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Toward Mutual Recognition: Relational Psychoanalysis and the Christian Narrative
Abstract
Throughout, a relational sensibility is deployed as a cooperative counterpart to the Christian narrative, working both as a consilient dialogue and a vehicle for further integrative exploration. As a result, the specter of psychoanalysis and religion as mutually exclusive gives way to the hope and redemption offered by their mutual recognition.
... Our observed emotional curves strikingly align with these narrative structures (48,49). They depict the archetypal progression from spiritual emptiness to the pinnacle of divine encounter, each phase resonating deeply with the viewer and fostering spiritual connectivity (50)(51)(52). ...
... "The Tree of Life's" narrative pattern fosters a unique viewer engagement that surpasses conventional storytelling. It utilizes film as a reflective canvas, enabling viewers to see their own spiritual and emotional struggles reflected in the characters' journeys (52). This reflective process is not only therapeutic but may also serve as a catalyst for personal transformation, as the film's narrative progression encourages viewers to contemplate their place in the world, their relationships, and their beliefs (46). ...
Introduction
This study explores the emotional impact of religion-related films through a “cinematherapy” lens. It aims to analyze the emotional patterns in a curated selection of religion-related films compared to a broader sample of acclaimed movies using facial recognition with YOLOv5 object detection. The study aims to uncover the potential therapeutic application of religion-related films.
Methods
Facial recognition with YOLOv5 object detection was utilized in this study to analyze the emotional patterns in religion-related films. A curated selection of these films was compared to a broader sample of acclaimed movies to identify any distinct emotional trajectories.
Results
The analysis of the emotional patterns revealed that religion-related films exhibited a subtler range of emotions compared to the broader film spectrum. This finding suggests that these films potentially create a safe space for contemplation, aligning with the profound themes often explored in religion-related films. Interestingly, the emotional arc observed in the films mirrored the spiritual journeys depicted in them. The films started with a low point of separation, transitioned through challenges, and culminated in a peak representing spiritual transformation.
Discussion
These findings suggest promise for the therapeutic application of religion-related films. The muted emotional expression in these films creates a safe space for self-reflection, enabling viewers to connect with the struggles of the characters and explore their own values when faced with complex religious ideas. This emotional engagement may contribute to therapeutic goals such as introspection and personal growth. The study unveils the unique emotional power of religion-related films and paves the way for further research on their potential as therapeutic tools. It emphasizes the need for continued exploration of the emotional impact of these films and their capacity to aid in therapeutic goals.
... Interpersonally, cultural humility involves being other-oriented rather than self-focused, embodying curiosity about each person's unique experiences and perspectives. Rather than collapsing difference into sameness, cultural humility facilitates mutual recognition, by which individuals can appreciate their own subjective experience, cultural identities, and values, while simultaneously recognizing and privileging another in the moment (Hoffman, 2011). Through cultural humility, differences are viewed as an asset and an opportunity for learning rather than as a threat to one's own identity or worldview. ...
... Perhaps most importantly, independent of either religious or political views, cultural humility was associated with more positive attitudes toward Syrian refugees. When people are other-oriented and open to difference in general (Hoffman, 2011), current data suggest they are less likely to engage in attitudes that contribute to an unwelcoming culture that can harm refugees (Küey, 2017). As has been discussed throughout, humility about one's own culture includes an ongoing commitment to self-examination, inviting feedback from others, pursuing difficult conversations, reflecting critically about social location and privilege, and working to alter implicit biases (Mosher et al., 2017). ...
Debates about immigration policy have sparked increasingly negative attitudes toward refugees, particularly those of Muslim identification. Research to date has found that post-immigration prejudice and discrimination, often reinforced at a systemic level, pose an additional psychological burden to refugees. The present study explored associations between cultural humility, moral foundations, political orientation, religious commitment, and xenophobia toward Syrian refugees. Data were collected from adults (N = 996) in the United States during the 2016 presidential election cycle. Cultural humility was positively correlated with openness to immigration and moral foundations of care and fairness, and inversely related to prejudicial attitudes, perceived real and symbolic threat, and moral foundations of loyalty, authority, and purity. Over and above political identification and religiosity, cultural humility was found to be uniquely associated with more positive attitudes toward Syrian refugees. Additionally, the relationship between the moral foundations of care and fairness and positive attitudes toward refugees was mediated by cultural humility. Findings are discussed in light of the biblical mandate within Christianity to welcome foreigners and advocate for the vulnerable, while balancing compassion with wisdom. In addition to approaching psychological care with refugees through the lens of cultural humility, psychologists have a unique opportunity to advocate for this population through systems-level intervention. We discuss ways to cultivate the moral foundations of care and fairness at church and community levels, which may facilitate greater cultural humility.
... They investigate Islam (e.g. Akhtar, 2008;El Shakry, 2017;Pandolfo, 2018); Buddhism and Zen Buddhism (Safran, 2003;Molino, 2014;Bobrow, 2020); Hinduism (Akhtar, 2005;Cunningham, 2006); Judaism and Kabbalah (Starr, 2008;Eigen, 2012); Christianity (Hoffman, 2010;Bland & Strawn, 2014); Confucianism, Taoism and Stoic philosophy (Marcus, 2003;Silverberg, 2011); mysticism (Sayers, 2003;Parsons, 2013); Gnosticism (Gordon, 2004) and traditional religion and perceptions of Divinity (Jones, 2007;Spero, 2008). They even write about parapsychology and about magic (Mayer, 2007;Brottman, 2009;Rosenbaum, 2011). ...
... 10 See for reflections on the clinical challenges of cultural diversity, and the increasingly apparent need of a more extensive engagement among clinicians with the theme of spirituality. For an examination of the influence of Christian theology on Benjamin's work, see Hoffman (2010). ...
... 4 Still others suggest the possibility of a fruitful dialogue. 5 Finally, there are some who go so far as to propose an integration of the two, for example, in the form of "mutual recognition" (Hoffman, 2011) or "sacred psychoanalysis" (Ross, 2010). ...
Using Ian Barbour's fourfold typology of the relationship between religion and science—Conflict, Independence, Dialogue, and Integration—this article examines how the relationship between religion and psychoanalysis has increasingly moved from being one of perceived irreducible Conflict to one in which Dialogue and—even in some cases— Integration are attempted and valued. Examination of the evolving relationship between religion and psychoanalysis allows for corollary discussion of how the effects of religion on modernity may be understood via a psychoanalytic lens. Although sociopolitical models are often used in studying secularism and the implications of modernity and postmodernity for religion, psychoanalytic investigation offers an alternative perspective on how modern individuals experience religion. Further, this article aims to demonstrate how the epistemological changes that have affected religion and the field of religious studies have also contributed to the reinterpretation and reconstruction of the classical psychoanalytic view of religion.
... Since religion was (re)found, psychoanalysts have not hesitated to delve into each and every aspect and branch of religious, spiritual, or mystical occupation. 2 They have investigated Islam (Ad-Dab'bagh, 2008;Akhtar, 2008); Buddhism and Zen Buddhism (Molino, Carnevali, & Giannandrea, 2014;Safran, 2003); Hinduism (Akhtar, 2005;Cunningham, 2006); Judaism and Kabbalah (Eigen, 2012;Starr, 2008); Christianity (Bland & Strawn, 2014;Hoffman, 2010); Confucianism, Taoism, and Stoic philosophy (Marcus, 2003;Silverberg, 2011); mysticism (Parsons, 2013;Sayers, 2003) and Gnosticism (Gordon, 2004); spirituality in general (Rubin, 2006;Stone, 2005); and traditional religion and perceptions of Divinity (J. W. ...
The article offers an original and comprehensive review of the history of psychoanalytic attitudes toward faith and a religious worldview. It begins with a systematic examination of Freud’s approach to religion and faith, demonstrating that contrary to the common understanding of his attitude as one of radical atheism, Freud displayed ambivalence on this issue. After Freud’s death, psychoanalysis as a discipline seems to have effected a split: Whereas the psychoanalytic establishment adopted and reinforced the antireligious stance, a small number of prominent analytic thinkers nurtured the possibility of integrating faith into their practice. Since the beginning of the 21st century, changes in social and cultural trends, encouraging spiritual attitudes, will be shown to have permeated into the psychoanalytic mainstream.
... Relational-interpersonale Psychologie, Mentalisierung. Die Psychoanalytikerin [63] hat kürzlich in einem renommierten analytischen Fachverlag einen anregenden Entwurf "gegenseitiger Anerkennung" von Psychoanalyse und der christlichen Tradition vorgelegt. Am Beispiel des Behandlungsprotokolls von Mandy, einer schwer traumatisierten Patientin, zeigt sie überraschende Übereinstimmungen zwischen modernem psychoanalytischen Denken und der christlichen Erzählung vom Leiden, Sterben sowie der Auferstehung Christi auf. ...
For many years religious and spiritual issues have been avoided in psychotherapy. In the face of social changes a more culturally sensitive psychotherapy is needed to professionally deal with religious backgrounds, spiritual needs and spiritual resources. A remarkable spiritual turn has recently been observed particularly in psychoanalysis, which was originally very antireligious. Health research studies are exploring the healing craft of religious virtues and values. It is important to discern between an empirically proven healing method and an ideologically founded promise of salvation. It is the task of the therapist to find out whether the patient's religiosity or spirituality is part of the problem or part of the solution.
... Recent relational perspectives argue for an even closer rapprochement of psychoanalysis and religion (Sorenson, 2004;Hoffman, 2011). Drawing on recent discussion on primary intersubjectivity, on attachment, and the relational basis of understanding inner and social worlds in psychoanalysis, transformation can be understood as change of the mode of relating to the transcendent, and described according to criteria of integration and complexity. ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has altered clinical practice in immeasurable ways. This article expands this discussion by exploring the impact of the COVID pandemic, its restrictions, and the co-occurring events of social unrest, protests, and violence on the teaching and learning of psychoanalysis in a clinical training context. In our experiential accounts we explore the dynamics of identity, the dynamics of power, and the dynamics of clinical presence.
The country and history of Ireland as it relates to the development of psychotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy is discussed in this chapter. The present status of regulations and training opportunities are reviewed, and specific clinical applications within the country are offered. A number of professional and CBT training organizations are discussed in depth, and efforts to standardize practice of CBT are provided.KeywordsIrelandCBTCognitive behavior therapyPsychotherapy training
Christian psychiatric care dates from Christ’s historical ministry on earth, including healings of both physical and mental illnesses. His healing actions were personalized, creative, intimately relational, and ultimately spiritual, producing life-changing restoration of health.
This chapter presents multiple theories and understandings of love. It then focuses on love as an aesthetic experience, as acceptance, as secure attachment, as care, as concern, as giving, as goodness, as identificatory resonance, as joy, as mutual playfulness, and as responsibility (response-ability). Mature love emerges as the quintessential integrator of the polar meanings of existence, such as love and hate. This integrative love is described as the ultimate competence in the life of the individual. It is the primal mood that pervades a harmonious homeworld. It contains conflict and modulates tension due to divided function. It makes it possible for forgiveness to override the desire for fairness. Love bestows beauty, goodness, and truth upon our lives. A mature mother, for instance, is by definition beautiful, fair, and truthful. To be able to love wisely is the highest achievement of psychosocial maturation.
Psychotherapies, beginning with psychoanalysis, came of age in the waning years of the modern age. As our world has been turned by a new paradigm we call the postmodern critique, psychotherapy theory and practice along with all disciplines, changed and developed within this new paradigm. For millennia, cultures were guided by imbedded implicit presuppositions that held in dialectic tension the parallel realities of transcendence and immanence. The progressive rejection of transcendence over the last seventy years has collapsed the dialectic, and has radically and absolutely altered the course of human history. The loss of transcendence has denuded psychotherapy of nearly all vestiges of human understanding that claim to be lawful, universal, or absolute. This paper will explore the current presuppositions, theory, and practice of psychotherapy, and beckon psychotherapists who are Christians to renew their affirmation of and reliance upon a fully orbed treatment approach.
Much has been written about the influence of religious narratives on the lives and work of psychoanalytic theorists and clinicians. This article seeks to specifically extend an understanding of the Christian narrative into the clinical setting and examine the applicability and usefulness of its tenets and practices in treatment. The author will examine the unique way that Christian psychoanalysts might view their craft and their patients, and how the Christian faith might offer specific approaches based on a belief in the presence and influence of God in their work.
In this reply to discussions by Marilyn Charles and Marie Hoffman, I pick up on the theme of the significant challenges in holding space for religious experience in psychoanalysis, making the argument that to do so in a way that honors our patients’ experience, we have to be willing to engage both its deep, primordial elements and its symbolic, differentiating aspects.
When patients bring up material of a religious or spiritual nature, many analysts find themselves at a loss. There is a tendency in such moments either to reduce the patient’s experience to the most comfortable theoretical denominator or to accept such experiences uncritically. In this paper, the author places “religion” and religious experience in the relational context of formative early experience and argues that relational history is an important contributor to the capacity to have authentic and expansive religious experience. Drawing upon clinical examples and relational psychoanalytic concepts of surrender and the Third, the author suggests ways in which the analyst might interact with the patient’s religious and spiritual experiences by understanding them in terms of surrender and the opening to or foreclosure of thirdness.
Lisa Cataldo’s paper provides a robust rationale for the exploration of spiritual and religious experience in psychoanalytic treatment. Through a weaving of relational theory and clinical examples, she addresses the historic reductionism in psychoanalytic views of religion, the differences between spirituality and religion, and the inner and outer experiences, and she applies the concepts of surrender and the third to such experiences. In this discussion, Cataldo’s salient points are summarized and elaboration is offered. The commentary concludes with a cautionary note regarding the “survival of destruction,” which may prove more hazardous than anticipated.
The central ideas of early object relations theory are heavily inflected with Christian anti-Judaism, particularly as found in the work of Ian Dishart Suttie, now credited as the founder of this tradition. The critique of Freud launched by Suttie repudiates Freudian theory as a “disease” inextricably connected to Freud being a Jew. Suttie’s portrayal of Judaism both conforms to and replicates those theological commitments that privilege a triumphalist, supersessionist Christianity that breaks with Judaism, understood as devoid of love, ethics, and social justice interests. The paper argues that the elements organizing the central concepts that structure Suttie’s Christian prejudice constitute distorting ideological interests that circulate and shape important strands of contemporary object relations theory. Central to the authors discussed is a repudiation of Freud’s theory of unconscious drives on the basis of privileging love and intersubjectivity as the motivators of human psychological development made possible by Jesus and Christianity. The paper demonstrates that contemporary object relations theory remains heavily indebted to Suttie while remaining oblivious to his explicit anti-Judaism.
The present article identifies three waves in the integration of psychology and theology literature including apologetic, model building, and empirical validation, bringing the discussion to a fourth wave, clinical integration. Rather than a model or destination, clinical integration is an emergent phenomenon of the dynamic complexity of the particular therapeutic configuration and therefore is best learned through supervisory experience, which includes observing, hearing, and reading cases. Subsequently, the articles that make up this special volume are case studies. In addition, the article notes the lack of cultural and theological diversity in the integration literature so invited authors were selected not only for their scholarship, but also for being newer voices in the field and for their personal diversity. The rewards, challenges, and ethics of writing about clinical cases are also explored.
Elizabeth Severn: The 'Evil Genius' of Psychoanalysis chronicles the life and work of Elizabeth Severn, both as one of the most controversial analysands in the history of psychoanalysis, and as a psychoanalyst in her own right. Condemned by Freud as "an evil genius", Freud disapproved of Severn's work and had her influence expelled from the psychoanalytic mainstream. In this book, Rachman draws on years of research into Severn to present a much needed reappraisal of her life and work, as well as her contribution to modern psychoanalysis. Arnold Rachman's re-discovery, restoration and analysis of the Elizabeth Severn Papers - including previously unpublished interviews, books, brochures and photographs - suggests that, far from a failure, that the analysis of Severn by Ferenczi constitutes one of the great cases in psychoanalysis, one that was responsible a new theory and methodology for the study and treatment of trauma disorder, in which Severn played a pioneering role. Elizabeth Severn should be of interest to any psychoanalyst looking to glean fresh light on Severn's progressive views on clinical empathy, self-disclosure, countertransference analysis, intersubjectivity and the origins of relational analysis.
O texto faz um estudo bibliográfico-biográfico das raízes religiosas de Donald Woods Winnicott, investigando as características de sua experiência na Igreja Metodista Wesleyana durante sua infância, adolescência e juventude. Procura-se apontar influências da doutrina metodista sobre sua compreensão do desenvolvimento humano, e a novidade que representa situar a religiosidade no “espaço transicional”. Também se indaga a respeito da influência do seu percurso psicanalítico sobre o modo de conceber a religiosidade. Para compreender as transformações da herança religiosa em Winnicott são utilizados seus conceitos de “criatividade”, “gesto espontâneo” e “uso de objeto”, apontando a necessidade humana de singularizar a experiência, destruir e recriar. Destacam-se os últimos anos de sua vida e sua aproximação a Cristo, tal como expresso em conferências e poemas. Winnicott traz uma mudança de paradigma para compreender o sentimento religioso; logo, a Psicologia da Religião será enriquecida pela compreensão do seu próprio percurso.
Während in anderen Ländern – besonders in den USA – der Umgang mit Religiosität und Spiritualität seit vielen Jahren ein fester Bestandteil der psychotherapeutischen Ausbildung ist, gibt es hierzulande erst seit Kurzem Hinweise auf einen „spiritual turn“ in der Psychotherapie. Exemplarisch wird in diesem Kapitel die Einbeziehung der spirituellen Dimension in einer großen und prägenden psychotherapeutischen Schulrichtung, der psychodynamischen, nachgezeichnet. Aber auch im kognitiv-behavioralen Kontext ist Spiritualität zu einem wichtigen Thema geworden. Hier werden vor allem wichtige Impulse der Positiven Psychologie dargestellt. Manche modernen psychotherapeutischen Ansätze gehen so weit, Psychotherapie spirituell begründen zu wollen und eine spirituelle Psychotherapie zu entwerfen. Hier wird für eine notwendige Abgrenzung dazu plädiert.
Is analysis still a cure of love? And is the analyst’s love and warm feelings for his patient a prerequisite for doing psychoanalysis? Trygve Braatøy addresses these complex matters in his book from 1954. The concept of love and its relation to sexuality is discussed, and how to understand love in the analytic setting. His points of view are compared with Freud’s and those of some second-generation analysts, his Norwegian colleagues and contemporary analysts, as well as modern writers. Braatøy defines himself as a true Freudian, but his clinical theory regarding love and countertransference has strong resemblances to Rank and Ferenczi and his followers, both in Europe and USA. Braatøy sums up that the therapist’s capacity to love and have a surplus of warmth ought to be the most prominent factor when selecting candidates for psychoanalytic training. Braatøy is a modern writer, with his ideas founded on clinical experience and intuition.
In Part I of a two-part manuscript, we describe the contours of a relational integration approach to the relationship between psychology and theology. This approach builds on the tradition of the integration of psychology and theology but thematizes relationality at the levels of both content and process. We argue that it is persons who seek to integrate (or not); thus, integration is a relational process that inevitably involves the challenges of conflict, power and control stances, and difference. Therefore, relational integration necessitates differentiated capacities for mutual recognition and collaboration across disciplinary differences. We contrast our differentiation-based approach to relational integration with other published views for relating psychology and theology and outline relational integration as (a) embodied and (b) hermeneutical.
Spirituality has replaced religion in popular culture and its presence is being felt in the therapeutic world. Using a questionnaire completed by 104 people utilising six descriptive definitions of spirituality and 36 categories of spiritual experience, three meta-themes of forms of spirituality emerged through a thematic analysis. These are spiritualties of the Sacred, the Self and the Senses. When the therapist's theoretical orientation is identified, there are different expressions of the spirituality that emerge. Of specific importance is that due to approximately 90% of the respondents being female, what emerges therefore is an expression of female spirituality. More research will be required to identify if there is matching male spirituality.
Reviews the book, Toward Mutual Recognition: Relational Psychoanalysis and the Christian Narrative by Marie T. Hoffman (see record 2011-00208-000). Marie Hoffman has attempted a scholarly, important, and elegantly designed interdisciplinary study. This book wants to shake up our thinking about the origins of relational psychoanalysis. Its author, steeped in conservative and evangelical, though not fundamentalist, Christian theology, recasts the usual secular histories of contemporary psychoanalysis. These accounts tell the story of Freud’s wholesale rejection of religion as illusion, and seriously neglect, in Hoffman’s view, religious influences that have impelled contemporary psychoanalysis toward relationality. Her massive use of sources—in psychoanalysis, theology, philosophy, and intellectual history generally—testifies to her serious and impressive reading as well as to her integrative capacities. The reviewer's criticisms come only because this book engaged her so much. She believes that it begins an important conversation in contemporary psychoanalysis and that we will all be in Hoffman’s debt. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This commentary encourages the already nascent rapprochement between psychoanalysis and religion, arguing that they share a common purpose and could both benefit from closer relations and mutual understanding. The discussion also addresses the specific intersection of analysis and religion in the case presented by Sue Grand in her paper, “God at an Impasse: Devotion, Social Justice, and the Psychoanalytic Subject.” Grand addresses her patient's deep need to help others while seeming incapable of caring for himself. This commentary posits that when balanced with sufficient self-care, a strong impulse to self-sacrifice and self-giving love is a necessary component of a healthy human personality.
A case is presented of an adolescent with a history of substance abuse. The case is discussed from the perspective of Time Limited Dynamic Psychotherapy (TLDP). The patient's Cyclical Maladaptive Pattern (CMP) involved remaining attached to significant others by avoiding all conflict and seeking to please them as much as possible out of a fear of abandonment. The therapist became "hooked" into counter-transference enactment- kicking the patient- thus playing the role of the rejecting adult figure that fails her. The patient and therapist were then able to break out of this cyclical pattern and forge a new kind of relationship. This experience led to the patient developing a healthier relational pattern in her life and, hopefully, may lead to her experience of God being able to break free from her expectations as well.
Using a contextualizing, integrative approach, the author looks at aspects of Freud's life and the multiple levels of influence in terms of his theories. While keeping a broad overview of the historical and cultural life for Jews in 19th-century Europe, including the effects of anti-Semitism, emancipation, and the enlightenment movement, the author intertwines Freud's parents' lives and personalities as they played out in Freud's own development and in his theories. The author believes that Freud formed a particular repression linking Jewishness, passivity, femininity, and religion while elevating in his theories masculinity, activity, science, and atheism. The author specifically focuses on Freud's theories of the Unconscious and the oedipal complex as particularly representative of a split between his own Jewish home and the German high culture he was educated within. Drawing on literature within psychoanalysis and the disciplines of Jewish studies and broad cultural history, the author concludes that Freud's rejection of certain parts of his own life are embedded within his theory when considered from a multiply-layered point of view.
Survival depends upon two contrasting phenomena or processes, two ways of achieving adaptive action. Evolution must always, Januslike, face in two directions: inward towards the developmental regularities and physiology of the living creature and outward towards the vagaries and demands of the environment. These two necessary components of life contrast in interesting ways: the inner development-the embryology or 'epigenesis'-is conservative and demands that every new thing shall conform or be compatible with the regularities of the status quo ante. If we think of a natural selection of new features of anatomy or physiology then it is clear that one side of this selection process will favour those new items which do not upset the old applecart. This is minimal necessary conservatism.
Observations of early mother–infant interactions have shown that intersubjectivity is a primary motivation and have underscored the importance of maternal competencies in this development. In our paper we propose a conceptual overview of the different perspectives according to which parental caregiving has been formulated. Psychoanalytical theory has fundamentally promoted the exploration of maternal and paternal intrapsychic constellation, by stressing the role of unconscious processes in parental attitude as well as in infant development. In contrast with psychoanalytical theory, the conceptual framework of attachment has mostly considered real interactions between parents and infant, underlining parental abilities in providing the infant with a secure base. Finally, infant research has explored the complexity of communicative system between parents and infants, which appears already active from the birth of the baby. Recently, these different viewpoints have been broadened by neurobiological research, which has begun to explore maternal brain functioning and structure, by means of new scientific instruments such as fMRI techniques. From these perspectives, we provide an overview of motherhood, underlining both neurobiological and psychological transformations, which begin from pregnancy and run through the first year of the infant, when the mother–infant intersubjective matrix is built. This matrix influences the construction of the infant's Self and support the development of the sense of “we,” a sort of connective net, which ties the baby to parents, letting him feel as a part of the familiar world.
Psychoanalysts have long looked to maternal experience to enhance our appreciation of what we may be feeling in our work. This tradition has drawn on psychoanalyst's construction of a particular kind of good‐enough mother who is typically muted in her subjectivity. Contemporary efforts are relying on more subjectively complex descriptions of mothering to make sense of the analyst's subjective experience. However, even recent portrayals of the maternal misapprehend the degree to which mothering strains the ability of all mothers to tolerate ambivalence and tend to simply replace previous idealizations with updated prototypes. The mother as currently constructed is valorized both for her resilience and for her ability to play easily with her feelings of hate and aggression toward her baby. The questions of how the mother feels about what she feels and what she does with how she feels are not addressed. Ironically, insights derived from an increased appreciation of the mutual affect and impact that characterizes the analytic relationship are often set aside in discussing maternal experience. Suggestions are made for ways in which maternal analytic metaphors need to be reconfigured in order to capture and incorporate more finely textured notions of maternal experience.
Freud implicitly adopted F. Brentano's (1874 [1973]) thesis that the essence of the mental is intentionality (i.e., mental representation), while rejecting Brentano's Cartesian assumption that intentionality must be conscious. But, how can a feeling like free-floating anxiety, which does not seem to represent or be about anything, be fitted into Freud's representational framework? Several possible answers are examined, including: (1) affects are ideas, (2) affects are always attached to ideas, (3) consciousness is perception of internal mental states, and (4) affects are perceptions of internal bodily processes. Only the "bodily perception" account is systematically developed by Freud, is consistent with Freud's other doctrines, and is intrinsically plausible even in the context of contemporary debate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Contemporary psychoanalysis has come to view all aspects of the analyst's subjectivity as potentially exerting an influence on the analysis. Nevertheless, the analyst's religious background and beliefs about God have not been investigated for their influence. The author's own theoretical and clinical contributions have centered on the themes of mutuality and asymmetry in the analytic relationship. It is not accidental that his or her religious imagination also rests on these dimensions of the relationship between God and the individual. The Brit, or covenant, between God and the people is the core foundation of the Jewish faith. A covenantal relationship requires mutuality, not symmetry or equality, because it is clearly hierarchical, but nevertheless it must be reciprocal, and its centrality implies Judaism's foundations in this mutual relation. Thus, the author uses his own experience as an example of the subtle ways in which religious ideas may influence psychoanalytic theorizing and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Three waves of challenges may be perceived from within psychoanalysis to its reductionist attitude to religion and spirit. These historical challenges from within psychoanalysis are an important context for reading the many papers now being published on spirituality and psychotherapy, and increasingly, spirituality and psychoanalysis. The 1st wave began with some of Freud's contemporaries, among them his friend, the psychoanalyst and pastor Oscar Pfister; the Nobel Laureate Romain Rolland, and the poet T. S. Eliot. Challenges continued after Freud's death: In Britain from psychoanalysts such as Rickman and Guntrip, and in America initially by the European immigrants, Erikson and Fromm. British independent psychoanalysts initiated what may be considered to be the 3rd wave, whose momentum is now swelling to a sea change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A. major thinker and inspiring teacher, Karl Polanyi's contributions have long been influential in a variety of disciplines, notably economic sociology and economic history. Two of his innovations, substantivist economic anthropology and the "double movement thesis," are recognized as seminal. All of the works for which he is known, however, were written late in life, when in exile, and very little is known of his Hungarian writings, virtually none of which had, until now, been translated. Despite his fame, the biographical literature on Polanyi remains modest: some studies provide invaluable insights, yet all are brief. This article attempts to make some headway in remedying these lacunae. It sketches the contours of that extraordinary historical-geographical conjuncture in which he was formed, and explores his intellectual and political engagements in the Galilei Circle and the Radical Bourgeois Party. It seeks in particular to elucidate the complex roles played by questions of nation, ethnicity and class in the life of the young Karl Polanyi.
This book combines ancient, modern, and postmodern resources to argue that moral life and thought are inherently and radically creative. Human beings are called by their own primordially created depths to exceed historical evil and tragedy through the ongoing creative transformation together of their world. This creative capability can be understood in its fullest dimensions only as a religious or mythological affirmation of humanity as an image of its Creator. This thesis challenges Greek and biblical separations of ethics and poetic image-making, as well as contemporary conceptions of moral life as grounded in fixed principles or preconstituted traditions. It instead recasts a range of mythic, prophetic, and tragic resources to uncover moral life's poetics, tension, dynamism, catharsis, disruptiveness, excess, and impossible possibility for renewal. The book takes as its starting point a critical reading of the hermeneutical poetics of the will of Paul Ricoeur, and from there enters into a range of conversations with Aristotle and contemporary Aristotelianism, Immanuel Kant and modernism, and current Continental, narrative, liberationist, and feminist ethics such as in Emmanuel Levinas, Richard Kearney, Martha Nussbaum, Jürgen Habermas, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Luce Irigaray, and Sallie McFague. In the process, it develops a meta-ethical phenomenology of moral creativity along the lines of four increasingly complex dimensions: ontology (creativity of the self), teleology (positive creativity of narrative goods), deontology (negative creativity in response to otherness), and social practice (mixed creativity between plural others in society). Moral creativity is in the end an original and necessary religious capability for responding anew to the tensions within and between selves in the world by forming over time, in love and hope, an ever more radically inclusive humanity. © 2005 by The American Academy of Religion. All rights reserved.
This discussion of Charles B. Strozier's "Heinz Kohut and the Meanings of Identity" amplifies Strozier's work by underscoring the history of Austrian antiSemitism that constitutes the background of Kohut's biography and by relating this history to Kohut's self-psychological analysis of religious experience. Kohut's central contribution, the study of narcissism, may be understood as having its origins in Kohut's deep feelings of shame and self-hatred regarding his Jewishness and the vertical splitting and dissociation of this aspect of his religious identity. What made Kohut a great psychoanalytic theorist was his ability to transform his own psychological struggles into a theory and treatment approach that transcended the limitations of his own life and that continues to shed light on the tragic and heroic dimensions of all human experience. © 2007 William Alanson White Institute, New York, NY. All rights reserved.
Contemporary psychoanalysts maintain a widespread consensus on the interactive nature of the psychoanalytic process. Mitchell (1997) compares and contrasts the clinical work of three well-known contemporary analysts from three different analytic traditions: Theodore Jacobs, Darlene Ehrenberg, and Thomas Ogden. Mitchell uses this exercise to demonstrate that we each have our own idiosyncratic styles of engaging the world, and thus it follows that we each participate in distinct varieties of analytic interaction. This article places Mitchell's own clinical approach squarely in line with the interpersonal tradition. The article argues that among all of the various schools of psychoanalysis, the interpersonal approach is unique in the freedom that it gives to analysts to behave flexibly and spontaneously with interventions other than interpretation. The article comments on Mitchell's unique qualities as a clinician and teacher.
Randall Lehman Sorenson practiced what he preached as a scholar, teacher, and clinical psychoanalyst. In my experiences with him in personal and professional contexts, he encouraged relationships characterized by mutuality, respect, curiosity, and genuine personal involvement. These key values and processes distinguish relational psychoanalytic psychology. This article will explore the clinical out-working of two interrelated concepts; namely, mutual recognition and self-assertion in the psychotherapy relationship. These together are foundational to the creation of what Benjamin (1995) calls intersubjectivity. I will develop a particular focus on how to move out of moments of relational impasse and into a new experience of freedom and possibility for growth. An in-depth case presentation with a particular focus on therapeutic interaction will illustrate the struggle toward mutuality and recognition, and the powerful positive effects for both persons in the relationship.
The author explores the religious narratives that informed the works of W. R. D. Fairbairn and D. W. Winnicott - Calvinism and Wesleyanism, respectively. From these narratives, three broad philosophical tensions are identified: oneness and otherness (transcendence and immanence), theory and experience, and suspicion and faith. The author locates these clinically relevant counterpoints both in the theories of Fairbairn and Winnicott and in Guntrip's accounts of his analyses with them. A model of clinical work integrating these two stances is illustrated by a clinical vignette. ©2008 William Alanson White Institute, New York, NY. All rights reserved.
While various studies have focused on the practical working of the Holy Spirit in counseling and therapy and the impact of the Holy Spirit on personality growth and development, few studies have offered sustained theoretical reflections of how the work of the Holy Spirit might be understood psychologically. This article uses the object relations psychology of D.W. Winnicott to redress this need. It argues that Winnicott's developmental psychology, especially his concepts of "transitional objects" and "object usage" provide useful lenses for psychological reflections on the work of the Holy Spirit.
jessica benjamin is a psychoanalyst practicing in New York City who also teaches and supervises at the New York University Postdoctoral Psychology Program in Psychoanalysis. She is the author of The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminisms, and the Problem of Domination (Pantheon, 1988), Like Subjects, Love Objects (Yale University Press, 1995), and Shadow of the Other: Intersubjectivity and Gender in Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 1998). Her current work is on the problem of acknowledgment of personal and social trauma.
I consider psychoanalytic approaches to myth and the role of mythos (myth) and logos (reason) in Ancient Greece. Myths are sacred narratives that are in constant flux and interpreted by storytellers. Reason tries to establish the truth. Following a discussion of Freud's visit to the Acropolis and his use of the Oedipal myth, Freudian, Jungian and philosophical interpretations of myths are explored. The research of Otto Rank is addressed in the context of his allegiance to Freud and his subsequent break from the father of psychoanalysis. The myth of Prometheus and its links to creativity are presented. Rank's identification of the Promethean complex is reviewed. Existential questions of mortality and immortality are examined in view of the Greek charge to "know thyself."
Commentators agree that Kierkegaard's “second authorship” (1847–1855) emphasizes the imitatio Christi. But they disagree in their understanding of conforming one's life to Christ. Does the authorship end with a summons to martyrdom (Marie Thulstrup) or with heightened love of the neighbor (Jamie Ferreira)? The paper argues that Kierkegaard's appropriation of the imitatio theme in pietist literature (especially inspired by Johannes Tauler) shows that human limitation and divine supremacy are the hallmarks of imitating Christ. Both potential martyrdom and the practice of the love of the neighbor rest upon submission to God and reliance upon divine grace.
The translated text is the authors 1985 lecture at the University of Lausanne. Evil as an incomparable challenge is a common theme of philosophy and theology. The author views the basic problem as putting into logical coherence levels of discourse in speculations about evil: the level of myth, the stage of wisdom, the stage of gnosis and Augustins answer, which Ricoeur considers as a meeting of ontology with theology in a new type of discourse ontotheology. He further distinguishes the stage of theodicy, which is, according to Leibniz, the pearl of ontotheology. Hegel takes up the problem at the the sentences: God is omnipotent; God is absolutely good; evil nonetheless exists. His initial intention is to remeasure the limited and relative nature of this problem within the argumentative framework of theodicy in confrontation with the phenomenology of the experience of evil (themes of reproach and lammentation). A further intention is to distinguish and examine difference point where Leibniz left it. Finally, there is Barths stage of split dialects. In closing, the author departs from the purely speculative level of the problem of evil, which he examines in the sphere of thinking, acting and perceiving.
This article addresses the interplay of analytic and spiritual transformation by way of a clinical narrative. Essentially, the goal of analytic transformation as well as Protestant Christian transformation is to become fully alive. These two fields would also suggest that both the forging of pathology and the process of healthy liberation and development of one's psyche and spirit happen via significant relationships. This story attempts to demonstrate those principles of life change paradoxically even in the face of grief and death.
We continue here the work of Karl Rahner, to rescue the human relationship to God from ideology and concept to a living, existential, and transformative relationship of an almost unbearable intimacy. The nature of human life, as graced by the unfathomable sustaining love of God, is discussed in the terms of Rahner's anthropological theology and certain contemporary psychologies of the deep experiencing subject. Rahner's notion of the supernatural existential opens up the idea of ultimate reality as it interpenetrates the subject. Davis' explication of love as an existential, and Grotstein's model of the deep relational unconscious, bring Rahner's ideas into focus. Harris reminds us that by passing beyond language, we can find an unconstrained relationship to these fullnesses.
Buddhism and psychoanalysis have long been accused of privileging internal transformation over active social and political engagement. Yet, as representatives of non-theistic and secular paths toward the realization of human potential, both traditions embody an important aspect of the Romantic quest for progress, that is, the transcendence of internal and external division. Insight into the Buddhist notion of self as ontologically interdependent and non-dualistic optimally yields not only personal transformation but also an expanded circle of identification, with important implications for social responsibility. Erich Fromm, in interpreting the influential work of D. T. Suzuki, represents a historical and philosophical link between the psychoanalytic legacy of social responsibility and the Buddhist concept of Enlightenment.With dewdrops dripping,I wish somehow I could washthis perishing world.—Basho (1643–1694)
The title of this paper employs a pun (“not” and “knot”) to emphasize that a relational (k)not negates truly intersubjective dialogue by shutting down the spaces, between and within persons, for mentalization, reflective functioning, genuine affect, and negotiation.In treatment, relational (k)nots appear as repetitions that—unlike Russell's “crunch,” with its intensities of crisis—coerce states of noninvolvement between patient and analyst. Persistent relational notting produces a crisis of mutual detachment. After offering in this paper a developmental perspective on the etiology of relational (k)nots based on parental failure to mentalize the child's separate subjectivity, I offer an extended clinical vignette to illustrate notting and subsequent disengagement between patient and analyst, and I suggest potential analytic approaches to untying the (k)not.
In this article, I examine and depict the attributes of empire narratives and discourse, arguing that these dominant narratives quietly shape and represent shared motivations of U.S. citizens in their active or tacit support of national hegemonic policies. Using an amended version of Winnicott's notion of transitional objects, I describe how these narratives may be understood as imperious objects. The psychological defenses of weak dissociation, rationalization, and denial are used to explain, in part, why many U.S. citizens overlook perspectives and questions that would challenge empire stories and ignore the destructive consequences of deeply and long held expansionist policies and actions. In addition, the psychosocial functions of the role of the fool, in conjunction with psychological defenses, help explain the public perpetuation of expansionist policies.
This article invites Primo Levi, the internationally esteemed citizen of Turin, Italy and survivor of the Auschwitz to instruct post 9/11 psychoanalysis in five lessons on living and dying in the aftermath of severe trauma. Relying on excerpts from Levi's writings, the author invites Levi to speak to the reader words of warning concerning contemporary psychoanalysis' benign omnipotence in embracing overly simplistic theories of cure, resiliency and psychic repatriation of the human spirit in the aftermath of severe trauma.
This paper attempts to reassess Elizabeth Severn's place in the history of psychoanalysis. It does so by focusing on her three out of print books, which until now have been overlooked in discussions of the patient Ferenczi called ?RN? in the Clinical Diary. Her first two books, written in 1913 and 1917, provide the reader with valuable glimpses into what was the pre-analytic mind and person of Elizabeth Severn before she began what would be a ground breaking eight year analysis with Ferenczi. A key to understanding Elizabeth Severn, her writings, as well as many of our traumatized patients lies in a what Ferenczi and Severn called ?Orpha?. The paper suggests that an appreciation of this obscure phenomenon is critical in the treatment of trauma. After investigating her first two books in light of Orpha, the paper will compare and contrast them with her last book, The Discovery of Self, written toward the end of her analysis, and published shortly after Ferenczi's death in 1933. The tone, texture and content of this third book is strikingly different from her first two books, suggesting a depth of healing in Severn not previously reported in the literature.
The author suggests some ways in which this important paper contributes to the relational perspective on clinical work. In particular, the analysts role in owning participation in the struggle for the position of the doer, the bad one is seen as crucial to shifting out of the negative symmetry in which each person feels done-to by the other. Daviess crucial identification of the dynamic whereby the child must own all of the badness for the parent helps to clarify how repetition works in the analytic dyad. Whereas the repetition may be understood in terms of the complementary relation of doer and done-to, the owning of responsibility for participation is associated with the space of thirdness, the alternative. This author sees the Davies paper as a seminal contribution to the effort to unpack the mystification that projective processes foster, that are concretized in relationship rather than merely in the individual psyche by forcing the other to bear the toxic identity while denying it in the self. Daviess work illustrates how the intersubjective third can be reestablished by the analysts careful ownership of hatred and also makes clear that the issue is recognition of what cannot really be hidden, except by reproducing mystification in the analytic process. This author also notes that Davies has provided an important redefinition of what has often been misunderstood as disclosure.
Psychoanalysis has a well-documented history of antipathy toward religion. As a consequence of the postmodern shift in philosophy, however, there are those who, albeit cautiously, are attempting to approach religion with a renewed spirit of dialogue and inquiry as a narrative among many narratives that has informed and even enriched the development of psychoanalysis. In this spirit of dialogue, the author traces the influence of early religious affiliations on two object relations theorists, W. R. D. Fairbairn and D. W. Winnicott. Fairbairns early imbibing of Calvinist theology in Scotland and Winnicotts involvement in the Wesleyan church are detailed. The theological differences between these Protestant perspectives (which form counterpoints to one another) are clarified and the perspectives are positioned within the framework of British culture. These religious themes are then identified within the works of Fairbairn and Winnicott. As a final consideration, the relational nature of the Judeo-Christian God, and the subsequent view of human life that flows from that theology, are posited as influential in the development of the relational shift in psychoanalysis. The author details the association between this shift and the seminal work of Fairbairn and Winnicott.
Personality theorist George Kelly's series of sequential activities called group enactment procedures may have particular value in multicultural counselor training.
Reviews the book,
Identity's architect: A biography of Erik H. Erikson by Lawrence J. Friedman (see record
1999-02567-000). The historian Lawrence Friedman's biography of Erik Erikson is useful in understanding some puzzling aspects of Eriksonian psychology. To begin, let us note an important biographical detail revealed by Friedman. As Coles' biography of Erikson had noted, and as many of us had known, Erik and Joan Erikson had three children: Kai, a sociologist; Jon, an artist; and Sue, a psychologist (Coles, 1970, p. 404). Friedman reveals that they also had a fourth child named Neil, who suffered from Down's syndrome, and was given away to institutional care right from his birth. This son, who died at the age of 21, was effectively abandoned by the Eriksons. That a great psychoanalyst who had become famous for effectively treating problem children had failed to give even the minimum parental care to his own mentally challenged son comes as a shock. For boldly revealing even the most negative aspects of his hero, Friedman may be recognized as an honest biographer and careful historian. But he deserves even more credit than that, for, in addition to providing factual details, he provides interpretive analysis showing how these facts helped shape some critical aspects of Erikson's theory of human development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Though Moltmann and Ricoeur have a history of interaction, little attention has been paid to this relationship and its implications for their respective programmes. These thinkers have much in common, however, and the Ricoeurian categories of surplus and possibility elucidate critical aspects of a theology of hope, serving to strengthen its contemporary implications. Nuance is provided for the resurrection's role in redemption, and an existential mode of hope is delineated. Focusing on Moltmann's interactions with Ricoeur concerning the resurrection elevates these latent themes and demonstrates the fruitfulness of a continued conversation between these two thinkers. Furthermore, examining Moltmann's thought in Ricoeurian perspective opens new directions for conceptualising resurrection hope and praxis in a postmodern context.
Enactment of emotionally intense, intimate behaviors is often important in marital therapy. But clients' concerns for privacy and their dependence on the therapist as a facilitator of communication can deter them from exhibiting such behavior in the therapist's presence. By walking out of the consulting room, the therapist can stimulate the enactment that would have been inhibited otherwise. Three case examples illustrate the technique. Specific points of procedure are considered, and the technique's limitations and risks are noted.