Search

Empirical research substantiates Ferenczi's conception of the etiological importance of early neglect and abuse in the development of psychosis. Abuse can derail the development of language, identity, and social relationships that are intrinsic to schizophrenia, possibly through undermining secure attachment relationships. The Lacanian emphasis on language and early proto-dialogues with the Other can be useful in understanding this process. Some therapeutic implications for psychoanalytic approaches to the treatment of psychosis are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Lacan was familiar with the writings of Sándor Ferenczi and commented on them several times, but he did not see himself as part of the lineage of the Hungarian psychoanalytic pioneer. In this article, I summarize the major comments about Ferenczi in Lacan's seminars, which were mainly disparaging. Although Ferenczi's independent thinking and his several experiments with analytic technique might have made him a symbolic ancestor, Lacan did not acknowledge the parallels readers have subsequently observed between them. I use the case of G. from Ferenczi's Clinical Diary (1988) as material to illustrate these affinities and differences, which can be viewed as representing complementary or mutually corrective positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The translational metaphor in psychoanalysis refers to the traditional method of interpreting or restating the meaning of verbal and behavioral acts of a patient in other, presumably more accurate terms that specify the forces and conflicts underlying symptoms. The analyst translates the clinical phenomenology to explain its true meaning and origin. This model of analytic process has been challenged from different vantage points by authors presenting alternative conceptions of therapeutic action. Although the temptation to find and make interpretations of clinical material is difficult to resist, behaving in this way places the analyst in the position of a teacher or diagnostician, seeking a specific etiology, which has not proven fruitful. Despite its historical appeal, I argue that the translational model is a misleading and anachronistic version of what actually occurs in psychoanalysis. I emphasize instead the capacity of analysis to promote the emergence of new forms of representation, or figuration, from the unconscious, using the work of Lacan, Laplanche, and Modell to exemplify this reformulation, and provide clinical illustrations of how it looks in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author commenting on the Psychiatre Maurizio Balsamo's report on his depressed patient Sabina. He discussed about the analytical task performed by Balsamo with his patient who have evoked feelings of deadness. He discuses about the nature of Sabina which includes consistent, emptiness and lack of thinking.

The article presents a complementary or dialectical reading of the approaches of D. W. Winnicott and Jacques Lacan containing the relational and intersubjective dimensions of psychoanalytic practice and providing an understanding of the underlying systemic factors in language and fantasy. Winnicott's ideas on the psyche resulted from his work with infants and young children, while those of Lacan arose from his practice with adults and the study of structuralism and linguistics.

In this paper, I make use of the term figuration, which relates to the process of giving shape to unconscious contents in the form of meaningful presentations. My interest is in how traumatic experience succeeds or fails to become psychically figured and thereby susceptible to elaboration and absorption through intersubjective process. I argue that the process of figuration always occurs in an actual or implied intersubjective context and involves, thereby, a central feature of an exchange between subject and Other. These concepts are discussed and applied to a case report of an analytic psychotherapy involving a traumatic dream and its sequellae.The American Journal of Psychoanalysis (2007) 67, 303–311. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ajp.3350034 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the case of French philosopher Louis Althusser, who murdered his wife in 1980 and found legally not responsible on grounds of mental illness. Overview of his autobiography "The Future Lasts Forever"; Biography of Althusser; Contributions to the fields of psychoanalysis and philosophy.

A preface to the special issue of "American Imago" is presented.