The Southeast Florida Association for Psychoanalytic Psychology
A Local Chapter of Division 39 of the American Psychological Association
Psyche & Sol - Winter 2011, Volume 17, Issue 1
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President's Message - Lori Prince, LCSW
I am excited and proud to start 2011 as the President of SEFAPP and I hope your year has started off well. Having completed my first month which included a very successful all day conference on the Interpersonal Treatment of Eating Disorders by Dr Jean Petrucelli, Ph.D., I can say we off to a great start!
I initially became involved with SEFAPP many years ago while participating in postgraduate psychoanalytic training at SEFIPP and over the years have served as Secretary and Member at Large. My goals are simple: to continue the exciting and rich clinical programs, to maintain financial stability, to increase membership, welcome new individuals into this wonderful organization and invite current members to get involved.
SEFAPP is more than just an organization to promote psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy. It is a community of dedicated, caring individuals and I hope to convey to you what I learned many years ago: that this is a welcoming group composed of many members with diverse backgrounds and training but united in a desire to share ideas and knowledge, provide opportunities for friendship and networking and a multidisciplinary organization dedicated to psychoanalytic theory and practice. One need not be intimidated about joining if you are a student a new clinician or new to psychodynamic therapy. You will find what I did many years ago when you meet SEFAPP members, our training institute, SEFIPP faculty as well as our distinguished analysts at our scientific conferences. All are ready to share their knowledge, theoretical orientation and approaches and you will engage in stimulating discussions and case presentations filled with clinical material that appreciates the complexities of the mind, the process of change and the need to understand and respect the relationship between therapist and patient.
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Over the recent years I have, as a Jewish woman, discovered my own spirituality and understand the importance of affiliation and belonging to a community filled with purpose. In Judaism there is an important concept called “Tikun Olam” which teaches that it is our duty and a blessing (mitzvah) to perform tikun olam, which means “to heal or repair the world”. In some ways I have come to understand the work of therapy that recognizes the "sacred space" in the consulting room, the importance of deep therapeutic relationships that offer opportunities for repair and recognizes the long term work that is needed.
I have become interested in learning more about psychoanalysis and spirituality.
Recently, I came across a few articles written by Gerald Garguilo Ph.D., an analyst in practice in Stamford , Ct who presented to SEFAPP a few years back. In his paper “Transcending Religion: Reflections on Spirituality and Psychoanalysis (2006 )he wrote :
Like a personal analysis, spirituality is a most private matter. Each human being, who is not in flight from life, knows the silence of the internal alone space that Winnicot speaks of. Grounded by such a silent space an individual can experience- depending on time and place, on knowledge and myth, on personal experience and individual need- the possibility for what one can appreciate as a spiritual depth
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Both spiritual traditions and psychoanalysis recognize the sacredness of individuals and the importance of relationships as well as the value of healing and support. In Language. Love and Healing, Gargiulo wrote
Psychoanalysts and psychotherapists do not simply uncover what was buried so to speak,(although they certainly do that). They do not simply identify, confront, and interpret various developmental defenses (although, they undoubtedly do that also) In this journey toward realness, toward aliveness, analysts and therapists try to provide a safe place where patients can find and re-find their personal history: a place where the language of their symptoms, of their non aliveness can be heard. Psychoanalysts attempt to provide a quiet place where therapeutic caring can quietly and patiently sustain a patients’ grief- a caring one might legitimately speak of as love. In such a setting, the rifts within us and between us, the dividing fissures, the pathologies from narcissistic to neurotic disorders, have the possibility of coming together. Such a coming together, within oneself and with each other, is a healing worth striving for. A healing which should have as one of its ingredients, for analyst and analysand, a demonstrable capacity for vulnerability, compassion and civility, for oneself as well as others.
The Veterans Project of South Florida our community service project in collaboration with the Florida Psychoanalytic Society is a wonderful example of tikun olam in our psychoanalytic community. It offers pro bono mental health services for veterans and families of the Iraq and Afghan wars and provides opportunities for healing.
If you are not a member of SEFAPP I encourage you to join. If you are a SEFAPP member please get involved. I welcome your help and participation on any of our committees. You do not have to be a board member to participate.
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We have scheduled some upcoming events such as a networking brunch on February 27, after a lecture / discussion by board members Bruce Saltz, MD and Lisa Schulman Ph.D. (SEFAPP President Elect 2012) on “Psychiatrist , Psychoanalyst and Patient: How the Triangle Works“; March 20 Scott Winfield LCSW “Using The Body in Psychotherapy”; on April 9 Sandra Buechler, Ph.D. will speak about making a difference in patients lives.; in June we will have a full day workshop on Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Adoption, John Lavalle Ed.D., Linda Gunsberg Ph.D., David Kirschner Ph.D. and Kristin Kupfermann, Ph.D. as moderator; a SEFIPP Faculty conference in September with Stefan Pasternack, M.D. and Max Harris, Ph.D. entitled, Keeping the Brain in Mind in Psychotherapy, Carla Leone Ph.D. on Couple Therapy and a Symposium Brunch/SEFAPP a the Movies in December with Leonard Ferrante. Psy.D. presenting and discussing the film, Doubt.
Last but not least please join us for a wonderful event our 18th Annual Freud Amongst the Arts fundraiser. Please join us for a jazz brunch at the Mustard Seed Bistro May 15, 2011.
I welcome ideas and comments and look forward to seeing you at our events.
Editor's Column - Antonio R. Virsida, Ph.D, ABPP
Again, chocked full of SEFAPP news, articles and book reviews, this issue of Psyche & Sol begins with a message from our President, Lori Prince. L.C.S.W. who emphasizes the importance of community and draws from Judaism’s concept of “repairing and healing the world.” She compares this to SEFAPP’s and our members commitment to psychoanalytic thinking in our efforts to repair and heal ourselves and our patients. She quotes Gerald Gargiulo, Ph.D., a psychoanlyst who presented to SEFAPP a few years ago and draws on similarities of spirituality, the psychoanalytic space and the welcoming and comforting culture of SEFAPP. She then gives us a detailed report of SEFAPP’s full calendar of events and activities. As Chair of the Scientific Program Committee and following the path and sound planning of Past President, Marshal Fenster, Psy.D. we have scheduled Scientific meetings well into 2012 and are a functioning very well, organizationally and interpersonally.
SEFAPP’s Treasurer, Aaryn Gottesfeld, M.A. reports on our financial status and our growing solvency, that is based on the planning of the Finance Committee. She shows us the increases in our monthly account balances since last summer owing to membership renewals and the $3,800 profit from our January, All Day Scientific Meeting on Eating Disorders, by Cher look-alike, Jean Petrucelli, Ph.D.
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Leonard Ferrante, Psy.D. Chair of the Membership Committee offers us his membership report, notes the likelihood of a significant increase of members and welcomes fourteen new members to SEFAPP.
Linda Sherby, Ph.D., ABPP writes another touching edition of Clinical Vignettes, in which she illustrates the complexities and vehicles of meanings as patients speak about themselves, families and others. She also gives us an excellent example of psychoanalytic support that assists her patient to bear the pains of individuation that yield to a growing sense of competence.
Lynne Harkless, Psy.D., long time SEFAPP member, but new contributor to Psyche & Sol writes an excellent and enlightening article entitled “Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Sexual Orientation.” She integrates and summarizes the cultural, scientific and psychoanalytic influences on understanding how sexual orientation, choice and gender are constructed in the mind. She provides us with a suggested reading list and invites us to attend her and Dr. Tom Robertson’s seminars beginning in March.
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Emily Krestow, Ph.D. summarizes SEFAPP’s last two interesting and enlightening Scientific Meetings. On December 4, 2010, Benjamin Kilborne, Ph.D. and his wife, Kathleen Kilborne, L.C.S.W. presented, On Touching and Being Touched: Shame and Tact in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. SEfAPP’s, Annual All day Conference, The Interpersonal Treatment of Eating Disorders by Jean Petrucelli, Ph.D. was held on January 29, 2011.
With permission of the authors and the editor of Psychologist-Psychoanalyst, we are reprinting two book reviews. One is by John Auerbach, Ph.D. whose review appeared in Vol. XXIX, No. 4 Fall 2009 of Division 39’s newsletter. He reviewed The Handbook of Mentalization-Based Treatment written by John G. Allen, Peter Fonagy and Anthony M. Batement. The second is a review of Coasting in the Countertransference: Conflicts of Self Interest between Analyst and Patient, written by Irwin Hirsch, Ph.D. and reviewed by Karen Maroda, Ph.D. Dr. Maroda also interviews Dr. Hirsch. This is a twist to a review of a book that is, interestingly, self-revelatory.
I provide an update on The Southeast Florida Institute for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (SEFIPP). The board, working very hard and efficiently has revised our curricula of three distinct programs. SEFIPP now has thirty Local Faculty members, thirty Visiting Faculty members and by way of Cristina Virsida’s fine design, we have a interesting and attractive website, www.sefipp.org. Please go to our website and note our advertisement in this issue of Psyche & Sol.
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Psychoanalysis is in the news again. Last year, Science Daily published Mother-Infant Psychoanalytic Treatment, a report of The Swedish Child Care Centre’s program for mothers and infants whose bonding is strained. And, an APA press release presents the article by Jonathon Shedler, Ph.D. entitled, The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy reports on a meta-analysis of research studies revealing that psychoanalytic psychodynamic psychotherapy is indeed as beneficial as the so-called empirically validated therapies. However, the study demonstrates that psychodynamic therapies result in long term and more enduring gains. Check this out at http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-65-2-shedler.pdf and let us know what you think.
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FUNDRAISER UPDATE AND MEMBER REQUEST
We are very excited about this year's 18th annual fundraiser, "Freud Amongst the Arts", on Sunday, May 15th, 2011, being held at The Mustard Seed Bistro in Plantation, Florida. This year's event will be a jazz brunch event featuring live music from Matt Prince, a silent auction with fabulous items and gift certificates, as well as a piece of art work honoring Freud. We are still busy collecting our auction items, and would welcome any donations from our members at large. Items to donate include the following; gift certificates for services or restaurants, jewelry or other pieces of art work, lending a weekend at your vacation home. Other thoughts and ideas are welcome! Please contact our Administrator at sefapp@gmail.com or (954) 597-0820 or Cathy Stamm Kaufman,LCSW, Committee Chair at 954-253-3020. We look forward to seeing you all May 15th! Regards, |
Clinical Vignettes - "The Locked Door", Linda B. Sherby, Ph.D., ABPP
The last day before my three-week vacation. As always before a break, it’s been grueling, patients coming late or not at all, others crying or screaming, still others denying any feelings at all. Harriet’s my last patient of the day. I anticipate her being scared and anxious about my upcoming absence.
Harriet began treatment with me in the early months of her pregnancy, vaguely anticipating that caring for an infant might prove difficult for her. She couldn’t say exactly why, just something about the baby being so little and fragile felt kind of overwhelming. She was a married, thirty-five year old high school science teacher who knew that her biological clock was running down and decided there was no good reason not to have a child.
Harriet and I are a good match. I like this smart, articulate woman who, although not particularly psychologically aware, is open to exploring her mind and excited by her discoveries. She formed an instantaneous attachment to me, seeing me as an all-knowing mentor and guide, much as she sees her own mother, a divorced, single woman who raised her, supported her, encouraged her. How could Harriet not idealize such a perfect caretaker?
Yet Harriet experiences intense anxiety. Every new task, every new experience brings feelings of extreme unease, feelings that she can’t do it, whatever the “it” might be. She isn’t capable, she has to fail, she can’t possibly manage on her own. And now she’s pregnant. She is going to be primarily responsible for a new helpless, dependent creature. How would she know what this new baby needed? How would she be able to take care of this vulnerable little being?
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Motherhood did indeed prove difficult for Harriet. She hovered over her baby just as her mother had hovered over her. She worried incessantly about the child’s safety. And her own anxiety soared.
“Sometimes I just look at Ilena and start shaking,” she says desperately, wringing her hands and looking at me beseechingly.
“And what makes you so frightened?” I ask.
“I don’t know! I don’t know! That’s why I come here! I need you to tell me. I need you to help me… Please.”
“I can tell you what I imagine, Harriet,” I say. “But my telling you doesn’t always help. It has to come from you; you have to figure these things out so that they fit for you emotionally.”
“But I can’t!” she wails.
“I think right now you’re showing us why it is that you get so scared when you look at Ilena. You feel like the helpless infant that she is. But you’re no longer that helpless infant. You may feel as though you are, but you’re not. You’re a capable, competent adult with scared little girl feelings.”
Harriet understood these and similar interpretations. She came to understand that her mother was overprotective, that it was her mother’s needs that resulted in her keeping Harriet so close, that it was her mother’s fear of the world that was transmitted to Harriet and that she was now unwittingly transmitting to her own daughter. Her anxiety decreased, but certainly did not disappear.
We have been talking about my upcoming vacation for weeks now. Harriet feels as though some disaster will strike while I’m away. Illena will become deathly ill. Her husband will die in a car accident. I will die in a plane crash. She doesn’t know what she’ll do without me. She can’t imagine how she’ll cope. And now we are faced with the last session before the break.
Harriet looks shaky as I usher her into my office.
“This is our last session,” she says. “I know,” she continues as she sees me about to add to her statement, “Our last session for three weeks. Not forever. I know we need to talk about that. And I’m certainly scared about your leaving, but something big happened yesterday that I need to talk about.” She pauses. “Illena took her first step.”
“Wow! That is a big deal.” I interject.
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“She’s been grabbing onto stuff and standing by herself, but yesterday she actually took a few steps away from me. And then she fell down. I thought she’d start crying, but she didn’t. She just looked at me, sort of like she was confused. Then she crawled over to the couch and looked at me again. I felt like there was a war going on inside me. Part of me wanted to cry. And I wanted to swoop in and pick her up and hold her close to me. But I also wanted her to know she could do it, that she could be her own person, that she could grow away from me. That phrase kept going through my head, she could grow away from me. So I gave her a big smile and applauded as she again dragged herself up and took another few steps until she fell down again. This time she did start crying. So I picked her up and told her she was becoming a big girl and soon she’d be walking and that I loved her and that she was just terrific,” Harriet concludes beaming.
“Sounds like you’re pretty proud of both Illena and yourself.”
“I am. I don’t think my mother was able to do that for me. I don’t think she was able to allow me to grow comfortably away from her.” She pauses. “But I’m not any happier about your being gone for three weeks.”
“Well, today, right now, how do you feel about our not meeting for three weeks?”
“Scared. I feel scared. I’m still worried that something will happen that I won’t be able to handle.”
“I understand that, Harriet. I wouldn’t expect all your feelings to suddenly change. But maybe you can remember both the lesson Illena taught you and the gift you gave her.”
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“What do you mean?” she asks quizzically.
“Illena showed you that you can fall down and pick yourself up and try again. And you allowed her to know that it was okay to separate from Mommy and to grow away from her. So maybe you can take that away from our session today, that you can fall down and pick yourself up and grow away from me.”
Harriet looks as me with a slight smile and a raised eyebrow. “You know,” she says, shaking her head slightly, “That’s really not a very good analogy. Ilena is growing away from me, but I’m staying put. I’ll be there if she needs me. You won’t be here. You’re leaving me.”
I smile. “You know, Harriet, you’re exactly correct and it looks like you enjoyed pointing that out to me.”
She smiles shyly in response.
“I think right now you allowed yourself to know just how smart and competent you are,” I continue. “You can even be smarter and quicker than me and enjoy that feeling rather than being frightened by it. That is a way of growing beyond me. And I applaud you.”
Special Article - Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Sexual Orientation, Lynne Harkless, Ph.D.
This is a time of fundamental paradigm shifts regarding how our culture views same-sex desire. The repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” is but the latest manifestation of these shifts in social sensibilities. Contemporary psychoanalysis, perhaps surprisingly, has contributed meaningfully to paving the way for this sea change. Feminist and gay theorists and clinicians have developed fascinating revisions of traditional psychoanalytic thinking on gender and sexuality. That critique has become influential in the broader psychoanalytic community. Clinicians of all sexual orientations have adopted and elaborated these more complex understandings of sexualty.
Given these developments, some clinicians have come to feel they are not as up to date as they would like to be on contemporary ideas about sexual orientation and on the implications of those ideas for clinical work. I will briefly review some of the evolution of thinking about these issues. This review is drawn from a 4-session seminar on these topics presented by myself and Dr. Tom Robertson last spring. This seminar is being offered again at the Florida Psychoanalytic Society in Miami on March 15, 2011.
Gender and Category
It is impossible to talk about sexuality without talking about gender. The two are inextricably intertwined in our psyche and culture, and in the psychoanlaytic canon. Being male is conflated with being masculine which is conflated with sexually desiring women. Being female is conflated with being feminine which is conflated with sexually desiring men. Sexual desire is embedded in gender. The idea that there might be other ways to think about how these aspects of identity are organized can be mystifying.
The question of category (as in the categories of “homosexual”, “heterosexual”, “bisexual”) is also inevitable but more easily escaped from than the conflation of sexuality and gender. These categories of identity often resonate internally as feeling “right” or true to a person’s inner experience of self (i.e., “I’m straight” or “I’m gay”.) However, for many people they do not. Even when they do, any categorical notion of identity is problematic. It suggests a purity or singularity of identity that is not consistent with a psychoanalytic way of conceiving how the psyche is structured on any dimension of self experience.
A more psychoanalytic understanding of sexual orientation would encompass a notion of sexual desire as oriented in all of us toward both genders in some way. We have mixed and contrasting currents and continuua of self experience in almost all aspects of psyche and affect. So too in sexual desire. For those who adopt this model for understanding how sexual desire is oriented, “coming out” is conceived of as a process of increasing one’s awareness and acceptance of the whole range of one’s sexual desires rather than as the adoption of a clearly bounded, categorical, “pure” identity. From this position, coming out is a process for all of us.
The Issue of Cause
Discussions of sexual orientation almost always include some form of the question “why?” Why did I (or my child) become this way? Is it genetic? Am I (or my child) abnormal? Is it because I was sexually abused? Is it because of something I did as a parent? These questions are often just the surface of an underlying reservoir of painful emotion.
The question “what causes someone to be gay” is considered by many to be a homophobic question. The investigation of cause is therefore seen as a homphobic enterprise. The argument is that we don’t ask about the cause of normal things - we seek explanation for things that have gone wrong. The better question might be what shapes sexual orientation, period – straight, gay, or other. What factors come to bear on the development of sexual desire in all of us? This is a non-homophobic and ultimately more fascinating question. From that perspective, the discussion of sexual orientation applies to all of us, not just those who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
Cause – the Science
Now that I have discussed the homophobia inherent in a discussion of cause, I’m going to go ahead and discuss cause! I do this because the existing research is almost all based on investigations of cause so there is no way yet to avoid it. I also do it because it is almost always a central question in the treatment of anyone who presents with issues involving their sexual orienation and I think it is helpful when the clinican has a clearer internal position about the current science.
There is a wealth of evidence that builds a convincing case for genetic and biological influences as at least partially underpinning the formation of sexual desire. The evidence is not airtight, however. In any research investigating possible genetic factors (or “heritability”) in any characteristic (whether eye color or alcoholism or depression or artistic talent or anything else) there are a number of standard research paradigms generally employed to gather evidence. One of those paradigms is twin studies. If something has a genetic underpinning, there should be a high concordance rate (meaning both twins have it) in monozygotic twins, who share the largest amount of DNA. There should be a slightly lower rate in dyzygotic twins, lower in non-twin siblings, and lowest among people who share no DNA. When things lay out this way it is considered evidence for a genetic component.
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Same-sex sexual oriention lays out in this way. There is a 50% concordance rate for same-sex orientation in monozygotic twins – even twins raised apart. 50% is considered a high concordance rate for any trait. While this is strong evidence for genetics, notice that 50% of the variability is also accounted for by other factors. Many other research paradigms (familial pattern studies, hormone/endocrine research, brain structure studies, etc.) have been applied to sexual orientation and have produced findings similarly supporting the likelihood of genetic and endocrine influences as a component of sexual desire, but as not 100% explanatory.
Cause – The Feminist Perspective
To swing to the opposite end of the argument, there are a number of LGBT and/or feminist psychoanalytic theorists who reject any notion of cause other than psychological processes. They are not swayed by this science. These authors are not homophobic. They are often champions of gay and women’s causes. Nor are they simplistic thinkers. Many are among the most brilliant theorists in the field today. They simply have a particular way of understanding how the psyche is built.
Many of these thinkers ground their ideas in Freud’s notion of bisexuality. Bisexuality refers not just to sexual orienation, but to gender as well. The idea is that we are all born with a full range of potential for both gender and sexual orienation. We can all be masculine and feminine, attracted to men and attracted to women, experience ourselves as male and as female. In development, in order to cope with reality, we must mourn the aspects of self that we truly cannot have (for example the genitalia we do not have). But because of social dictates regulating sexuality and gender, we are also forced to split off certain aspects of ourselves that we have but aren’t allowed to keep.
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Many of these writers view the “acheivement” of a cohesive, stable gender identity as a pathological outcome. Their view is that the psyche is not a cohesive, stable entity. It is a dynamic, shifting, and fluctuating entity. Cohesiveness requires the splitting off of any desires not consistent with what is culturally mandated as defining normalcy in gender identity.
Gender “normalcy” is not dictated by the needs and realities of the human psyche but by sociocultural prescriptions and proscriptions grounded in patriarchy. Patrirachy is seen as painfully oppressive not just to women and LGBT individuals, but to heterosexual men as well. Desires, sensibilites, and other aspects of self that do not conform to the gender regulatory system must be denied, repressed, or disociated. Gender role socialization is thus seen as requiring the construction of a pathological false self system.
Most importantly, the feelings, desires, and sensibilities that we split off to conform to gender mandates are not outgrown or relinquished, they are repressed. They go underground and wreak some form of havoc with our psyches and our relating to others. We feel hurt about what we cannot have and we feel amalgams of envy, hate, longing, idealization, devaluation, and so on toward those who are allowed to have what we feel we are denied. These sorts of dynamics are part of what underlies sexism.
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Omnitpotence
Many authors view psychic bisexuality as an aspect of childhood omnipotence. They see development as involving a series of realizations about the ways in which we are not omnipotent, i.e., we don’t have it all. Boys do not have breasts and cannot have babies. Girls do not have a penis. These realities are both literal and metaphorical. Children grapple not only with loss but also with naricissistic injury when they begin to realize they lack things that others have.
This process applies to sexual desire as well. For example, boys not only don’t have breasts, they also aren’t allowed to desire other boys. This is true no matter what the sexul orientation of that child will eventually be. Same-sex longings come under heavy pressure to be eliminated. They are shamed and must be split off as completely as possible by all of us. This hurts, and it sets up projective mechanisms involving narcissistic wounding, shame, envy, contempt, and so on, that govern much of the “battle between the sexes” and the hatred of same-sex desire.
One way in which this is relevant clinically is that we can listen to patients with an ear toward what aspects of their sexual desire or gender identity they have split off (no matter what their sexual orientation or gender expression), what mechanisms they have constructed to sequester those repressed aspects of self, what affects appear to be related to this loss (and in many authors’ view, violation) of self, and what defensive and projective mechanisms are relied upon to contain the repressed affects.
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I have focused in this article on some of the contemporary theoretical ideas about how gender and sexuality are constructed in the psyche. I have not touched on some of the special issues in clinical work with the LGBT population that will be discussed in the seminar. Issues of internalized homophobia, coming out, the trauma of bullying (a trauma many view as severe and under-recognized), feelings of unsafeness, shame, and self hatred, projection of denied shame onto intimate relationship partners, internalized homophobia interfering with sexual functioning, relationship satisfaction, and relationship longevity, differences in the men’s and women’s communities, differences in men’s and women’s sexual practices, grieving the loss of heterosexuality, the grief of the families, are just a sampling of those special issues.
These issues for all of us go to the core of our sense of worth. It is not just gay boys who are bullied, it is any young man who looks a bit “feminine” even for a fleeting moment. Bullies are internal as well. Masculinity is more tolerated in women, but there is a limit beyond which one better femme oneself up. The pressures are immense and complicatedly rooted in sociopolitical, intrapsychic, and relational contexts. Those currents of self that have been repressed are a fascinating and powerful area to explore with patients and within ourselves. Who might we be as gendered and sexually desiring beings if we felt truly free to fully know ourselves?
Suggested Readings:
Chodorow, N. (1992). Heterosexuality as a compromise formation: Reflections on the psychoanalytic theory of sexual development. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, 1, 267-304
Corbett, K. (1993). The Mystery of Homosexuality. Psychoanal. Psychol., 10:345-357.
Corbett, K. (1996). Homosexual boyhood: Notes on girlyboys. Gender and Psychoanalysis, 1, 429-461.
Elise, D. (1997). Primary femininity, bisexuality, and the female ego ideal: A re-examination of female developmental theory. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 6, 489-517.
Fast, I. (1990). Aspects of Early Gender Development: Toward a Reformulation. Psychoanal. Psychol., 7S:105-117.
Goldner, V. (1991). Toward a critical relational theory of gender. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 1:249-272.
Conference Summaries - Emily Krestow, Ph.D.
December 4th, 2010 - On Touching and Being Touched: Shame and Tact in Psychonalysis and Psychotherapy presented by Benjamin Kilborne, Ph.D.
I am touching on the highlights, so to speak. There was so much to think about in this half-day presentation. Although “trauma” is not in the title of this conference, it underlies Dr. Kilborne’s theme and message. Deriving his ideas from the work of Sandor Ferenczi, Dr. Kilborne spoke of shame as secondary to trauma, that is, resulting from trauma. Thus, he examines shame and trauma, and considers them jointly, along with the therapist’s response to trauma as critical for treatment. And, here is where the remaining issues of touch and tact surface.
Let’s first take a look at the question of touching between therapist and patient. Dr. Kilborne’s belief is that abstinence in relation to touching must not be the default position, for abstinence can be traumatizing in itself. A traumatic event followed by a misattuned response by another person to that traumatic event is itself a traumatic event. Toxic shame will accompany this trauma of not being responded to adequately; thus shame is secondary to trauma. How a patient responds to our experience of their pain is what we must be conscious of. And if we categorically will not touch, we must be aware of the possible meaning of this to the patient. Unresponsive relationships lead to toxic shame. When responded to appropriately, empathy develops.
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Dr. Kilborne reasonably and logically asks: if appropriate touching by caregivers of a child leads the child to develop kindness and empathy, what might the consequence be of an absence of touching in the relationship with our patient? Dr. Kilborne spoke of a patient who was about to experience some kind of separation, and wanted to give him a hug. In this case, the lack of touch could be interpreted as separation anxiety. Is not the development of attachment connected to touch? But, the model of abstinence would say don’t do it. One must ask oneself: how would not hugging the patient affect the patient. His answer? “It depends”, because in a particular case, it might be better to extend the hand. Categorically saying one hugs would be as potentially damaging as the fall back position of abstinence. We are most comfortable with absolute rules, and Dr. Kilborne’s position is not about absolute rules, but about the application of principles depending on the patient and clinical moment.
Today, the default position of abstinence remains popular among therapists and analysts, requiring that the therapist never, under any situation, give a hug. The inability of a therapist to consider it has an important effect on therapy. Dr. Kilborne states that when working with highly traumatized patients, abstinence adds to the trauma, while an honest, tactful touch response to the trauma experience could detoxify the patient’s shame. For him, the analyst must be honest in the relationship. But honesty and gratification must be dosed. Here is where he brings in the concept of tact and of timing. Tact requires the capacity for empathy. To be honest no matter what? No. Holding back when appropriate, sharing when the timing is right. Only legitimate and honest tact will work.
Related issues arise from this: How do patients feel about addressing us, and how do we feel about how they address us? And what about gift giving? Do we have a default position on this too? Or are we thoughtful and open to understanding, with differing responses depending on the patient and our experience of the moment, using empathy as a guiding principle.
January 29, 2011 - Interpersonal Treatment of Eating Disorders presented by Jean Petrucelli, Ph.D.
If you didn’t attend Jean Petrucelli’s “Interpersonal Treatment o
f Eating Disorders,” you missed a very special all-day presentation. Dr. Petrucelli is delightful, and engaging as a presenter. Capitalizing on her physical similarity to Cher, she uses herself as an example of how to bring the analyst’s body into the consulting room. Do we wonder how the patient views our body? Does the patient wonder if we have an eating disorder? What is behind this silent question of “do you have an eating disorder?” By using her own body and the question posed to her, Dr. Petrucelli uses the therapist’s body to get to dissociated memories and experiences. The analyst’s body, and issues about it, is in the room. Not all of us are as thin as Dr. Petrucelli. Perhaps we are heavy, or short, or not stylish, or very stylish. Dr. Petrucelli reminds us to be aware of ourselves as we may be seen, and vigilant as to what the patient perceives about our body as it is viewed on a regular basis. You can see how this would apply to our work with a general population as well. But in regard to Eating Disordered patients, exploring the patient’s thoughts and feelings about the analyst’s body will lead to the patient’s self-exploration. To quote Dr. Petrucelli, “bodies speak in ways their minds cannot, for words have failed them….. we can help them know what they see and say what they know.”
How did Dr. Petrucelli view dissociation, as mentioned above? Dissociation is a strategy to protect a part of oneself from the other part; hence the way the patient maintains secrets from themselves. A clinical example she presented was of a twenty year old man who had a clandestine taboo love affair with food, night binging his truly secret love. His secret had a parallel secret in his family: a gay father and a mother with an affair, both kept hidden from the family, but not from the parents’ knowledge of each other. Secrets and secret lives – two parallel existences. Affect was not connected to the life story.
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The second piece of importance in the presentation, to me, has to do with treatment. What is the key to helping the patient whose mind deals with affect overload due to secrets according to Dr. Petrucelli? Treatment requires an other who truly wants to hear the patient. She stressed the importance of therapists being curious about the patient’s history. And to get across our interest, with warmth and caring. But she warns us that warmth and caring are not enough without technical skills. There is a fine balance, titrating anxiety – between being too safe (listening only) and pushing the understanding of symptoms. The latter, at too fast a pace, can lead to fear of having the symptom taken away too soon. The symptom, after all, is an attempt at self-cure.
There was much more to the conference than what I have selected. To name a few: team collaboration among therapist, nutritionist, psychiatrist, and internist, the interface of neurobiology and the psychodynamic in the treatment of eating disordered patients, attachment, self-regulation and affect-regulation which are interlocking components of human development. You had to be there!
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Treasurer's Report - Aaryn Gottesfeld, M.S.
In looking over the account balances and their fluctuations over the last half year, it is evident that we are currently in a much better financial place than we were six months ago. At the end of Summer 2010, our bank account reached a dangerously low balance of $4,188. The end of every Summer marks the organization’s lowest account balance simply because during the summer months we have very little income, and yet our expenses remain the same. However, the organization had been running on a deficit for some time, and as I reported in the last Psyche and Sol report, our balance as of June 2010 was approximately $5,000 less than it had been in June 2009.
The budget and finance committee met in October 2010 and January 2011 to address the financial health of the organization and to plan for the future. During the October meeting we made the decision to significantly decrease the hours of our administrator, as well as to print fewer brochures and communicate with our members primarily by email. These decisions have significantly decreased our average monthly expenditures, and consequently the account balance has increased dramatically. During the first six months of 2010 our average monthly expenditure was $3,500. During the last eight months, we have brought the average monthly expenditure down to $1,500.
Our most recent conference on eating disorders with Dr. Jean Petrucelli proved to be a financial success. The organization profited $3,800 which is significantly more than we typically earn at our events. In addition, at this time of year, the organization typically receives an influx of money as a result of membership renewals. Thus, in looking at the current SEFAPP balance which is just over $14,000, it is important to keep in mind that this is the time of year at which the organization has the most money. We are now in a much better financial position to weather the lean months ahead, when the organization does not earn enough income to cover the expenses.
|
|
Income |
Expenditures |
End of Month Balance |
|
June, July, August 2010 |
$4,236.25 |
$7,575.55 |
$4,188.42 |
|
September 2010 |
$2,652.40 |
$2,391.17 |
$4,449.65 |
|
October 2010 |
$1,384.00 |
$1,450.39 |
$4,383.26 |
|
November 2010 |
$3,223.68 |
$1,112.98 |
$6,493.96 |
|
December 2010 |
$4,420.00 |
$1,578.33 |
$9,335.63 |
|
January 2011 |
$6,482.86 |
$1,553.73 |
$14,264.76 |
Membership Report - Leonard J. Ferrante, Psy.D.
We are happy to report that as of February 1, 2011 SEAFPP has added 14 new members to its growing family. We anticipate that the membership, which has steadily remained above 100, may reach a new high pendingthe renewal of approximately 38 members from last year.
For those of you who are new to SEFAPP and for those who have thus far renewed, please encourage your colleagues to join. Also, please remind those who have not yet renewed to renew their membership now. We do not want anyone to miss out on SEFAPP’s busy calendar of events this year, which is packed with great topics. I recommend that you check the SEFAPP calendar if you have not done so already in order to plan ahead. Remember, as a member and for an additional nominal annual fee, you can have access to a wide range of psychoanalytic journals at your fingertips through the internet. Call for further details.
We look forward to another exciting year and warmly welcome the following 14 new members:
George Baaklini
Carole Cakov
Sarah Coleman
Amanda Countryman
Felicia Einhorn
Tina Goodin
Judy Gotthoffer
Ellen Helman
Jeffrey Huttman
Tania Koolik
Elizabeth Menard
Barbara Pepper
Jeffrey Perlman
Stephanie Wasserman
Yours truly,
Leonard J. Ferrante, Psy.D.
Membership Chairperson
|
NOTICE: NEW SEFIPP COURSE OFFERINGS! Registration deadline is May 1, 2011 |
Visit www.sefipp.org for more information on our psychoanalytic programs and seminars. |
Special Report: SEFIPP Update - Antonio R. Virsida, Ph.D., ABPP, SEFIPP President
Moving along with significant momentum, the SEFIPP BOD has been working tirelessly. We have revised our curricula and are offering several programs to suit various interests.
We have designed five programs; the one-year The Introduction to Psychoanalytic Thinking: Theory & Practice, (IPT) which stand alone or may be applied to the two-year program, the Training Program in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (TPPP) or the four-year program, the Training Program in Psychoanalysis (TPP) and the Advanced Training Program in Psychoanalysis for persons who have completed two years of training in either psychoanalytic psychotherapy or psychoanalysis, and the Contemporary Psychodynamic Case Seminars (CPCS). All of these programs are offered at Imperial Point Medical Center in Ft. Lauderdale or by video conference.
We have recruited over sixty Local and Visiting Faculty and our programs are all theoretically and clinically broad based to cover all aspects of psychoanalytic thinking. Three of our Local Faculty members, Donna Bentolilia, L.C.S.W., Linda B. Sherby, Ph.D., ABPP and Emily Krestow, Ph.D. made a SEFAPP presentation on Love and Hate in the Psychotherapeutic Setting in September 2010, which was well attended and received.
SEFIPP has been restored to it’s original vitality by way of the work of the BOD and we invite you to visit our new website, www.sefipp.org, and/or contact me with any questions at (561) 338-0902 or at arvirsida@aol.com.
Veterans Project of South Florida Update - Richard Steinberg, Ph.D.
As psychoanalytic psychotherapists I think that we always carry our training with us into social and community life. Organized efforts at this in the history of psychoanalysis are many, o name a few: Anna Freud’s work at the Hampstead Clinic in London during World War 11; again Anna Freud’s efforts to apply psychoanalytic ideas to the education and child rearing of children; Edgar Levenson’s and Otto Kernberg’s application to corporate dynamics; and the work of analysts and therapists in New York City following the attack on the World Trade Center.
Our Veterans Project of South Florida, a joint effort of volunteer therapists from SEFAPP/SEFIPP and the Florida Psychoanalytic Society, inspired by the work of The Soldiers Project and the Strategic Outreach to Families of All Reservists (SOFAR), has provided hundreds of PRO-BONO therapy hours to veterans of the Iraq and Afghan Wars, and their families. The Steering Committee members, co-chaired by Fred Levine, Ph.D. and myself, Richard Steinberg, Ph.D., along with Antonio Virsida, PhD., ABPP, Training Chair, Ana Eriksen, M.D., Director of Child Therapy, Cathy Stamm-Kaufman, L.C.S.W., Emily Krestow, Ph.D., John McCauley, and Cristina Virsida, Administrator launched the program with an immersion into the world of the armed forces. This began with a paper presentation by John Shaw, M.D, on the trauma of war in June of 2008 and has been followed by a series of excellent presentations by internationally known experts and by panels of actual veterans, (see the last issue of Psych & Sol for details).
Some of the original steering committee have left after significant periods of service, (Cathy Stamm-Kaufman and John McCauley) were replaced for about a year by Karen Dainer-Best, Ph.D., and followed by Jill Hartog, L.C.S.W., and Royce Jalazo, Psy.D who now round out the Steering Committee . All of these committee members given freely of their time to meet monthly, attend various interagency meetings and plan and run our outstanding conferences. Our most recent presenter, Donna Bassin, Psy.D., whose program I’ll talk about below, remarked “Your series of speakers and programs is the best I’ve seen around the country. There is nothing else like it.”
Dr. Bassin’s presentation on November 6th, 2010 featured a showing of her award- winning documentary film, “Leave No Soldier” which was a moving story of two journeys by communities of American war veterans. The veterans are both from Vietnam and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One group, made up of Vietnam veterans is “Rolling Thunder” which makes an annual pilgrimage to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC by motorcycle. We get to know the stories behind their war experiences and trauma, and how their mutual support and political activities on behalf of veterans helps them to heal and to finally mourn.
The second group “Veterans For Peace” has a mixture of older and younger veterans. The journey we follow with them is a march from Mississippi to New Orleans just post hurricane Katrina, where they assist a Vietnam veteran in reclaiming and clearing out his home. An intergenerational theme is evoked here where the older vets help the younger ones to ‘clear and reclaim’ their lives following the devastating traumas and to quote Jonathon Shay, “moral injuries” of war, all underlined by the soundtrack of Neil Young’s song “Old man look at my life, I’m a lot like you were”. Following the documentary an unusually open, moving and very real discussion ensued by panelists Josh Mavica, veteran of Iraq and outreach worker for the Dade veterans program; Gary Hodgson, veteran of the first Afghanistan war, and current Family Assistance Specialist of the Florida National Guard; and Samantha Boyd. Ph.D. former Field Psychologist of the VA and currently Psychologist at the Fort Lauderdale Veterans Center; and with Dr. Bassin. We heard from the veterans about their experiences in coming home and about their experiences with the mental health and the social service community. The program was extremely moving, and I think helped those of us in the audience better understand that sensitive caring, respect, yet straight talk, are required in our work with veterans.
The grant money we were utilizing to pay for these programs has been spent and we are now searching for other grants to continue the educational and training part of our program. If you know of any granting opportunities or have any ideas on funding possiblilties, please be in touch via email at veteransprojectfl@gmail.com or via phone at (877) 783-2748.
Our volunteer clinical work is now coordinated by county leaders, Jill Hartog in Dade, Emily Krestow in Broward and myself, Richard Steinberg in Palm Beach. We are particularly in need of volunteers to serve children, as this is a service that is scarce in the VA facilities and will accept the contributions of colleagues who are not (yet) affiliated with SEFAPP or FPS.
If you can help as a clinician, Steering Committee member or know of someone who might be interested, please contact any of the persons listed below:
| Name | Phone | |
| Cristina Virsida, Administrator | 877-783-2748 | veteransprojectfl@gmail.com |
| Frederic J. Levine, Ph.D., Co-Chair | 305-669-8948 | fredlev@gmail.com |
| Richard Steinberg, Ph.D., Co-Chair and Intake Coordinator for Palm Beach County | 561-393-1439 | rstein1426@aol.com |
| Emily Krestow, Ph.D., Intake Coordinator for Broward County | 954-929-4199 | ekrestow@aol.com |
| Jill Hartog, LCSW, Intake Coordinator for Miami/Dade County | 305-274-0018 | jillhlcsw@yahoo.com |
An enormous Thank You goes out to our current volunteers, who treat pro-bono patients like anyone else in their practice and to all of the Steering Committee Members who have given so much to make this leap from “Couch to Community” possible.
Richard Steinberg, Ph.D.
Veterans Project of South Florida-SOFAR Co-Chair
Steering Committee Members: Frederic J. Levine, Ph.D., Richard Steinberg, Ph.D., Antonio R. Virsida, Ph.D., ABPP, Emily Krestow, Ph.D., Ana Eriksen, M.D., Royce Jalazo, Psy.D. and Jill Hartog, LCSW.
Special Article - SEFAPP Chronicles by Antonio R. Virsida, Ph.D., ABPP
Recently, over dinner, Donna Bentolilia, Linda Sherby, Richard Steinberg, my wife, Suraya and I, some of the “old timers” were reminiscing about SEFAPP, the organization and some of the early presenters. Donna suggested that we combine our efforts and write some articles about SEFAPP’s and SEFIPP’s history. Our conversation turned to gossiping about some of SEFAPP’s early presenters and what we would include in these SEFAPP and SEFIPP chronicles. While I suggested that we “tell it like it was,” the others said we should not tell stories which would embarrass people. I agreed that we should not embarrass ourselves, but I said that I would like to tell some stories as I remember them, “warts and all.”
This is the first in a series of articles written by Donna, Linda, Richard and me (and any of you SEFAPP “old timers” or “new comers” who would like to contribute to this series) about SEFAPP and SEFIPP. As one of the founders of SEFAPP in 1987, I volunteered to go first. What follows in this article for those of you who are interested in history, are some of my memories about the launching and early days of SEFAPP.I moved to Ft. Lauderdale from Tampa in 1985 because Nova Southeastern University (NSU) was launching a postdoctoral training program in psychoanalysis and I was unable to find a professional home or develop a satisfactory practice in Tampa. Headed by Harold Lindner, a psychologist-psychoanalyst from Washington, DC, he was eager to include psychologists who were trained psychoanalysts. Besides being my childhood home, at the time, Tampa was a wasteland regarding psychoanalytic mental health professionals. Harold recruited several local psychologists who were either formally trained psychoanalysts or “boot legged” their training by seeking supervision from Miami psychiatrist-psychoanalysts and pursued psychoanalytic studies on their own or as part of an American Psychological Association (APA) loosely organized study group which was richly populated by psychologists from all around the country, like Roy Schafer, Ruben Fine, Fred Pine, Robert Lane, George Goldman and Max Rosenbaum from New York, Hedda Bolgar and Ernest Lawerence from Los Angeles. This national study group, The Society for Psychologists Interested in Psychoanalysis (SPIP) was a precursor to the Division of Psychoanalysis (39) of the APA. Before 1981, the APA governance was strongly opposed to including an APA division of psychoanalysis. When the APA powers finally decided to accept a Division of Psychoanalysis, then the 39th division, psychologists from all around the country swarmed to join their first ever national home and, I for one, finally felt recognized by my own national professional home, the APA.
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Returning to more provincial matters, the early faculty members of NSU were, in addition to Hal Lindner, who had also, as most, if not all psychologists had done in those years, “boot legged” his training in Washingon, DC, the faculty of the NSU psychoanalytic postdoctoral program included Bady Quintar, a NSU faculty member who had interned and completed a post doctoral fellowship at Menniger’s in Topeka, KA, Christopher Corrie who trained in child psychoanalysis at the Anna Freud Center in London and Milton Eber, a Miami psychologist who had “boot legged” his training in Miami and had, for years, studied with the SPIP. Carl Newman, a former supervisor of mine at the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health (PCMH) in New York, where I completed my psychoanalytic training, moved to Boca Raton and became an NSU faculty member and Arnold Pusar, also from New York joined us when he moved to Boca Raton. At the same time the NSU program was starting, the APA’s Division of Psychoanalysis was launching a Local Chapters section encouraging and providing seed money for psychologists throughout the US to organize local chapters of Division 39. Hal Lindner and Milt Eber had been long time members of the SPIP and they, along with Carl Newman, Chris Corrie, me and two candidates in the NSU training program, Richard Westberry and Dorita Marina, along with Richard’s wife, Lynne (our first newsletter editor) organized SEFAPP with the intentions of becoming a Local Chapter of Division 39.
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We met monthly as a steering committee and recruited about fifteen early psychologist members. I served as pro tem secretary and Milt served as pro tem president. As is the case in most organizations, tensions developed early between Milt, Hal and Carl. We held our monthly steering committee meetings in Ft. Lauderdale, which was centrally located. Milt, Chris and Dorita were from Miami, Hal and Carl lived in Boca Raton and Richard, Lynne and I lived in Ft. Lauderdale. Milt disliked traveling to Ft.Lauderdale and after many years of living in the shadows of the psychiatrist-psychoanalysts of the Florida Psychoanalytic Institute and Society wanted to have a psychologist psychoanalytst presence in Miami. I’m uncertain about the reasons, Milt and Hal seemed at odds from the beginning, but I guess Hal was the head of the NSU institute and Milt was the head of Miami psychologist-psychoanalysts. So, SEFAPP quickly formed into a two headed monster organization with tensions and arguments at almost every monthly meeting. Imagine, a power struggle and internecine conflict in such a small and relatively insignificant organization. Except, SEFAPP was anything but insignificant to us.
According to the requirements of the Local Chapters Section of Division 39, we were required to develop and present by laws to the Division before we could become a local chapter and be eligible for the $500 seed money. With copies of by laws from earlier formed local chapters in Chicago and Los Angeles, we drafted our bylaws, but not without much argument and many differences. Milt wanted members to complete a lengthy membership application, while I wanted SEFAPP to be an open interest group/society without any membership requirements. Thus, our by laws were delayed. Hal and Carl dropped off the board after the first year and now the way was clear for Milt to be the single head of SEFAPP. Quite satisfied, he promptly moved the monthly meetings to his office on Brickell Avenue in Miami. He also wanted to have a new board selected, and among those new board members were three or four of his Miami friends, one of whom he wanted to succeed him as president. I had my sights set on being president and I greatly resented, what I considered to be Milt’s high handedness, by selecting one of his “cronies” who had not been involved in SEFAPP as member or founder. I protested that we could not select a new board and officers without by laws and an election by the membership,which had now grown to about forty. Dorita, Richard and Lynne agreed with me and although they were and are far less pugnacious than I, they agreed to join my protest.
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The first meeting in Milt’s office was a brawl. I, supported by Richard (who was Milt’s supervisee in the NSU postdoctoral program) and Dorita, told Milt that we would not accept his appointing the president and that we first had to ratify a set of by laws. Milt, of course, held his position, leading me to threaten that I would report this to the board of the Local Chapters Section of Division 39. He railed at me and I indeed sent a report to then Local Chapters president, Marvin Hyman who was from Michigan. Promptly, Marvin called Milt and me to inform us that he was sending Sam Gerson, a board member of the Local Chapters Section to speak with us, and perhaps, arbitrate. Milt and I met with Sam jointly and individually. Sam was staying at his parents’ condo in Miami and I learned that the evening before our scheduled meeting, Milt had dinner with Sam. In some sense, paranoid by nature, I called Sam the morning of our meeting and confessed my anxiety about their clandestine meeting. He reassured me that he was not biased, and so we met.
My position was simply that SEFAPP (which by the way, was an organizational name Milt disliked because he wanted it called the Miami Association for Pyschoanalytic Psychology-MAPP) should not proceed to select officers and board members without ratified by laws and an election. At the next Division 39 Annual Spring Meeting, the Local Chapters board met and on their agenda was our SEFAPP problem. The board supported my position and ordered Milt and I to promptly submit by laws in order to proceed as a local chapter.
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Milt strongly objected and the then Section President-elect, Jonathan Slavin leveled a powerfully worded and personal attack on Milt in the presence of the board members, me and several other local chapter representatives. I felt mortifyingly guilty and only slowly did I come to appreciate that Milt did himself in and not I.
Milt withdrew from the SEFAPP steering committee, as did his friends, and the remaining members drafted and submitted by laws to Division 39, after being ratified my our now smaller membership of twenty. Miami folks dropped out. We held with our first election and I won by a landslide. I was unopposed.
This early organizational history is missing details of our presenters during the first two years. At SEFAPP’s first conference, Bob Lane presented a paper and I was the discussant. We, actually mostly Milt, invited Daniel Stern and he was our second presenter. But now, with loss of one half of our membership, we were almost broke and so a succession of presenters who were my friends from New York, Division 39 and the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR), included Richard Lasky and Mae Maskit Lord presented gratis, when they were visiting relatives or friends in Southeast Florida. Our own, Fred Levinewas also one of these early presenters, prior to his move to Miami from Philadelphia.
The next issue of Psyche & Sol will include another chronicle penned by either Donna, Linda, Richard or me. Other, old or young members are welcome to submit articles or comment on these pieces as they are published.
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Title: Handbook of Mentalization-Based Treatment
Author: Allen, Jon G. and Peter Fonagy
Publisher: Wiley
Reviewed By: John Auerbach, Volume XXIX, No 4, pp. 26-30
Title: Mentalizing in Clinical Practice
Author: Allen, Jon G., Peter Fonagy, and Anthony W. Bateman
Publisher: American Psychiatric Publishing
Reviewed By: John Auerbach, Volume XXIX, No 4, pp. 26-30
Used with permission from the Psychologist-Psychoanalyst Newsletter, Division 39
Mentalization is an ungainly term, and I have also sometimes found it an overused one. I have also long thought, however, that it is a necessary one, and in reviewing these two works on the topic, I have had this belief confirmed. It is no secret that there is rising tide of reductionism in psychology and psychiatry, and though I have sometimes found that the term mentalization can itself be used to oversimplify the complexities of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic thought, it is nevertheless an important concept because, in its very name, it asserts the centrality of mind, rather than brain or behavior, in our understanding of what it means to be human. Although this term was used in French psychoanalysis in the 1960s to differentiate somatic excitations from symbolic mental contents (see Lecours & Bouchard, 1997), Fonagy (1991, p. 641) introduced mentalization into Anglophone psychoanalytic discourse by defining it as “the capacity to conceive of conscious and unconscious mental states in oneself and others”—in short, as the understanding that both oneself and others are creatures with minds. CLICK HERE FOR FULL ARTICLE.
Book Reviews - Review of Coasting in the Countertransference: Conflicts of Self Interest Between Analyst and Patient
Title: Coasting in the Countertransference: Conflicts of Self Interest Between Analyst and Patient
Author: Hirsch, Irwin
Publisher: Analytic Press
Reviewed By: Maroda, Karen, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3 (Summer 2008) pp. 60-62/65
Used with permission from the Psychologist-Psychoanalyst Newsletter, Division 39
Irwin Hirsch has written a highly readable and courageous exploration of the conflicts of self-interest between analyst and patient. He is unrelenting in his honesty, exploring everything from seeing too many patients back to back, to avoiding their criticism and rejection. He says our decisions about how we practice are based more on financial concerns than any other single variable. Ouch. ...CLICK HERE FOR FULL ARTICLE.
The Southeast Florida Association for Psychoanalytic Psychology ♦ Email: sefapp@gmail.com
Phone/Fax: (954) 597-0820 ♦ Administrative Office: 101 Mint Hill Drive, Cary, NC 27519
