Moshe Halevi Spero

Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan Israel

The biblical story of manna can serve as a psychoanalytic paradigm; especially inasmuch as it might express, and enable representation of, an inherent, deep psychic component of the analytic frame.

The biblical story of manna can serve as a psychoanalytic paradigm; especially inasmuch as it might express, and enable representation of, an inherent, deep psychic component of the analytic frame.

Vera, a middle-aged, bright and skillful mental health professional, consistently maintained throughout the first years of her analysis that she had no imagination and, indeed, exhibited during the early years of work a limited, stunted capacity for truly abstract symbolic thinking, emotional expression and playfulness. I report developments within...

What attracts me in undertaking Joseph, and what I should like to express, is the transformation of Tradition into Present as a timeless mystery, the experience of the self as myth.-Thomas Mann, Dec 28, 1926 (1970) The poet Goethe confides in the reader of his autobiography Dichtung und Wahrheit that during his early teens he attempted an extensive...

This is a commentary on Joyce Slochower (this issue)23. Slochower , H. 1974 . What it means to be Jewish . Judaism , 23 : 462 – 464 . View all references and Laura Impert and Margaret Rubin (this issue), who study how psychoanalysts struggle with progressive and regressive dynamics of mourning, remembering, and nostalgia. They offer new ideas about...

It has become impossible to ignore the fact that Freud's landmark essay "The Moses of Michelangelo," however intriguing, is disproportionately flawed and methodologically problematic. Among the list of troubles, recent research emphasizes Freud's apparent misidentification of the actual biblical episode portrayed by Michelangelo, his one-sided emph...

The author presents case material of a rigid, schizoid patient who at some point during his treatment began to come late for sessions. He once missed an entire session only to appear at the door after the scheduled hour had passed; this "timing" was evidently intentional. Discussion centers upon the meaning of this kind of phenomenon; it seemed tha...

The Epistemological Questions and Assumptions Regarding the Image of GodThree Clinical Implications of the Psychological GodThe Inevitability of Countertransference in the Context of Religious Representational Material and its ObjectThe Event Horizon, the Analytic Frame and the Creation of the Representational GodClinical Illustrations of the Count...

An introduction is presented to a symposium discussing the way in which the representation of the image of God can affect the analytic dialogue and process, focusing on the beliefs and images of the analyst as well as the analysand. If, as theorized, an image or a concept identified as "God" is an ineluctable element of the development of the human...

A report is offered of the psychoanalysis of an emotionally constricted, religiously devout ko'hen, a member of the Jewish priestly class, undertaken with the author, himself a religiously committed Jew. While the analysand brought a great deal of material to his hours and was deeply committed to the analysis, the sessions were emotionally vapid, o...

A discussion is offered of some of the central trends and unique ideas that can be discerned among the 14 essays presented in a symposium dedicated to the role of religious imagery, particularly representations of God or divinity, within the psychoanalytic process. The symposium focused upon the beliefs and images of the analyst as well as the anal...

The concepts of the primeval skin ego, psychic envelope, and related pre-ego containing and wrapping functions elaborated respectively by Esther Bick, Didier Anzieu, and Francis Tustin occupy an important position in contemporary psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice. The psychic envelope begins as a virtual mental protostructure ("proto" bec...

Reflection upon the psychoanalytic literature dealing with religious faith and practice indicates that our conceptualizations since Freud's original formulations have run into a blind alley and are in danger of becoming repetitious. It is clear that the decision to focus upon the more general phenomena of faith and “spirituality,” which do not dema...

The following essay engages Freud's German title Das Unbehagen in der Kultur, translated in the psychoanalytic canon as Civilization and Its Discontents (1930 [1929]). We know that the pithy title was preceded by another title, and recent research reveals an earlier title whose meaning is the complete reverse of the present title. I argue here that...

This communication is a commentary on William W. Meissner's presentation (see record 2006-20697-003) of a patient who chronically came late for sessions. The time duration of analytic work-relatively restricted per hour yet potentially limitless in overall duration-represents an existential paradox that is fundamental to the basic representational...

Case material is presented illustrating a phase in religious transformation in which the quality of the religious moment -first expressed in transference hints and a dream, and finally augmented by an idiosyncratic enactment of the patient's-became sufficiently intense that it crossed formal religious boundaries. The patient resisted direct referen...

This book’s aim is to enrich and deepen our psychological understanding of biblical concepts and personalities. Such understanding is relevant for theology as well as for psychology and psychiatry. It may help theologians to contextualize their discipline by bringing it into contact with contemporary psychological and existential issues and tension...

Mark Somerstein's (2006) presentation of his deliberations regarding the dual focus of clinical and religious dimensions of a self-limiting male Roman Catholic patient are critically assessed. Somerstein, of Jewish faith, struggles to find a parallel avenue that would enable both his own faith and the patient's faith to be brought into the treatmen...

Material from the psychoanalytic psychotherapy of a patient with breast cancer demonstrates the emergence of constructive meaning in areas of psychological experience burdened by conflicts regarding the dimension of time and faith. During analytic work, the spontaneous appearance of religious metaphors revealed deeper layers of memory where time, f...

This essay is a discussion of several elements of Mariam Cohen's (2002) psychoanalytic reflections regarding the autobiographical account of Judith Bruder's gradual religious conversion from Orthodox Judaism to Catholicism. Despite advances in theory, it remains unclear how psychoanalysis is to accommodate the notion of an objective divine entity t...

If we accept that psychic space is fundamentally all about 'having somewhere to put what we find' (Winnicott, 1967, p. 99), then the patient's becoming aware of and pointing out the metaphor-and her ability to utilize it-indicates that such 'place' is well on the way of having been experienced as available for creative psychic use. In the course of...

In the posthumous work Holding and Interpretation (1986), Donald W. Winnicott presents narrative material from the two-year psychoanalysis of a schizoid-depressive patient. This patient created a potentially defeating atmosphere within the treatment situation by virtue of his boring monologue, his dissociative-like apparently aimless mental state,...

Polysemous qualities of the religious patient's use of language and metaphor are among the subtle factors involved in the creation of an ambience conducive to projective identification, leading to the evolution of countertransference crises in the psychotherapist. The psychotherapist's activity during countertransference crises consists in converti...

The verbal material of religious individuals in psychotherapy is laden with metaphors, folkloristic themes, and literary allusions whose meanings are generally deemed adequately elucidated by analysis of their symbolic content, generally in terms of the classic psychosexual conflict model. Contemporary psychoanalytic models demand that such materia...

The characteristic of patheticness in the case of a young female victim of child abuse has been presented, underscoring the phallic quality of this trait and its root distinctiveness from the tragic character. Many patients, historical figures, and other individuals are prematurely judged as tragic when, in fact, we are reacting uncritically to the...

Lacan's controversial clinical innovation of the unfixed analytic hour is evaluated within the context of Lacan's own theoretical and metaclinical views and against the classic, developmentally oriented concept of the fixed temporal analytic framework. Two clinical illustrations featuring disturbed reactions to the temporal framework of the analyti...

Presents clinical observations of the impact of the Persian Gulf War on the themes and processes of psychotherapy among a group of Israeli patients. Metaphors of the war period were analyzed in light of contemporary psychoanalytic thinking, with a particular focus on the significance of the sealed room. Issues of the psychotherapeutic technical sta...

Summarizes psychological aspects of religious experience in the therapeutic process and proposes a model for conceptualizing anthropocentric (interpersonal) and deocentric (human-and-God) object relationships. The model addresses 2 clinical dilemmas: identification between therapist and patient and interpretation of religious material during therap...

Distortion in screen memories illustrates the unique manner in which part-object representations unite perceptions from different temporal periods. "Portal" aspects of a given source memory designate anachronistic distortions borrowed from perceptions at a subsequent time when the source memory and its full emotional significance attempted access t...

A female obsessive patient communicated with her sister via a distortion of the Hebrew language, in which she masculinized the feminine gender second person pronoun and certain nouns. This treatment of words is analyzed in terms ranging from the concrete to the metaphoric uses of language. Lacan's emphasis on the meaning of the word is explored and...

Two years ago, the editors reasoned that the diverse and fundamental character of religious experience would promote an equally varied special issue devoted to the topic of psychotherapy and religion. We have not been disappointed. The papers composing this issue vary greatly in terms of literary style, research methodology, theoretical persuasion,...

Four illustrations have been presented which demonstrate the uses and interpretations of envy in countertransference reactions to religious patients. To be sure, envy reactions to any patient are significant, whether they simply distort the therapist's perception or contribute to a deeper understanding of the patient. In the case of the religious p...

Contemporary research suggests an interaction among disordered cognitive, perceptual, and object relational ego functions in the etiology of alcohol abuse. The present study hypothesizes a correlation between extreme field dependence, representing an impairment in cognitive-synthetic functioning, and poor self-other differentiation and clarity of o...

Revitalized interest in the clinical complexities of psychotherapy with religious patients (for example, Bradford 1984; Lovinger 1984; Spero 1985a; Stern 1985) has drawn attention to the need for perspectives on religious personality development that account for healthy and adaptational aspects as well as psychopathological aspects of particular fo...

An analysis is presented of the conventional and far-reaching existential interpretations of the concept of transference. Analogies are drawn between the deepest meanings of transference and interpersonal and religious (man-and-God) dialogue. By way of case illustrations, it is shown that transference from patient to therapist can have implications...

I have suggested that the plea for increased respect for the religious patient's perspectives demands a willingness on the psychotherapist's part to acknowledge the unique reality of the patient's relationships with religious objects, a reality which extends beyond the assumptions and predicates of standard interpersonal models of human behavior. A...

A summary of some test characteristics is presented. These were drawn from 51 religious cult devotees prior to and following 6 mo. of psychotherapy. Positive changes were attributed to increasing psychological differentiation.

The authors present a halakhic classification of asthma in terms of the prerogative to waive Sabbath prohibitions and in view of contemporary medical opinion regarding the treatment of asthma and some tentative guidelines for the professional and patient. They suggest these be viewed as recommendations rather than definitive rulings.

In this paper, I have examined in some detail a number of examples of actual and potential consensus between Jewish ethics and the practice of modern psychotherapy, psychology, and psychiatry. Moreover, I have posited specific halakhic models which represent analogies to modern psychotherapeutic principles and practices, which through analogy lend...

The present study examined the relationships among perceptual field-dependence, emotional dependence, passivity, orality, and degree of self-other differentiation in alcoholic males compared to normals, psychiatric patients, and recovered alcoholics. The theoretical perspective of this study is that each of these traits are dimensions of the overal...

Four specific problems inherent in the relationship between the theory and practice of contemporary ego psychology limit the effective transmission of ego psychological concepts and principles in clinical social work education. These problems are further conceived as impeding the student's ability to integrate theory and clinical reality, and ultim...

The literature dealing with the cult devotee has been primarily descriptive, offering phenomenological reports of psychological characteristics and symptomatology but few reports of specific assessment and psychotherapeutic procedures for management of this unique patient population. The present paper offers a brief review of previous literature an...

The unique interaction between religious psychotherapists and religious patients is examined from the standpoint of various distortive countertransference reactions which may arise in this context. The destructive potential of these reactions stems primarily from mutual neurotic needs for religious belief. The satisfaction of these needs is reinfor...

This paper reviews the concept of “life review” postulated by Butler and the Eriksonian notion of “integrity versus despair” and compares these with the rabbinic conception of death, its effect on the years preceding death, and preparation for it. The rabbis encouraged this process and considered its ultimate goal to be the heroic and creative act...

Coping with old age involves resolving the task of “integrity versus despair,” which demands a nondefensive confrontation with the inevitability of death. Halakhah (Jewish ethics) also considered this task critical in later years of life, spoke of death's inevitability, and attempted to discourage denial of death. The Jewish approach seems compatib...

This paper explores neurotic and religious components of conversion and psychophysiological sequelae of Holocaust trauma in a child of concentration camp inmates. The patient is a 26-year-old married woman of orthodox Jewish faith, whose presenting symptom was noncyclic uterine bleeding. The uniqueness of the symptom is emphasized within the defens...

Examines various manifestations of religious and psychological conflict with the penitent personality type. Rationales for the use of this categorization are offered which stress that such forms of conflict occur in numerous types of religious personalities in addition to those generally referred to as ba'alei teshuvah (penitent individuals). Topi...

After a brief review of the descriptive literature on crisis theory, the author suggests that its stress on the rapid establishment of “cognitive re-structuring” of a client's perceptions is inappropriate for work with many types of suicidal clients. A discussion of the pathological nature of suicide follows which indicates the generally poor or de...

The religious view of "sin" and the clinical psychiatric notion of "neurosis" are generally considered two varying approaches to disordered human conduct based on two unique understandings of man and the human situation. There are, indeed, fundamental aspects of the human condition, both normal and deviant, that are addressed by these two terms and...

This essay looks at the eventuality of computerized psychotherapy and attempts a philosophical analysis of the value, limitations, and efficacy of such hypothetical computerized psychotherapy devices (CPDs). The essential thesis is that while computers may be 'intellectually' capable of performing certain skills that have up until now been associat...

After reviewing some of the basic definitions of and guidelines for interpretation in the literature, a clinical tool for use in facilitating determining client readiness for accepting interpretations is presented with brief example. An excerpt is given from the case of a 15-yr old female who had been resisting an awareness that she was hiding her...

The problem of countertransference in relation to the additional hypothetical variable of the interreligious bond between observant Jewish therapists and clients is examined and the hypothesis suggested that though such complications must be considered potential and do manifest occasionally, the isolated factor of brotherly love and its related eth...

Various statements throughout the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmud with reference to dreams, their nature, validity, and analysis were explicated in terms of modern understandings and theories of dream psychology. Contrary to the more unsystematic categorizations of some earlier writers on the topic, the data, when carefully analyzed, imply a high...

Examines the basic compatibility between Judaism and the general philosophy and practice of psychotherapy from the standpoint of their areas of conflict, compromise, and agreement. It is felt that, although religion may itself be theraputic at times and that psychotherapy can promote religious growth, psychotherapy at present seems ill-equipped to...