Judith Chused

George Washington University | GW · Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

In the introduction to a panel on Turning Points in Adolescent Analysis, the author raises the questions of what constitutes a turning point and what factors in the work contribute to it. She also challenged the panelists to examine how their theoretical and clinical understanding of optimal psychoanalytic technique, when they differed with each ot...

The process of disidentification from parental figures that begins in adolescence often results in considerable confusion of thought and emotions. Difficulty with this developmental step is a major factor in the young adult’s need for analytic treatment. Patients unable to complete the second stage of separation-individuation come to treatment eith...

The motivations for choosing psychoanalysis as a profession are many and differ depending on the psychology of the analyst. However, common to most psychoanalysts is the desire to forge a helpful relationship with the individuals with whom they work therapeutically. This article presents an example of what happens when an analyst is confronted by a...

Freud's monograph on the analysis of Little Hans is examined from a perspective aimed at highlighting elements of current thinking that would be considered mutative from those originally emphasized at the time it was written, and with a specific focus on the relative importance of verbal versus nonverbal interventions.

In this paper the author discusses the multiple ways in which enactments emerge in the course of an analysis. She presents several clinical examples in which enactments were used to further the analytic process as well as an example in which the work of the analysis was temporarily stalled following an enactment.

One consequence of a heightened interest in intersubjectivity in the current psychoanalytic literature has been a relative neglect of the examination of unconscious fantasies. Presenting material from the analysis of three males, each of whom, in childhood and/or adolescence, hid his penis between his legs and looked at himself in a mirror naked, t...

Material is presented from the analyses of three children who developed obsessional behavior during the course of their analytic work. The author's intent is to use a careful examination of the emergence of these children's obsessions to try to understand the unconscious determinants that lead to the development of obsessive-compulsive behavior as...

In recent years a number of analytic concepts have been subject to scrutiny, with the value of interpretations, the usefulness of abstinence, the possibility of neutrality, all questioned. One reason for the skepticism about interpretations, in particular, is that before a patient can use an interpretation for psychic change, his perceptual frame m...

Just as the person of the analyst becomes a nidus for the manifestations of transference, so does the analyst's technique. When the patient misperceives person and technique, identifying the transference is not difficult. More complicated are those situations in which the patient's perception of the analyst and of his or her technique is congruent...

The analyst's mistakes are an inevitable aspect of his conduct of psychoanalysis. They result from the inherent uncertainties and ambiguities of the analytic process itself, and from the continuing effect upon analytic technique of the analyst's unresolved conflicts, as manifested in countertransference attitudes and enactments. Variables of clinic...

The inevitability of analytic enactments, defined as symbolic interactions between patient and analyst, is discussed. Clinical material from the psychoanalysis of a latency-age child is presented to illustrate the role of enactments and to demonstrate their usefulness in furthering the analytic work.

An adolescent patient's action during analysis reflects both neurotic conflicts and the developmentally determined task of establishing an integrated self-representation. Concern for the consequences of the action often provokes the analyst to respond, covertly, with interventions intended to change the action through influence rather than understa...

Four clinical examples of oedipal-based transference across gender lines are presented with the aim of illustrating (1) its existence, (2) the defenses against its emergence, and (3) the use of the analyst's gender as both an organizer of and resistance to certain transference manifestations. Factors that contribute to the availability for analysis...

Idealization is an intrapsychic process that serves many functions. In addition to its use defensively and for gratification of libidinal and aggressive drive derivatives, it can contribute to developmental progression, particularly during late adolescence and young adulthood. During an analysis, it is important to recognize all the determinants of...

The analyses of two children and one adolescent were presented to illustrate the concept that the neutrality of the analyst can be used not only to (a) establish a working, analyzing, and observing alliance, (b) permit the development, recognition, and working through of the transference neurosis, but also to (c) develop a sense of autonomy and sel...