - to acknowledge their being proud but to not get all excited. The kind of things that often these children who have a lot of difficulty due to parents' narcissistic investment in them, and we're all narcissistically invested in our kids - they have a lot of trouble knowing what they really feel and what they really want. I think my non-judgmental, either positively judgmental or negatively judgmental attitude, allows them to begin to experience that what they're doing is what they are doing for themselves for some reason, not what they're doing for me or for the witness, that's an enormously important part." Episode Description: We begin with Judy sharing her professional journey that led her to child analysis. She is active as a psychoanalytic clinician, supervisor, teacher, consultant, writer, and editor. We discuss four key papers of hers that study neutrality, enactments, informative experiences, and the role of attachment. Central to her writing and thinking is her curiosity about the inner lives of her patients, especially as action and interaction provide clues to that latent life. We discuss the analyst's experience of 'wearing the attributes' that patients need to project onto us and tolerating the often deep discomfort in doing so. We consider how her model of therapeutic action, entailing surprise and changes in perceptual frame, does and doesn't have some similarities to psychedelic-assisted therapy. We close with her sharing her analytic experiences with gender-conflicted boys and her hope for the future of our field. Our Guest: Judith Fingert Chused, MD, is an Emeritus Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the Denver, Cleveland, and Seattle Institutes. She is also a Clinical Professor of Behavioral Sciences and of Pediatrics at the George Washington School of Medicine. She is married for 57 years to a former nursery school and medical school classmate and has seven delightful, mischievous grandchildren. Recommended Readings: Chused, J. F. (2016) An Analyst's Uncertainty and Fear. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 85:835-850 Chused, J. F. (2000) Discussion: A Clinician's View of Attachment Theory. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 48:1175-1187 Chused, J. F. (1999) Male Gender Identity and Sexual Behaviour. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 80:1105-1117 Chused, J. F. (1996) The Patient's Perception of the Analyst's Countertransference. Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis 4:231-253 Chused, J. F. (1996) The Therapeutic Action of Psychoanalysis: Abstinence and Informative Experiences. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 44:1047-1071 Chused, J. F. (1991) The Evocative Power of Enactments. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 39:615-639 Chused, J. F. (1992) The Patient's Perception of the Analyst: The Hidden Transference. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 61:161-184 Chused, J. F. (1990) Neutrality in the Analysis of Action-Prone Adolescents. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 38:679-704 Chused, J. F. (1987) Idealization of the Analyst by the Young Adult. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 35:839-859 Chused, J. F. (1982) The Role of Analytic Neutrality in the Use of the Child Analyst as a New Object. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 30:3-28
undefined
Mar 5, 2023 • 45min

From Immunology to Psychoanalysis: Reflections on Primitive Mental States with Shiri Ben Bassat (Tel Aviv)

"This is the first time that I really felt what is meant by cell relations. You have object relations and you have part-object relations and anxieties that are depressive and schizophrenic. But when I deal with primitive anxieties, I really felt cell relations. What I felt is that my cells were going beyond my skin and I felt that she felt that my cells were going beyond her skin. You have this diffuse transference and when you have this sort of transference it took me to prenatal life and biological life. Also, I had all those theoretical people like Tustin, Meltzer, and Bion - they were all talking about that." Episode Description: Shiri shares with us her journey from immunology to psychology to psychoanalysis. She brings her knowledge of immunologic processes to better grasp the internal mechanisms of the dynamic mind. She sees a relationship between the embryo's capacity to transform the mother's Natural Killer cells into a receptive matrix with later capacities for psychological maturation. We consider how this informed her work with a traumatized 4-year-old girl in a tumultuous analysis that demanded a great deal from each of them. We close with her sharing her vision for the future of psychoanalysis which hopefully will include ongoing collaboration with scientists from many disciplines. Our Guest: Shiri Ben Bassat is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst with the Israel Psychoanalytic Society. She supervises at Franz Brill Mental Health Center (Ramat Chen, Tel Aviv) and teaches in various programs in the Studying Center of The Israel Psychoanalytic Institute. Shiri previously studied biology and holds an MA degree in immunology. She is the recipient of the 24th Frances Tustin Memorial Prize (2021). Recommended Readings: EPIGENETICS Martin, S. (2014) R. Yehuda, N.P. Daskalakis, A. Lehrner, F. Desarnaud, H.N. Bader, I. Makotkine, J.D. Flory, L.M. Bierer, & M.J. Meaney (2014). Influences of maternal and paternal PTSD on epigenetic regulation of the glucocorticoid receptor gene in Holocaust survivor offspring. American Journal of Psychiatry 171:872-880. Karla Ramirez , Rosa Fernández , Sarah Collet , Meltem Kiyar Enrique Delgado-Zayas , Esther Gómez-Gil , Tibbert Van Den Eynde , Guy T'Sjoen , Antonio Guillamon , Sven C Mueller , Eduardo Pásaro (2021) Epigenetics Is Implicated in the Basis of Gender Incongruence: An Epigenome-Wide Association Analysis. Front Neurosci Aug 19; 15:701017 PRIMITIVE ANXIETIES Durban, J. (2019) ""Making a person": Clinical considerations regarding the interpretation of anxieties in the analyses of children on the autisto-psychotic spectrum" The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 100:5, 921-939. PRENATAL AND POSTNATAL Meltzer, D. & Williams, M. H. (1988) 2. Aesthetic Conflict: It's Place in the Developmental Process. The Apprehension of Beauty: The Role of Aesthetic Conflict in Development, Art, and Violence 146:7-33 Bion, W. R. (1976) "On a quotation from Freud." In Clinical Seminars and Four Papers, Ed. F. Bion. Abingdon: Fleetwood Press, 1987. Joanna Wilheim (2004) The trauma of conception. Presented at a Meeting of the Brazilian Society of Psychoanalysis of São Paulo (SBPSP) on October 7, 2004. Trnsformation of the mother's immune system. Mandelboim, O. et al' (2006). Decidual NK cells regulate key developmental processes at the human fetal-maternal interface. Nature Medicine 12: 1065 – 1074.
undefined
Feb 19, 2023 • 45min

Freud Encounters C.S. Lewis as imagined by Mark St. Germain

"[in the play Freud's Last Session]... with the sound of the bombers both men react as they did the first time - with fear. But this time instead of disguising it they admit to it. That admittance was the bond between them. Freud also was shaken by the whole experience. At the very end of the play, and repeatedly through the play, there were reports on the BBC about the war. The BBC at that point had a live orchestra, and when the news was finished the orchestra would jump in and play music until the next news bulletin. Every time the news was over, Freud immediately turned it off, so he didn't have to listen to music. Lewis catches on to that at some point and he equates it with Freud's wall that he puts up to shield his emotions because he feels they are being manipulated. But at the very end of the play, after Lewis leaves, Freud listens to the radio and for the first time he doesn't turn off the music. The last image of the play is him just looking at the radio as if trying to really understand music and his own aversion to it." Episode Description: The similarity is noted between the clinical encounter and the structure of Mark's play where there are two men in a room intensely engaging with each other. We discuss how the trajectory of the play, like in the consulting room, allows for the emergence of latent meanings to be revealed between Freud and Lewis. Mark shares with us what drew him to these two thinkers and how he created a storyline that would demonstrate the underlying emotional struggles of each, individually and together. It is set at the beginning of World War II, three weeks before Freud's death. The play touches on Freud's childhood, his intense relationship with his daughter Anna and his planned euthanasia. We listen to a reading of a piece of the play that entails a powerful encounter between the characters. Mark has adapted this play for the screen, starring Anthony Hopkins as Freud, that is currently being filmed. We close with his mentioning his fiction writing and an upcoming theatrical release The World's Happiest Man. Our Guest: Mark St. Germain writes for the stage, television, and film. He is a recipient of the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, and the Off-Broadway Alliance Award. Mark has written the plays Freud's Last Session (Best Play Award from the Off-Broadway Alliance), Camping with Henry and Tom, Forgiving Typhoid Mary (Time Magazine's "Year's Ten Best"), and Becoming Dr. Ruth, the story of Dr. Ruth Westheimer. A sampling of his other plays includes Best of Enemies, Ears on a Beatle, Scott and Hem, Dancing Lessons, and Eleanor. His play, The Happiest Man on Earth premieres in the summer of 2023 at the Barrington Stage Company. He has written a memoir, Walking Evil, and a thriller, The Mirror Man. His screen adaptation of his play Freud's Last Session has begun filming. Recommended Reading: Gay, Peter: Freud: A Life for Our Time Jones, Ernest: The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud Green, Roger Lancelyn and Hooper, Walter: C. S. Lewis: A Biography Sayer, George: Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis St. Germain, Mark: The Mirror Man: A Thriller St. Germain, Mark: Walking Evil: How Man's Best Friend Became My Worst Enemy St. Germain, Mark: Becoming Dr. Ruth St. Germain, Mark: The God Committee
undefined
Feb 5, 2023 • 52min

Psychoanalytic Reflections on Evil with Dr. Roger Kennedy (London)

"I feel as a psychoanalyst one has to respond to the world. We can't just simply remain in our consulting rooms although that has always been vitally important for my identity and thinking. We can't turn a blind eye to what is going on in the world. There are a lot of awful things going on - a lot of genocides, a lot of similar kinds of processes that were seen in the Holocaust, that were seen in slavery, and they are continuing. We need to stand up, we need to say what's going on, we need to tell people 'Look, these are the elements.' In America they came close to disaster with what happened with the capitol riots. We came close with populous movements here, but luckily our democratic structures have been fairly resilient. We have been able to stand up, with all this skepticism one may have, to some of these destructive forces. But other places are not so able to. It was a sense of I can't simply keep quiet." Episode Description: We begin with Roger's definition of evil, which references the destruction of the subjectivity of the 'other'. We consider the mutual influences of individual psychology and group forces that permit and encourage the degradation and annihilation of the scapegoated. The two examples that he addresses in his book are the Holocaust and British-American Slavery, acknowledging the similarities and differences between them. Roger considers the capacity to provide a "home for otherness" as a vital alternative to evil. We discuss the town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in France as an example of those who collectively provided such a home for Jews in World War II. We conclude with his sharing his personal and family story with the Holocaust, which informs his life's work as well as the origin of his last name. Our Guest: Dr. Roger Kennedy is a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist and an adult psychoanalyst. He was an NHS consultant in charge of the Family Unit at the Cassel Hospital for nearly thirty years before going into private practice twelve years ago. He was chair of the Child and Family Practice in Bloomsbury and is still a director there. His work includes being a training analyst and seeing adults for analysis and therapy, as well as children, families, and parents at his clinic. He is a past president of the British Psychoanalytical Society and is a frequent expert witness in the family courts. He has written fourteen books published on psychoanalysis, interdisciplinary studies, and child, family, and court work, as well as many papers. His previous IPA podcast on music is at http://ipaoffthecouch.org/2020/11/22/episode-72-the-musicality-of-psychoanalysis-and-the-psychoanalysis-of-music-with-roger-kennedy-md/ Film: Getting Away with Murder(s) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5078614/ Recommended Readings: Bohleber, W. (2010). Destructiveness, Intersubjectivity, and Trauma. London: Routledge. Browning, C. (1992). Ordinary Men. New York: Harper. Chasseguet-Smirgel, J. (1990). Reflections of a Psychoanalyst Upon the Nazi Biocracy and Genocide. International Review of Psycho-Analysis, 17: 22 167–176. Hyatt-Williams, A. (1998). Cruelty, Violence, and Murder. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. Kennedy, R. (2022), The Evil Imagination, Understanding and Resisting Destructive Forces. London: Phoenix Books. Mitscherlich, A., & Mitscherlich, M. (1967). The Inability to Mourn. B. Placzek (Trans.). New York: Grove, 1975. Patterson, O. (1982). Slavery and Social Death. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Thomas, L. M. (1993). Vessels of Evil. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Warnock, B. (2020). Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust. London: Weiner Holocaust Library.
undefined
Jan 22, 2023 • 60min

Can Psychoanalysis be Identical Everywhere? with Jorge Bruce (Lima)

"Psychoanalysis is a translation of what I call in Spanish, Psicoanalisis Criollo, which means that we are hybrid cultures in Latin America, and that is something that we should never forget. We have been acting in the Psychoanalytical Society for so long as if we were living in some big modern city of the first world, like London, Paris, San Francisco, New York. I think that this ignoring or even denial of the fact that we are not there, we live in societies which are in many ways different than societies from the first world and we have to take that into account." Episode Description: We begin with a description of 'Psicoanalisis Criollo - hybrid psychoanalysis,' "psychoanalysis by and for Latin Americans." We discuss the ways that the analyst's awareness of cultural factors impacts the clinical approach to deepening the patient's self-awareness. Jorge presents vignettes where the appearance of socially defined similarities and differences were important elements to address in the treatment. He highlights the delicacy of our culturally colored countertransferences. He shares with us details about his 28-year weekly newspaper column as well as his 330,000 Twitter followers (@jotabruce). We close with his recounting his early history and its contribution to his current interests. Our Guest: Jorge Bruce, Licensed in Humanities and Psychology by the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. DEA (Master's degree) by the University of Paris. Member of the Peruvian Society of Psychoanalysis – SPP. Author of several books - the most recent was the new edition of Nos Habíamos Choleado Tanto: Psicoanálisis y Racismo, (2019). Weekly columnist of the national newspaper La República. Former member of the IPA Board (2 periods). Former member of the IPA Executive Committee. Former chair of CAPSA. Former chair of the scientific committee for the IPA Congress on The Infantile. Currant chair of the liaison committee of a Mexican provisional society (ING). Jorge Bruce will be a Keynote Speaker at the July 2023 IPA Meetings in Cartagena. Further details at www.ipa.world/cartagena Recommended Readings: Las Partes en Conflicto: Psicoanálisis, Conflicto y Alteridad. (2015)USMP. Lima, Bruce, Jorge. Penser/rêver 21 (2012). Le substitut de Dieu. Pp. 171 – 184. Editions de l'Olivier. Paris. Nos habíamos choleado tanto. Psicoanálisis y Racismo, Bruce Jorge. Penguin Random House (Taurus).(2019). Lima. Delirio Americano: Una historia cultural y política de América Latina.Granés, C. (2022). Penguin Random House (Taurus). Psychoanalytic views from afar. Lemlij, M. (2022). Cauces. Aires de familia: Cultura y sociedad en América Latina. Monsiváis, C. (2002).ANAGRAMA. Freud and the Non-European. Said, E. (2003). Verso. London.
undefined
Jan 8, 2023 • 1h 15min

Psychoanalysis and Opera – rejoining the verbal and non-verbal with Steven Goldberg, MD and Lee Rather, Ph.D. (San Francisco)

"Unconsciously, or sometimes just without really focusing on it, we're always responding to the musicality of the patient's voice. I think that careful listening and study of opera really hones our ability to do that. We pay more attention to it and we can potentially make not just unconscious use of it but also conscious use of it. As we listen to how the music itself is conveying the story that the patient is telling, it's not necessarily the same story as the words are telling. What is often interesting is that the musicality of the voice, whether in opera or in the consulting room, often is at variance with the spoken text and that opens up interesting opportunities for generating meaning." – S.G. "The tendency is first to think that the text that is being sung is all important and that the melody and the orchestration behind it are supporting the purpose of the aria. That is generally true in popular Italian operas where the music for the orchestra and the melody seems to support the overall message. Because of Wagner's influence in wanting to have an orchestration that actually comments on the action on stage as a second opinion, you get into more complex music where often the orchestra is playing something that reminds the listener of a previous theme, a motif, that complexifies the actual aria being sung." – L.R. Episode Description: Our conversation revolves around the idea that appreciating opera can "correct the historical tilt towards the verbal text" that often simplifies analytic listening. Steve and Lee use opera to understand universal unconscious themes that are often represented in opera. They suggest as well that it can alert the analytic listener to multiple levels of meanings that can be represented in the orchestration and melodies in addition to the manifest libretto. The 'case example' is The Magic Flute where the trajectory of male development is demonstrated through the evolution of maternal and paternal imagoes over the course of the storyline. They use musical excerpts to demonstrate different character's affect states that enable the listener to experience their increasing complexity. We close with Steve and Lee sharing some of their own life journeys that have brought them to a place of finding great pleasure in this art form. Our Guests: Steven Goldberg, M.D. is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis and a Personal and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. He is currently an Associate Editor of The Psychoanalytic Quarterly and has for many years co-chaired Opera on the Couch, a collaboration between the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis and the San Francisco Opera. He has published on a variety of theoretical and technical issues in psychoanalysis as well as on psychoanalytic approaches to opera. Lee Rather, Ph.D. is on the faculties of the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, where he is also a personal and supervising analyst. He has published and presented on a wide range of topics including the integration of psychoanalytic theories, the existential dynamics of desire, mourning, and acceptance, and the unconscious aspects of creativity in drama, literature, and music. He is in private practice in San Francisco. Recommended Readings: Bollas, C. (1999). Figures and their functions. In The mystery of things (pp. 35-46). New York: Routledge. Britton, R. (1989). The missing link: Parental sexuality in the Oedipus complex. InJ. Steiner (Ed.), The Oedipus complex today: Clinical implications. London: Karnac. Chailey, J. (1992). The Magic Flute Unveiled: Esoteric symbolism in Mozart's Masonic Opera. Vermont: Inner Traditions International. Goldberg, S. (2011). Love, loss, and transformation in Wagner's Die Walkure. Fort Da 17:53-60 Grier, F. (2019). Musicality in the consulting room. International Journal of Psychoanalysis,100: 827-885. Frattaroli, E. J. (1987). On the Validity of Treating Shakespeare's Characters as if They Were Real People. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, Volume 10(3):407-437. Freud, S. (1914). The Moses of Michelangelo. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.) The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, (Vol 13 pp. 210-241). Freud, S. (1928). Dostoevsky and Parricide. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.) The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, (Vol21, pp. 175-198). Knoblauch, S. (2000). The Musical Edge of Therapeutic Dialogue. Hillside, N.J. and London: The Analytic Press. Nagel, J. (2013). Melodies of the mind: Connections between psychoanalysis and music. New York: Routledge. Purcell, S. (2019). Psychic Song and Dance: Dissociation and Duets in the analysis of trauma. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 88: 315-34 Rather, L. (2008). Reuniting the psychic couple in analytic training and practice: Theoretical reflections. Psychoanalytic Psychology. Vol 25, Number 1, pp. 99-109.
undefined
Dec 11, 2022 • 50min

Psychoanalytic Fieldwork: A Woman Psychanalyst (Training Analyst IPA) Working in Eastern Africa with Dr. phil. Barbara Saegesser (Biel/Bienne, Switzerland)

"The psychoanalytic frame I have built in myself helps me to find a way to not go too near and not be too distant to a person. It is other than what we learn when we learn to be psychoanalysts. Then we have the opportunity to feel in a room where we are not in danger - it's more the patient that feels in danger. He is coming and he has fears - but we, knowing our room, our couch, we don't have many fears. But if you work as I did in an open field, in different houses, in different hospitals, in different orphanages, you are first full of fear and at the same time very curious about what happens and what can happen. It's not the same as if you are in your own practice. One of the most important things I had was my psychoanalytic setting in myself - in myself, not in the room in which I work. I can find a way that doesn't bring too much fear to the patient and at the same time finds some way to get nearer to him, to his inner problems than if I was just a friend or a religious woman." Episode Description: We begin by discussing the depth of human pain that Barbara encountered in her work in the poorest areas of Eastern Africa. She describes how essential her psychoanalytic sensibility was to enable her attunement to the closeness/distance space that was so important for mutual safety and understanding. She gives examples of the all-encompassing role of the Koran in those with whom she worked as well as the lack of a subjective self in many of the individuals she encountered. We learn of the effects of genital mutilation and the various reactions she had in seeing such suffering. We close with her sharing with us a bit of her personal story that has led her to this work. Our Guest: Dr. phil. Barbara Saegesser is a training analyst with the Swiss Psychoanalytical Society and a member of the IPA. She is president of the commission treating ethical problems in the Swiss Society of Psychoanalysis. Since 2005 she has worked part-time in Eastern Islamic African cities: Alexandria, Khartoum, Addis Ababa, Hawassa, Djibouti, Kampala, and Zanzibar. Her work has been in orphanages, with street boys, in baby shelters, psychiatric hospitals, and maternity wards for genitally mutilated women.
undefined
Nov 27, 2022 • 54min

Teaching Dynamic Therapy through Storytelling with Anne Adelman, Ph.D. (Chevy Chase, MD) and Kerry Malawista, Ph.D. (Potomac, MD)

"When I first started teaching it was most often done through theory, and teaching these complicated words with hard-to-understand concepts. It never made sense to me, to be honest, as a student myself. So, when I began teaching, I would tell stories whether they were about my own life or about my children as a way to express the idea of whatever the concept was. I found that the students became so engaged and interested, and it made sense to them. I think it also made it less frightening when they heard these diagnoses and different terms that scared them. Whatever the concept was I wanted to normalize it and let everyone know that these are experiences we all have. I think it works well for teaching and it's been fun when I run into a student even 25 years later who says: 'Oh! I remember that story." – KM "Students are overwhelmed with how much they are learning; they want to know what to say - looking for a kind of formula for that. I think the stories help to show how many different kinds of situations one can encounter with the work and what is happening in the course of a day and how spontaneous an intervention might be. When you are talking about learning to play a musical instrument rather than the theory, we are also learning to listen to the music. I think the stories offer a way of learning how to listen in the layers that an analyst does." – AA Episode Description: We begin by outlining the challenges we face in teaching an affective process while focusing on conceptual abstractions. It's akin to teaching how to play a musical instrument by studying music theory - both are important, but theory won't teach musicality. Kerry and Anne use storytelling as a vehicle to demonstrate the dynamic process as it lives in our everyday lives. We learn from the lessons in the stories as well as from learning to listen to the melodies. They each read their stories and we consider the presence of manifest and latent meanings in what we hear. We are also alerted to the essential role of the therapist's personal responses to the clinical material and with that the childhood memories that are often evoked. We close with their sharing with us something of their backgrounds that have led them to this work as well their involvement in the New Directions in Writing program. Our Guests: Anne Adelman, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and Training Analyst at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis and the Contemporary Freudian Society. She is the co-editor of the JAPA book review section and launched a feature column called 'Why I write'. She is co-chair of the New Directions in Writing program and maintains a private practice in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Her books include Psychoanalytic Reflections on Parenting Teens and Young Adults: Changing Patterns of Modern Love, Loss, and Longing (2018), The Therapist in Mourning: From Faraway Nearby with Kerry Malawista (2013) and Wearing my Tutu to Analysis and Other Stories, with Kerry Malawista and Catherine Anderson (2011), When the Garden Isn't Eden (2022). Kerry L. Malawista, Ph.D. is a training and supervising analyst at the Contemporary Freudian Society and a Board Member at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis. She is co-chair of New Directions in Writing and founder of the recent project The Things They Carry – offering virtual writing workshops for healthcare and frontline workers across the country. She is permanent faculty at the Contemporary Freudian Society and teaches widely. Her essays have appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary journals including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, and The Boston Globe, to name a few. She is the co-author of The Therapist in Mourning: From Faraway Nearby with Kerry Malawista (2013), Wearing my Tutu to Analysis and Other Stories,(2011), When the Garden Isn't Eden (2022), and Who's Behind the Couch (2017,). Her first novel Meet the Moon was released in September 2022.
undefined
Nov 13, 2022 • 1h 7min

Analytic Desire, Listening and Letting Go with Mitchell Wilson, MD (Berkeley)

"It seemed to me in my training, also in my scholarly pursuits, that desire did not have conceptual status in most analytic clinical theory. Most traditions did not have a way of talking about the analyst's motivations with the exception of the well-worn ideas about the analyst's 'blind spots'. But in terms of specific motivations, we just didn't have a way to think about them. Yet it seemed to me that over and over again, especially around the thorny problem of clinical impasses and iatrogenic resistances caused by the analyst's activity, that the analyst's intention and desire was directly at play in those impasses. But we have no way to talk about it." Episode Description: We begin by discussing Mitchell's notion of the analyst's desire. We consider its relation to wishes and healing which leads us to consider analytic listening. He embraces the metaphor of the innkeeper who asks, "What brings you here?" Mitchell shares his thoughts on reverie and projective identification which he feels are overvalued as dependable sources of information on the inner life of a patient. We discuss the usefulness of behavior change preceding insight and Lacan's notion of dual-relation resistance. We close with his chapter on termination and with his sharing poignant aspects of his childhood that open the book in Chapter One. Our Guest: Mitchell Wilson, MD is a psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, writer, editor and teacher. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Dr. Wilson has published fiction, literary criticism, and papers on the history of American psychiatry and the DSM. He has practiced and taught psychoanalysis in the Bay Area since 1990. His psychoanalytic writings have cohered around a theory of ethics, desire, and the psychoanalytic process. His book, The Analyst's Desire: The Ethical Foundation of Clinical Practice, was published in 2020. He is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, and a Personal and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. He is in private practice and leads study groups in Berkeley, California. Recommended Readings: Benjamin, J. (2004). Beyond Doer and Done to: an Intersubjective View of Third-ness. Psychoanal. Q., 73:5-46. Chetrit-Vatine, V. (2014). The Ethical Seduction of the Analytic Situation: The Feminine-Maternal Origins of Responsibility for the Other. London: Karnac. Lacan, J. (1992). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959–1960, ed. J.-A. Miller, trans. D. Porter. New York: Norton. Lear, J. (2003). The Idea of a Moral Psychology: The Impact of Psychoanalysis on Philosophy in Britain. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 84:1351–1361. Wilson, M. (2020). The Analyst's Desire: The Ethical Foundation of Clinical Practice. Bloomsbury Academic Press. JAPA Section: Ethical Implications of the Analyst as Person—December 2016 –– Kite, J.V. The Fundamental Ethical Ambiguity of the Analyst as Person. –– Morris, H. The Analyst's Offer. –– Wilson, M. The Ethical Foundation of Analytic Action. –– Kattlove, S. Acknowledging the 'Analyst as Person': a Developmental Achievement. –– Moss, D. Me Here, You There––Now what? Commentary on Kite, Morris, Wilson, and Kattlove.

The AI-powered Podcast Player

Save insights by tapping your headphones, chat with episodes, discover the best highlights - and more!
App store bannerPlay store banner
Get the app