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This paper addresses the conditions for the development of creativity and the possible obstacles along the way. It explores conscious and unconscious mechanisms which either impede or support this process. Creativity is seen as a special case of relationships between internal and external objects, with some aspects being more consistent and others being more fluid throughout an individual's life. This paper is based on the clinical experience of psychodynamic work with clients whose psychological predicaments related to creativity impoverished different areas of their lives. The non‐exhaustive list of factors to be considered when working with those clients includes a blocked epistemophilic instinct, excessively repressed aggression, and strong negative projections. A harsh superego opposing a weak 'internal supporter' combined with an internalised negative parental attitude to their own creativity constitutes a powerful unconscious force which prevents it from blossoming. A high level of basic anxiety, a low degree of omnipotence, and the release of endorphins in response to suffering contribute to these difficulties. Insufficient capacity to sublimate emotions and an inability to free associate prevent clients from finding the links between ideas born in the mind and their expression that could be accessed by others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper gives an account of the early stages in the analysis of a young woman whose parents were unable to make sense of her feelings as a child because they were unable to do so for themselves and bombarded her with theirs. The result was that she remained a stranger to her feeling, which was largely dissociated having never been 'mentalized' or converted into alpha elements, so that she mostly experienced it as undifferentiated and inexplicable panic, while to some extent, she was also terrified that emotions, when they did emerge, might alienate those she depended on. This paper explores the logic, using Matte Blanco's conceptual apparatus, of why uncontained emotion should be so prohibitively terrifying in that it, like the unconscious, threatens to dissolve identity and to be experienced therefore as literally annihilating. The technical issue then is how to establish a relationship between the afflicted individual and their body with its terrifying emotion. This the authors address via the thinking of the Italian analyst, Armando Ferrari, for whom the body is mind's primary, original and originating object. The clinical implication of this is that it is sometimes necessary to privilege this relationship, that between the body and its mind, over the transference relationship, insistence on which may invite the patient to ignore it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on early emotional development, both during pregnancy and in early infancy, as relevant to understanding primitive mental states encountered in clinical work. The first prism chosen in this search to understand the origins of our mind is based on clinical experience and its psychoanalytic theorization. Two main psychoanalytic theoretical approaches are relevant to understanding the psyche of the infant: the first emphasizes primary narcissism and conceptualizes the baby as immersed in a mental state of merger with the primal object; the second approach relates to the baby's psyche as a separate entity that is able to experience a raw sense of separateness from the object, right from the beginning of life. Clinical implications that stem from each theoretical approach are discussed. The second prism chosen is based on psychoanalytic interpretation of fetus and infant observations and on developmental studies. These observations and studies deepen our understanding of the coming into being of thinking processes, emotions and relational patterns during the whole lifespan, in general, and in the therapeutic situation, in particular. The author also discusses the limitations inherent in building retroactive conclusions, about the origins of emotional development that are drawn from within the clinical situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What emotional experience settles a disturbed state of mind? In this paper I use the work of three psychoanalytic clinicians (John Steiner, Eric Brenman and Henri Rey) to describe the negative state of mind of a patient and draw on clinical material to illustrate my efforts to settle deep emotional disturbance. Recognizing the size of the emotional task by conceptualizing the depth and breadth of the pathological organization, along with thinking carefully about the ingredients of a ‘strengthening introject’ and locating an ‘introjective site’, taking into account the developmental disparity between therapist and patient are all seen as essential counter‐transference processes required to facilitate movement from a bad to a good state of mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qualitative research in general and the psychoanalytically informed research interview method specifically, can be emotionally demanding on researchers as they form relationships with participants. This is especially the case when researchers and participants share particular identities and experiences. In this paper I reflect on my experience of interviewing mothers raising children with a visible physical disability about their maternal subjectivity. At times this was an emotionally demanding and ethically challenging process as participants closely identified with certain aspects of my identity, particularly with my visible physical disability and motherhood peculiarities. Often participants unexpectedly reversed our roles, asking me intimate questions. I will deliberate these dilemmas using interview material. I argue for a mindful blurring with participants when this occurs. Using certain psychoanalytic-researcher concepts of intersubjectivity, transference-countertransference and psychoanalytic-researcher thirdness helped me successfully navigate these encounters. I will also explore the rich participant psychic functioning that was generated from this intersubjective relationship between myself and the participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

abstract In a psychoanalytic career spanning three decades, Nina Farhi (1943-2009) worked primarily with people who had survived near impossible emotional and psychological circumstances. In a series of clinical papers, she theorized the ways in which her patients had managed to preserve embryonic self-states against all odds and the arduous, imaginative and resourceful psychoanalytic work required to transform these vestiges of survival into creative living. This paper traces the evolution of Farhi's clinical thought, from her surprising and fresh uses of particular concepts of Winnicott's to her original re-working of some of Marion Milner's foundational insights. It explores the ways in which Farhi's clinical practice was original and the clinical and theoretical legacy she leaves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a study of the concept and the affect of envy. Because of its singular dynamics, envy rarely appears in a straightforward or direct manner, so a consideration of the various ways in which envy influences interpersonal relationships is examined in relation to the consequences of early pathological attachments. A distinction between envy, jealousy and greed, and the part shame plays in relation to envious tension will be examined as well as the phenomenon of self-envy. Various theoretical models will be discussed in terms of their usefulness and application to the clinical material. Rather than seeking to alter or amend the theoretical grounds on the concept of envy, this paper focuses on the expression of envy as a form of destructive behaviour - destructive to the patient, to his objects and to the therapeutic process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes and discusses those aspects of the treatment of schizoid patients which present particular challenges and difficulties to the clinician, namely nonrelatedness, emotional unavailability and absence of curiosity, all of which mean that the psychotherapist has a considerable strain to bear. Bion and others have suggested how the aetiology of this particular state of mind might be understood in terms of infantile experience. Clinical material from the long-term treatment of a schizoid man is discussed to illustrate how, in the course of a session, moments of meaningful emotional connection can become possible, and the transference/countertransference factors which might facilitate this. Implications for the length of treatment are discussed. The problem of overextending analytic therapies with this patient group is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]