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Unformulated Experience: From Dissociation to Imagination in Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalytic Psychology
Abstract
In this powerful and wonderfully accessible meditation on psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, and social constructivism, Donnel Stern explores the relationship between two fundamental kinds of experience: explicit verbal reflection and “unformulated experience,” or experience we have not yet reflected on and put into words. Stern is especially concerned with the process by which we come to formulate the unformulated. it is not an instrumental task, he holds, but one that requires openness and curiosity; the result of the process is not accuracy alone, but experience that is deeply felt and fully imagined.
... Além disso, supõe-se que essa concepção horizontal e fenomenológica de inconsciente seja efetivamente operante no modelo teórico-clínico da psicanálise relacional, o que comprovaria a convergência teoria desses saberes na atualidade. Apresentam-se, então, dois conceitos oriundos dessa recente tradição de psicanálise: 1) o saber relacional implícito, na perspectiva do Boston Change Process Study Group (1998aGroup ( , 1998bGroup ( , 2005Group ( , 2010Group ( , 2018 e 2) o conceito de inconsciente como experiência não formulada, de D. B. Stern (1983Stern ( , 1997Stern ( , 2018Stern ( , 2019. O trabalho é concluído com a indicação do problema dos processos de mudança como campo profícuo para a continuidade do diálogo entre psicopatologia fenomenológica e psicanálise relacional. ...
... Uma dimensão eminentemente fenomenológica e, mais especialmente, hermenêutico-fenomenológica do modelo relacional de compreensão dos processos inconscientes e da clínica psicoterápica encontra-se, de modo bastante elucidativo, na concepção dos processos inconscientes como consistindo, basicamente e antes de tudo, de experiências não formuladas. Nesse sentido, destaca-se o trabalho do psicanalista teórico e clínico Donnel B. Stern (1983Stern ( , 1997Stern ( , 2018Stern ( , 2019, cujo leitmotiv para a investigação e pesquisa, desde o início da década de 1980, consiste na "criação de uma teoria do inconsciente que reconhece, simultaneamente, o poder imponente e emergente do retrato do inconsciente feito por Freud, enquanto ao mesmo tempo oferece um igual reconhecimento das propriedades constitutivas da relacionalidade interpessoal" (Stern, 2018, p. 128). ...
A tematização das dinâmicas, processos e fenômenos de natureza corporal, implícito-procedurais, vêm reaproximando nas últimas décadas fenomenologia e psicanálise e, especialmente, psicopatologia fenomenológica e psicanálise relacional. Este trabalho busca delinear os principais pontos temáticos de encontro entre esses saberes na atualidade, com foco particular nos aspectos de convergência teórica e nas implicações clínico-psicoterápicas. Tendo isso em vista, são apresentadas concepções contemporâneas de inconsciente oriundas de ambos os campos de pesquisa. Por meio dessa apresentação, limites da teoria freudiana clássica do inconsciente e do respectivo primado da interpretação verbal na psicoterapia tornam-se acessíveis. Da psicopatologia fenomenológica contemporânea, apresenta-se a abordagem horizontal do inconsciente na formulação de Thomas Fuchs. Da psicanálise relacional, exploram-se os conceitos de saber relacional implícito, conforme forjado pelo Boston Change Process Study Group, bem como o conceito de inconsciente como experiência não formulada, de Donnel B. Stern. Tendo trilhado esse percurso, será possível notar como na atualidade fenomenologia e psicanálise vêm ao encontro uma da outra, assegurando, por meio de uma compreensão hermenêutico-fenomenológica de inconsciente, um lugar privilegiado para os aspectos implícito-procedurais das trocas relacionais no interior do espaço clínico. Palavras-chave: Fenomenologia; Psicanálise Relacional; Inconsciente; Implícito-procedural; Memória Corporal;
... Philosophers Heidegger (1927Heidegger ( /1962 and Gadamer (1960Gadamer ( /1989 wrote what are thought to be the foundations for ontological or philosophical hermeneutics. Since that time, others have contributed to the subject, such as philosophers Taylor (1989) and Bernstein (1983) and psychologists such as Stern (1991Stern ( , 1997Stern ( , 2010, Slife and Williams (1995), F. C. Richardson et al. (1999), Martin and Sugarman (1999), and Frie (2018). I have also written about the movement (Cushman, 1995(Cushman, , 2019, and in particular suggested that a hermeneutic cultural history fits well with the social critiques of our time (Cushman, 2020). ...
... A current form of relational psychoanalysis has developed clinical theory that makes dissociative processes and their attendant therapeutic impasses the fulcrum upon which many successful treatments turn (e.g., Stern, 1997Stern, , 2010. The kind of dissociation Cushman and Gilford (1999) described and about which I have since written (Cushman, 2019(Cushman, , 2020 is centered more on the cultural than the individual, but the processes are similar. ...
This is an exploration of historical, political, and psychological processes that enable Donald Trump to attain and remain a powerful political force in the United States and maintain the allegiance of so many adherents, even while his unethical and illegal acts are in public view. Using a hermeneutic, cultural history approach, I employ insights drawn from historical sources, social psychology, pop culture, and studies about religious cults. The effort is to understand not only the psychological experience of Trump’s followers but also something about the psychological life of all Americans, and by doing so sketch out in broad terms the current 21st-century self and the cultural terrain that brought this new self to light.
... De alguna manera, este proceso implica acercarse terapéuticamente a una experiencia constreñida o, hasta cierto punto, oculta, ofreciendo una construcción diferente a lo que históricamente ha sido problemática (Gimeno-Bayón, 2017) pero no a través del ejercicio de un mero alternativismo o de un cambio de perspectiva volitivo, sino a través del contacto con lo intrincado de la experiencia (su complejidad situacional corporalmente sentida) y de la continua simbolización de esta, que produce nuevos pasos (avance experiencial). Un planteamiento en el que vienen a converger los enfoques psicodinámicos relacionales contemporáneos al tratar el tema de la "experiencia no formulada" (aquella sobre la que aún no se ha reflexionado y que no ha sido puesta en palabras, pero que están ahí) (Stern, 2003). Y que resitúan al trabajo psicoanalítico en dos áreas: reunir la curiosidad suficiente parar alcanzar a esta experiencia no formulada y tratar de formularla (simbolizar), y permanecer abierto a los fenómenos del campo relacional (la vivencia de lo interpersonal) para poner palabras a lo que está ocurriendo entre las dos personas. ...
... Algo a lo que, de nuevo vienen a aludir otros enfoques cuando adquieren una mirada experiencial. Como el caso de Stern (2003) quien reubica el trabajo hermenéutico del Psicoanálisis en la "revelación de lo nuevo" (lo que está implícito en la necesidad no satisfecha, diríamos nosotros), más que en el descubrimiento de "lo antiguo" (los meros hechos del pasado). ...
The main aim of this research was to study the role of existential need in the process of emotional transformation in the framework of Emotion-Focused Therapy within the issue of complicated grief in the context of the empty chair for unfinished business. Though the systematic and focused study of existential need and its processing is a key component of the model, it has not been carried out so far. Thus, this paper aimed, first of all, to outline a rational-empirical model concerning the processing of existential need and its involvement in the process of emotional transformation. In order to do that, the study 1 was conducted (outlined in Chapter 5). This study 1 also resulted in the Measure of Existential Need Processing in Emotion-Focused Therapy (which allows for the evaluation of the presence of the components in the therapy sessions). For this purpose, the Task Analysis method (Greenberg, 2007) was used as a resource to hypothesise the elements of the need processing model in the therapy session and their optimal order (study 1, Chapter 5), as well as to evaluate, refine and finally contrast the capacity of the final model and it’s components to lead to therapeutic change and resolution of the empty chair task (study 2, Chapter 6). Similarly, sequence analyses of the different components of the existential need model were also conducted to establish their prototypical order in the processing of existential need (study 2, Chapter 6). In this study 2 Existential Need Processing Scale was also developed. For this purpose, a sample of 30 people experiencing complicated grief was taken, with whom 3 sessions were held in telematic format (videoconference). They were evaluated three times: before the intervention, one week, and two months afterwards. This research also sought to evaluate the potency of the empty chair intervention for unfinished business with a complicated grief sample. This is another of the main contributions of this research. This task is mentioned by various authors for its ability to generate clinical change in complicated grief (Boelen et al., 2021; Bryant et al., 2014; Glickman et al., 2016; Holland et al., 2018). However, this task had not been studied yet in complicated grief. Significant clinical changes were found both at one week and at two months, being greater at two months, both in the successful sessions where the resolution of the empty chair task was accomplished (obtaining better results) and with the sessions in general, the latter analysis having an effect size of around d = 1, thus offering some evidence of this intervention in the telematic format (videoconference) and in complicated grief. Finally, we can say that the Existential Need Processing Model in Emotion-Focused Therapy predicts change in clinical outcomes. The more advanced the components are (e.g., Differentiated Relational Existential Need Expressed), the more consistent this prediction of clinical change is and the greater its presence in successful sessions and its relationship to the resolution of the empty chair task, thus confirming our hypothesis. We have also observed a certain sequentiality which indicates a progressive differentiation and expression in the relational need that, when achieved, is consistently more related to change.
... Laplanche's theory shifts the focus from repression to the intersubjective origins of the "unconscious" which highlights the infantile origin of dissociation including inter-generational transmission of trauma (8). This notion is similar to Donald Stern's concept of "unformulated experience" which is not repressed because it has never been fully felt (38) or "Lost in Translation" to echo the title of Sofia Coppola's 2023 romantic comedy-drama film. ...
This paper, the second of a two-part essay, delves into the implicit and immediate factors within psychotherapy, positioning estrangement from oneself and to the environment as a core psychopathological issue. Implicit Psychotherapy, as proposed and outlined in this paper is the techniqual aspect of Dialectical Dynamic Therapy (DDT), which itself is rooted in the Dialectical Discourse. Aiming for the most profound “healing” possible, this approach directly engages the symbolic network of the mind to minimize resistance to change. The individual obstacle in this process is highlighted as escape from oneself driven by traumatic memories. The subtle and encrypted communication between patient and therapist serves to protect both the individual’s unique essence and the purity of the therapeutic process from the external symbolic impositions, which is the second obstacle in treatment. Finally, this approach facilitates the Hegelian process sublation (Aufhebung) of the power dilemma which is inherently linked to trauma. The essay explores a novel “digital brain” model of mind, and the internal moderation concept, highlighting their potential contributions to machine learning applications which would serve for exploration of the opportunities embedded in Implicit Psychotherapy. The development of a Symbol Relations Theory remains as the next theoretical task following this essay which would complete the full set basic knowledge which the proposed psychotherapy approach is to be grounded upon.
... A similar movement is described by many therapeutic processes in the field of psychoanalysis. Our work with patients to overcome dissociation (Bromberg, 2011) can be experienced as an invitation to look more directly at those aspects of their experience that were unformulated (Stern, 2013), defensively excluded (Bowlby, 1980), operating as an unmentalized alien self (Fonagy, Luyten, & Allison, 2019), pressing from within as negative introjects (Fairbairn, 1952) that, as long as they remain unintegrated, tend to be reenacted in our relational world (Gleiser, 2003;Pitillas, 2020;Wachtel, 2014), make us vulnerable to disorganization (Liotti, 2004;Gleiser, 2003;Pitillas, 2020;Wachtel, 2014), or become visible in the 'theatres' of the body and psychosomatic distress (McDougall, 1989). ...
... This state of sensory and emotional experience existing in presymbolic form is the territory of Bion's beta elements in which experience is proto-emotional and proto-sensory. The formless nature of this presymbolic experience is captured in the evocative descriptions of Bion's (1965) ''dark and formless infinity'' and Stern's (2003) ''unformulated experience.'' This protoself lacks structure and continuity, and the infant depends on the containment, attunement, and regulation of the caregiver to provide an experience that does not overwhelm or traumatize. ...
While athletes are at increased risk for developing disordered eating, there is little consensus on the most effective treatment. While behavioral and cognitive behavioral approaches are most commonly used, we propose that psychoanalysis has the potential to revolutionize treatment for athletes with eating disorders (EDs). In this paper, we use the theories of Winnicott and Bion to frame our arguments, proposing that psychic overwhelm resulting from impingement as well as failures in containment may drive an individual to concretize their emotional and relational experiences through the body via EDs and sport. While historically sport and athletic involvement have been thought to perpetuate and maintain EDs, we propose that sport participation may also provide a unique path to ED recovery for athletes, a claim that is consistent with recent recommendations. Sport involvement may serve as a bridge to facilitate the process of emotion regulation, psychic symbolization, and self-reflection that is necessary for ED recovery. Through the facilitative function of a containing, therapeutic relationship, one may feel safe enough to practice curiosity and creatively explore the metaphor and meaning behind one’s concrete relationship to food and sport, paving the way to recovery from EDs for athletes.
... En consecuencia, el trabajo con las áreas irrepresentables de la mente se ha hecho central. Son numerosos los autores y conceptos que se pueden citar: los elementos beta y la O de Bion (1963;, el espacio transicional de Winnicott (1971), la psicosis blanca de Green (1973), el ser simétrico de Matte Blanco (1975), el pictograma de Aulagner (1975, el contexto del nuevo comienzo de Loch (1975), el vacío de Resnik (1986, lo sabido no pensado de Bollas (1987), la posición autista contigua de Ogden (1989), el objeto concreto original de Ferrari (1992), la figurabilidad psíquica de los Botellas (2001), la experiencia no formulada de Donnel Stern (2003). ...
... And yet her uncanny visitation suggested she knew things that the narrator apparently did not. She seemed to know something about how Isobel's manifestation would provide an opportunity to explore hidden and unformulated (Stern, 1997) facets of myself that were clearly calling out to be heard and that needed formulation and articulation. It is noteworthy that this led to recognizing that Isobel's silent presence had facilitated a significant transformation within. ...
This paper is interested in the hidden selves that hover silently in the spaces that all human relationships create. It asks how these hidden self-states can find the light of day and suggests that one way is through fictional creative writing. The author shares a piece of fictional writing in which an elusive character—Isobel—appears. This ethereal and fictional manifestation occurs in the context of excruciatingly painful relational experiences in which the narrator describes repetitive and painful struggles for transformation. Speculative attempts to understand the meaning of the fictional material reveal an emerging forward edge and a fledgling sense of agency. But more. It elaborates how the creative writing process offers a different kind of lens through which to locate, elaborate, see, experience and be empathic with our own and, by extension, with our patients’ hidden self-states.
... The concept of enactment itself implies that we cannot be aware of, nor can we control it: "Ironically, one of the defining characteristics of enactment is the inability to identify and articulate the very process in which one is embroiled" (MacIntosh, 2015; see also Hirsch, 2008;Maroda, 2022;Stern, 1997). Claire frankly admitted that her stance toward Cosimo was stubborn, uncompromising, and provocative. ...
In our paper we discuss the therapeutic dilemma that arises when relational patterns and attachment bonding are based exclusively on positive transference. When the harmful absence of negative transference is overlooked, rage and aggression become sequestered in the unconscious field. It is also well understood in the broader psychoanalytic community that conflict and aggression, when experienced, acknowledged, and processed inside a safe therapeutic relationship, is a powerful antidote to helplessness and hopelessness. We also suggest that an overemphasis on the impact of trauma may run the risk of making it the “essence” of the therapy, unconsciously encouraging clients to feel nailed to their wounds, as if they have completely lost their capacity for self-agency. This is the story of Claire, a young woman with severe and chronic relational trauma with whom Adriano worked for six years. When both Adriano and Claire suffered a loss of faith and the therapy became stymied by its limitations in providing an answer to this dilemma, Adriano called upon the philosophy of Hegel, whose valuing of the restorative power of “tarrying” with despair gave him support and comfort as he struggled with his own helplessness and fear in the face of Claire’s abject darkness. As a footnote, we are happy to report that at the time of this paper’s publication, Claire is now a practising psychologist and has been married to her husband for three years.
The aim of the study was to investigate the role of professional identity as a moderator in the relationship between the teachers’ collective responsibilities and the school improvement perspective. Data were collected from 922 teachers employed at primary, secondary, and high schools in Türkiye and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to explore the potential structural linkages among professional identity, collective responsibility, and perspectives on school improvement. The results demonstrated that teachers’ collective responsibility was associated with their perceptions of the school improvement and components that need to be improved. The study determined the significant role of collective responsibility on teachers’ school improvement perceptions and the significant moderator role of teacher professional identity in the relationship. Focusing on testing the relationship among collective responsibility, perspectives of school improvement, and teachers’ professional identity, this study how countries with high differences between schools in international exams can improve the differences. School leaders should support teachers to join in board meetings of school. This can help with school improvement practices.
Dr. Jeremy Safran had a unique talent to seamlessly weave together clinical work with his broad knowledge of philosophy, history, and theology. Alongside his commitment to researching the minutest clinical interactions, he was conscious of the broad values of the nature of the good life that underpinned his analytic approach. This paper will explore the concepts of the enchanted unconscious, clinical impasses, negotiation, and surrender, suggesting that these concepts together provide insight into Safran’s larger philosophy of life. It will then provide the approach to these concepts of the Rebbes of Ishbitz/Radzin, a school of Polish Hasidic thought. It will conclude with an exploration of how both Safran’s psychoanalytic approach and the Ishbitz/Radzin Rebbes’ Hasidic approach to the Torah provide distinct insights and applications of these concepts, which can be mutually enriching for both disciplines.
Die Autor*innen arbeiten in Band 19 der Internationalen Psychoanalyse einen Schwerpunkt auf das Sein und die Bedingungen des Lebendig-Werdens heraus und bringen eine Vielfalt an Themen zusammen, die unter einem ontologischen Gesichtspunkt neu gedacht werden können. In Arbeiten zu Winnicotts Konzeption des Leibseelischen und der Bedeutung von »Unintegriertheit« ebenso wie in Berichten von klinischer Arbeit mit autistischen Patient*innen und mit einem psychotischen Adoleszenten während der Covid-19-Pandemie wird diese früheste leibseelische Ebene des going on being deutlich. Weitere Arbeiten befassen sich mit der Entstehung eines Kern-Selbst aus dem primären Masochismus, mit weiblicher Subjektivität und mit dem Thema des »verlorenen« Selbstanteils bei trans Patient*innen. Auch bei dem Blick auf gesellschaftliche Themen wie Rassismus, Traumatisierung durch ein autoritäres Regime oder die psychoanalytische Identität zwischen den Kulturen geht es weniger um das Erkennen und Deuten als darum, durch genaue Beschreibungen die Wahrnehmungsfähigkeiten für die Dimension des Seins und Werdens zu erweitern. Das International Journal of Psychoanalysis gilt als weltweit wichtigste Fachzeitschrift der Psychoanalyse. Aus diesem reichen Fundus versammelt Internationale Psychoanalyse jährlich ausgewählte Beiträge in deutscher Übersetzung. Mit Beiträgen von Lisa Baraitser, Dominique Bourdin, Eugênio Canesin Dal Molin, Nelson Ernesto Coelho Junior, Louise Gyler, Alessandra Lemma, Anat Tzur Mahalel, Sharon Numa, Thomas H. Ogden, Michael Parsons, Tami Pollak, Luca Quagelli, Joona Taipale und Renata Udler Cromberg
The sense of agency, our felt sense of authorship for our actions, is a difficult concept to define, yet its faltering stands at the heart of psychopathology. Historically undertheorized by psychoanalysis and typically positioned opposite relatedness by clinical psychology, Jeremy Safran conceived of agency and relatedness as paradoxically related. This paper pays tribute to Safran’s ideas by taking his writings on agency as a starting point to elaborate how agency forms, and goes awry, in the relational crucible of early life. In doing so, the paper draws on the developmental theory of Winnicott, empirical research on embodied agency from adjacent fields of study, and Safran’s clinical phenomenology.
The author addresses the theme of frame and setting in psychoanalysis, suggesting that they are "functions" of the psychoanalytic process. Frame is defined as the external components of the context that enable the development of a process, and setting as the primarily psychoanalytic elements within the analyst's mind, necessary for establishing an analysing situation where a process should take place. The author emphasizes that the characteristics of both also define the outline of the process, while discussing attributes that would aid in its development. The author proposes the creation of an imaginary model regarding possible invariants in psychoanalytic theories and theories of technique with the intention of deepening the understanding of the relationship between frame, setting and process. The author concludes with a reflection on the effect of implicit theories on the construction of frame and setting.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is a complex illness that requires a multimodal approach to treatment. While psychopharmacology is reserved for co-morbid psychiatric illnesses, individual psychotherapy remains the cornerstone of treatment with a strong therapeutic alliance necessary for successful treatment outcomes. The primary goal of treatment is to reduce distress and impairment, promote cooperation and integration between the different identities, and improve overall functioning. The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) provides treatment guidelines for DID that recommend a psychodynamic phase-oriented treatment approach, involving stabilization, development of adaptive coping skills, trauma processing, and integration of fragmented identities. Treatment must be individualized and paced to match the patient’s capacity and readiness for each phase. Adjunctive therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, and hypnotherapy may be helpful. Family therapy can also be incorporated to address the family system dynamics and provide support for the patient. Despite the challenges associated with DID, it is possible to achieve significant improvement in DID symptomatology over time with consistent and expert-guided treatment. Future research is needed to continue to improve the understanding and treatment of DID.
The unique perspective of children communicating about the loss of a parent has rarely been studied. In this qualitative research, we interviewed 12 children aged 7-12 and asked them about their experience communicating their loss. The children's verbal and non-verbal communication was characterized by constant movements away from and closer to various aspects of their loss, illustrated by three main themes: (a) children either talking about the loss or not talking about it; (b) first talking about the loss and then stopping to talk about it; and (c) simultaneously talking and not talking about the loss. Based on Stern's interpersonal relational thinking, our findings indicate that children wish to talk about the loss but also to avoid talking about it. The possibility of choosing to talk and not to talk with themselves and close individuals about the loss allows children to think about and articulate their feelings and thoughts.
This commentary aims at reflecting upon and contextualizing the emergence of relational self psychology and considers how it continues to transform our theoretical and clinical landscapes. It underscores, first, the phenomena of self organization and emergence (of new perspectives and sensibilities) witnessed in our field in general, given that the arena of psychoanalytic self psychology has always been a complex system in its own right. It then addresses the concept of the self, which is rendered increasingly ephemeral, fluid, dynamic, and non-entity-like. And finally, it explores the relationalizing of self psychology, including not only accepting the personhood of the analyst and the bidirectionality of the two analytic participants, but relying upon them as central to therapeutic action.
The paper begins with the claim that psychoanalysis faces a dilemma in locating itself in a contemporary world that devalues experiences of interiority, depth, and embeddedness in personal history. Psychoanalysis's coming to terms with this modern world?reflected in contemporary relational paradigms and emphases on interaction, authority, and epistemology?is essential yet tends to replace an outdated conformity with an updated one, in which what is offered to analysands may become limited and the soul of psychoanalysis lost.
Bollas's work attempts to reinspire psychoanalysis. This paper explores his contributions and the tensions within them and develops several points about how psychoanalysis can maintain a worthwhile self?for itself and for its analysands?in the modern world. Among the issues discussed are the sense in which an endogenous motivational core associated with an emphasis on interiority may be compatible with a relational paradigm and how the notion of personal idiom is a rich and fruitful one, but that the cultural field deserves a more fundamental place than it is given by Bollas. The problem of authority and exploitation, within and outside the consulting room, is also taken up, and it is argued that psychoanalysis should be conceived as a moral discourse in which the analyst's self?subverting (but not diminished) authority is essential.
TRANSFERENCE DOES NOT ATTAIN a form compatible with words until that moment in the treatment in which it is described. In fact, the words used to describe transference give it its shape and meaning. Prior to its description transference is not explicitly meaningful. Unformulated transference exists in a vague and indeterminate state which, if it were worded, could be spoken in more than one way, perhaps several ways. And since the description eventually chosen is jointly chosen by patient and analyst, the very shape and character of the patient's transference experience, its warp and woof and not just its meaning, is a product not only of the patient, but also of the analyst, and of the interaction between the two. These points have been approached from several directions in the psychoanalytic literature, especially from the interpersonal perspective. I will approach them through a discussion of language. Transference is a description of certain aspects of the relationship between patient and analyst, and like any description it is a construction, a composition of elements abstracted from a whole (Schafer, 1983). It is in the interest of putting one foot in front of the other that we ignore in daily living the fact that description, however simple, requires the selection and crystallization of salient details, and their combination and interpretation. Multiple good descriptions of the same phenomenon co-exist. Which is chosen depends upon the deepest purposes that guide our involvement with the phenomenon to be described. In all of life, but with special emphasis in our own field, for "deepest purposes" read "unconscious purposes" or "character style." We can say, then, that which description we choose depends on a great deal more than our conscious orientation. And it is not only the personalities of analyst and patient which are at issue here, but also the part that any particular description of the transference plays in the evolution of the analytic relationship. And finally, the transference itself, as it develops over time, is an influence on its own further understanding. Even the detailed analytic transaction, which we think of as raw experience, hardly itself an interpretation, is in fact an abstraction from something more vague. The very possibility of considering the analytic transaction as data is rooted in our capacity to describe it in verbal terms, even if only to ourselves and even if only implicitly. No matter how good the fit between a phenomenon and its description seems, it cannot simply be said that the phenomenon demanded this one description. Description has a part to play in forming the phenomenon and is finally a matter of intention, and thus of choice.
This article analyzes the current controversey over the iatrogenic implantation of sexual abuse “pseudomemories”; during psychoanalytic treatment. It includes a critique of contemporary memory “research”; and an elaboration of the concept of traumatic dissociation, bringing it into the framework of relational theory. Specific clinical examples are used to illustrate why adult survivors of sexual abuse are so vulnerable to dissociative rather than repressive defensive structures. In the context of a long clinical vignette, the analyst's countertransference is explored as a fulcrum for the counterbalancing effects of traumatic memory, dissociation, and constructivism.
The current reemergence of clinicians’ attention to the sequelae of childhood sexual abuse has been met by a powerful critical opposition. The criticisms often extend to many forms of psychotherapy and to psychoanalytic treatments of trauma. This article situates the debate in its historical context. It examines the use of eyewitness testimony and the work of Elizabeth Loftus in this controversy and makes a case for a more wide‐ranging, careful, and critical reading of cognitive neuroscience and empirical studies of memory processes. The distinctions between clinical data, legal evidence, and research findings are considered. The essay also examines some of the challenges and problems in treating trauma and in considering the impact of real events in a relational and social constructionist psychoanalysis.
The hermeneutic turn in psychoanalysis may be less a move toward soft science than an attempt to address certain failures in the classical tradition. The latter has failed to convert Freud's many metaphors into anything like responsible science; it has been unable to give up its fascination with Freud and move on to other thinkers and other points of view; it has been unable to find an answer to the problem of secrecy and privileged access to clinical data; under the heavy hand of theory, it has all but eliminated research from the psychoanalytic enterprise; and finally, it has been unable to find a home for the Roshomon effect and the fact that almost everything worth looking at has at least two sides. Above all, psychoanalysis needs to recognize that our theory is often the projection of either our Zeitgeist or our personal history. Until we can make room for the problem of subjectivity in our theory‐building, we will never be able to separate the singer from the song.
This paper reconsiders the case of Frau Emmy von N—Freud's first effort to treat hysteria—from the vantage point of hypnoid states of consciousness and the phenomenon of dissociation. It proposes that Freud, in ultimately repudiating Breuer's concept of autohypnosis and alterations in consciousness, led psychoanalysis for the next century towards a one‐sided emphasis on repression at the expense of dissociation. It is suggested here that Freud's inability to “cure”; Emmy was largely due to his treating her symptoms simply as pathological pieces of her past to be removed and to his failure to attend to their immediate relevance in the here‐and‐now context of their own relationship. To comprehend why, as Freud states, Emmy's cure “was not a lasting one”; is to accept that patients such as Emmy are not cured of what was done to them in the past; rather, we are working to cure them of what they continue to do to themselves and to others in order to cope with what was done to them in the past.
The work of Grünbaum is situated within an evolving epistemic schema as reflected in the history of psychoanalysis. His views are representative of an outmoded model of psychoanalytic practice, but also serve as a cogent critique of the underlying assumptions of this classical model, which can be called the causal‐essentialist view. Subsequent anti‐essen‐tialist developments in post‐Freudian thought have been instrumental in transforming the methodology and goals of psychoanalysis into hermeneutically oriented modern‐humanistic and postmodern‐histori‐cist outlooks. These newer construals of analysis treat rationality as having a wider purview than causal explanatory science. It b suggested that the unique epistemic tension that characterizes psychoanalysis is the result of the elusive interrelationship of its explanatory, descriptive, and prescriptive features.
This paper assesses the implications of Grünbaum's critique of Freud's “science”; for a discussion of the relation between theory and practice in psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy. Guided by the work of the French sociologist, Bourdieu, it places Grünbaum's argument within a logic of intellectualism—a framework that tends to instrumentalize reason and romanticize practice, delineating the well‐known territories of objectivism and subjectivism. Grünbaum's arguments within this logic are taken to be rhetorical maneuvers—such as valorizing the tally argument and then debunking it—aimed at rejuvenating an objectivistic approach to theory and practice. Grünbaum is successful insofar as much of the debate generated by his views accepts the terms of his intellectualist bias. It is suggested, however, that these are terms that have long been suspect; that, indeed, it was Freud who helped bring them into question; and that there is a broader framework of discourse that relativizes intellectualism within a dialectical opposition to “participationism.”; A form of rationality founded in a nonconceptual knowledge of practice has begun to emerge within this more inclusive discourse under such rubrics as “social constructivist”; and “relational”; approaches to psychotherapy. It is argued that within the therapy situation a kind of “practical reason”; can mitigate the controlling, instrumental authority of intellectualism as well as the collusive, sentimental servility of participationism.[T]he theoretician's claim to an absolute viewpoint, the “perspec‐tiveless view of all perspectives”; as Leibnitz would have put it, contains the claim to a power, founded in reason, over particular individuals, who are condemned to error by the partisan partiality of their individual viewpoints [Bourdieu, 1990, pp. 28–29]1
Formulations concerning self have been a predominant concern of psychoanalytic theorizing over the past several decades; many different definitions have been employed, and many different perspectives explored. Despite the diversity of definitions and multiplicity of approaches, certain consistent themes and concerns have characterized postclassical theorizing and mark their difference from classical psychoanalysis. This article explores the view of the self as multiplex and discontinuous, as developed in both object relations theories and in interpersonal psychoanalysis. This approach to self is contrasted and interfaced with the view of the self as continuous and integral, as developed within self psychology.