Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber

Sigmund-Freud-Institut · Basic Research, Clinical Research

A Neuro-Psychoanalytic Approach to Memory and Perception: Implications for Long-Term Psychotherapy Henriette Löffler-Stastka* Department of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, Medical University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria. *Correspondence: Henriette Löffler-Stastka, MD, Univ. Professor henriette.löffler-stastka@meduniwien.ac.at Keywords: memor...

Background Childhood trauma is a major risk factor for chronic depression. It has been suggested that adults with chronic depression who have experienced childhood trauma may require long-term treatment owing to a breakdown of basic trust and related difficulties in developing a productive therapeutic relationship. Aims As empirical studies have b...

Compared to ordinary memories, dream memories still have something mysterious about them and invite interpretation. The aim of this study was the simple but fundamental question whether this (perceived, presumed) emotional–mental specificity of dream memories is associated with something specific at the level of brain physiology. Subjects were n =...

Background Whether and how psychotherapies change brain structure and function is unknown. Its study is of great importance for contemporary psychotherapy, as it may lead to discovery of neurobiological mechanisms that predict and mediate lasting changes in psychotherapy, particularly in severely mentally ill patients, such as those with chronic de...

Introduction: Long-term psychodynamic/psychoanalytic psychotherapy (LTPP) is a prevalent treatment option for complex mental disorders. Yet, little is known about the role of treatment intensity in LTPP. We present a study protocol for a systematic review and individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis aggregating and analysing individual data...

Objective: Psychotherapy of chronic depression has remained a challenge due to limited prognosis and high rates of recurrence. We present five-year outcome data from a multicenter trial comparing psychoanalytic (PAT) and cognitive-behavioral (CBT) long-term treatments with randomized and preferred allocations analyzing symptom (N=227) and structur...

An einer chronischen Depression erkrankte Patientinnen und Patienten gelten oft als schwer behandelbar. Häufig hängt die chronische Depression mit schweren traumatischen Erfahrungen zusammen. Das in diesem Band vorgestellte Behandlungsmanual berücksichtigt diese Gegebenheit und legt den Fokus auf traumatisierte, chronisch depressive Patientinnen un...

Background In many Western countries like Germany, the social integration of children with an immigrant background has become an urgent social tasks. The probability of them living in high-risk environments and being disadvantaged regarding health and education-related variables is still relatively higher. Yet, promoting language acquisition is not...

Although psychoanalysts are interested in symptom reduction as an outcome, they are looking for instruments to measure sustaining changes in the unconscious mental functioning. In this article it is discussed that conceptually well-founded transformation of manifest dreams analyzed with precise empirical methods could be considered as a promising i...

The controlled, prospective intervention study without randomization with a non-inferiority study design investigates the effectiveness of psychoanalytic treatments without medication in comparison to behavioral therapy treatments with and without medication in children aged 6 to 11 years with a diagnosis of ADHD and/or conduct disorder. 73 childre...

In einem Vergleich des Romans Die Wand (1963) von Marlen Haushofer und seiner Verfilmung durch den österreichischen Regisseur Julian Pölsner (2012) zeigt der Beitrag, wie ein Roman, der als Schlüsselroman der zweiten Phase der Frauenbewegung gelten kann und viel zur Emanzipation der Frauen beigetragen hat, in seiner bildmächtigen Verfilmung zu neue...

In this study, we explore the influence of the pandemic on the intergenerational dialogue. Our thesis is that the images of totally dependent people in intensive care units wrestling with death remind us of earliest experiences in the first year of life. The “embodied memories” of the ubiquitous basic human experience of existential dependence and...

The early prevention project “Strong together!” supports refugee parents and their young children (0–4 years) in Berlin, Germany. It aims to mitigate the transmission of trauma to the generation born in exile. For refugee families who have only recently arrived in Germany, the COVID‐19 pandemic poses a particularly great challenge. Not only are the...

This chapter sketches a psychoanalytical understanding of depression unconsciously determined by the individual life and trauma histories of the patients and by specific social and cultural factors. In the second section of the paper, some basic lines of a psychoanalytic understanding of depression are summarized: (a) depression as a reaction to lo...

Children who live on the margins of society are disadvantaged in achieving their developmental potential because of the lack of a necessary stable environment and nurturing care. Many early prevention programs aim at mitigating such effects, but often the evaluation of their long-term effect is missing. The aim of the study presented here was to ev...

Dans le monde entier, la pression exercée sur la psychanalyse pour qu’elle prouve les résultats de ses traitements à l’aune des critères dits « fondés sur des preuves » ( evidence based medecine ) a augmenté. Tandis qu’un grand nombre d’études sur les résultats des thérapies psychanalytiques brèves est maintenant disponible, de telles études font g...

Die Entgegnung auf den Beitrag von Kaiser et al. betrifft die erste kontrollierte Psychotherapiestudie, die psychoanalytische und kognitiv-verhaltenstherapeutische Langzeitpsychotherapien mit randomisierter und präferierter Zuweisung miteinander vergleicht. In 4 Behandlungszentren wurden 554 chronisch depressive Patienten interviewt, von denen 252...

Der Beitrag reflektiert aus erziehungswissenschaftlicher und psychoanalytischer Perspektive die Bedeutung des Schulabschlusses aus Lehrer*innenperspektive. Berufsbiographische Fallgeschichten geben Aufschluss über die Schwierigkeit, diesen Übergang auf der Beziehungsebene zu gestalten.

After the foundation of psychoanalytic institutes in Berlin (1920), Vienna (1922), and London (1925), the Frankfurt Psychoanalytic Institute (1929–1933) was among the first European institutes. Its closure in 1933 at the hands of the National Socialists, along with the transformation of the Berlin Institute into a state-governed psychotherapeutic i...

Chronically depressed individuals have a high suicide risk. However, it is an open question whether previously observed risk factors for suicide attempts also apply to chronic depression or whether there are specific risk factors related to chronic-recurrent illness. We drew from a large group of chronically depressed individuals seeking psychother...

Worldwide, the pressure on psychoanalysis to prove the results of its treatments according to the criteria of so-called evidence-based medicine has increased. While a large number of studies on the results of psychoanalytic short-term therapies are now available, such studies are still largely lacking on psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic long-term...

Objective:: For chronic depression, the effectiveness of brief psychotherapy has been limited. This study is the first comparing the effectiveness of long-term cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) and long-term psychoanalytic therapy (PAT) of chronically depressed patients and the effects of preferential or randomized allocation. Methods:: A tota...

Es wird auf die Erfahrung psychoanalytischer Traumaforscher, wie unter anderem von Dori Laub, hingewiesen, dass der Umgang mit Fremden und Traumatisierten als Indikator für die Humanität einer Gesellschaft betrachtet werden kann. Daher stimmt die zunehmende Entsolidarisierung mit dem Leid heutiger Geflüchteter nachdenklich. Mit einigen konkreten Be...

Dreams have been one core element in psychoanalysis and have been emphasized already by Freud as central therapeutic elements. Here we review recent findings on the neurobiology of sleep in general and dreams in particular. We here consider dreams as indicators of inner transformation processes in the structure of the ego—the vivid experiences of d...

Neuropsychoanalysis is a young discipline that developed in the last 20 years. One leading proponent was Mark Solms followed by others like Eric Kandel, Heinz Boeker, and Georg Northoff. A central issue in neuropsychoanalysis, as in psychoanalysis, is the concept of the unconscious. This can be understood in various ways of cognition and, relying o...

The topic of migration, flight and trauma is as old as civilization, as its myths, fairytales, and its legends such as “The Odyssey” and well‐known literary figures like Oedipus and Medea (first section of the paper). However, the current refugee crisis in Europe has led to societal tensions and even splitting among large groups, such as in Germany...

The dialogue between psychoanalysis and the so-called embodied cognitive science has led to alternative understandings of the unconscious functioning of the mind. Unconscious learning, problem-solving and memory are no longer conceptualized as functions of a “saving in the brain”, but invariably the product of complex, self-regulated, sensomotoric...

Psychoanalysis has a long tradition where different concepts have been developed. The beginnings of psychoanalysis focused on psychic mechanisms of various disorders ranging from melancholia to the various forms of neuroses.

What can neuropsychoanalysis contribute to psychodynamic therapy? This is the central question in the current chapter.

Focal Psychoanalytic Therapies for Patients with Compulsive Disorders?-The article is part of the preparatory conceptualization process for an empirical study investigating the success of brief psychoanalytic therapies for patients with compulsive disorders. The authors discuss the thesis that these patients can only be successfully treated if a cr...

Das Pilotprojekt STEP-BY-STEP hat sich zum Ziel gesetzt, besonders vulnerable Gruppen von Geflüchteten (z. B. allein reisende Frauen mit Kleinkindern, Familien, schwer Traumatisierte aus Kriegsgebieten) im Rahmen einer Erstaufnahmeeinrichtung professionell zu unterstützen. Aus der psychoanalytischen Trauma- und Migrationsforschung werden Grundlinie...

Background: The transition to child care is a challenging time in a child’s life and leads to elevated levels of cortisol. These elevations may be influenced by the quality of the mother–child relationship. However, remarkably little is known about cortisol production in response to the beginning of child care among children-at-risk such as childre...

It is a prevalent notion that borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by deficits in executive functions (EF) like inhibition. Yet experimental studies yield inconsistent results. However, despite emotional dysregulation being a core feature of BPD, most paradigms did not control for emotional state or comorbid mental disorders. In t...

The relationship between multiple childhood trauma, as well as adversity, and chronic depression has been reported repeatedly. However, there is a lack of clinical differentiations of these findings. We complemented patient self-ratings, using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), with psychoanalysts’ perspectives in order to provide finer grai...

Die Studie Langzeittherapie bei chronischen Depressionen (LAC-Depressionsstudie) vergleicht als eine der ersten Studien psychoanalytische mit kognitiv-behavioralen Langzeittherapien prospektiv miteinander, und sie untersucht den Einfluss von Zuweisung nach Randomisierung und Präferenz der Teilnehmer. Es handelt sich um eine umfangreiche, multizentr...

Early parenthood in traumatized migrants and refugees and the transgenerational consequences: Psychoanalytic thoughts on prevention. – Research findings from neighboring disciplines have handsomely borne out the psychoanalytic conviction that the experiences a child undergoes in the first few weeks/months of its life lay the foundations for its fur...