Search

This article is a response to Amanda Kottler's paper on the concept of multiple self-states and the role of writing in understanding clinical moments. The author, Joye Weisel-Barth, discusses the symbolic presence of Isobel in Kottler's paper and how it represents a hidden self-state that brings about transformative experiences. Weisel-Barth also explores the use of fiction as a tool for self-discovery and emphasizes the importance of aesthetic engagement in uncovering hidden aspects of oneself. The article highlights the power of writing and imagination in gaining a deeper understanding of the self, and encourages readers to consider the broader implications of psychoanalysis in understanding the self and its connection to the surrounding environment. [Extracted from the article]

Heather MacIntosh's emotionally moving paper describes an intense relation with a patient at a time when Heather herself was traumatized. This analyst-patient relationship inspired Heather to make essential changes in her lifestyle. These changes were curative for both the analyst and the patient. The discussion highlights three main issues. The first is leaps from the analytic frame, Different forms of leaps, starting with those defined by Freud and continuing with current analysts, demonstrate various modifications of the frame. The second issue is the question of who is responsible for the transformation of trauma. When the analyst remains faithful to her ideals, she can be inspired by a vast range of idealized selfobjects, human and nonhuman. The perception of an idealized selfobject is neither dependent on external conditions nor on actual actions. The patient can then expand her mind in a similar way. The third issue focuses on the expansion of the scope of selfobject experiences in times of turbulence and stress. We may consider that in such times the mind can be inspired by the selfobject function of nature, art, imagination and virtual possibilities. In our times, universality and interconnectedness fulfill a major role in informing our lives. Our minds are constituted by a global ecology that shapes our subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do I consider what I "should" want, as Heather did with her silent analyst, living out the life of an emotionally deprived child with a deliberately depriving analyst? Contrariwise, including one's analysand carries risks: suppose the analysand sees or hears stories from the analyst's own training. The patient may have read the analyst's books or attended the analyst's public lectures. [Extracted from the article]

In this paper I discuss John Riker's article, "A Critique of Stolorow's Erasure of Self Psychology and his Appropriation of Heigegger's Theory of Authenticity, plus the Possibility of an Intersubjective Self Psychology" a paper in which Riker sets out to evaluate Stolorow's intersubjectivity theory and its contribution to psychoanalysis. I attempt to add something to Riker's consideration of intersubjectivity especially as it relates to our shared mortality, a topic addressed by Stolorow in a lifetime of books and papers. I also comment on some of the similarities and differences between the ideas of Kohut and Stolorow, suggesting that to some extent these differences lie more in the distinctive languages coined by the two authors than in the ideas themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dan Perlitz opens his paper by placing mutual "imbeddedness" in its philogenetic, evolutionary, intergenerational context. Dan's discussion of intergenerational transmission of trauma begins with a discussion of his own imbeddedness and his lived experiences as the child of survivors of the Holocaust, bearing the name of a relative murdered by the Nazis. As the survivors of the Holocaust pass away and their children are aging, the questions raised by Dan become particularly relevant: what of the legacy of the Holocaust do we wish to pass on the future generations? Empirical research on the third generation in Holocaust families is accumulating, suggesting some continued intergenerational transmission, while also pointing to interesting differences between the children of survivors and the grandchildren generation (Felsen, [15]; Felsen, [14], [9]). [Extracted from the article]

In this paper I discuss Magid, Fosshage and Shane's impressive overview of the contributions to Relational Self Psychology in the psychoanalytic literature, contributions they see as having emerged for the most part after Kohut's death and therefore as having been carried out almost entirely by Kohut's followers. But while the authors see Kohut's work as having hewed closely to a one-person psychology, I use my discussion to highlight what I see as the two-person themes in Kohut's own writings, suggesting that he may have been more relational in his thinking than initially meets the eye. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sperry has written a very gripping and timely paper. If it did exonerate the institution of psychoanalysis, then the cultivation of awe explicated in the paper runs the danger of being one more tokenism that allows psychoanalytic practitioners to carry on "business as usual." In my quote of Sperry's central question above I purposely excluded the following sentence from the quote: " B Is there more that psychoanalysis might contribute b ?". [Extracted from the article]

This article discusses two papers by Steven Stern and Daniel Goldin that delve into the concepts of selfobject experience and empathy in psychoanalysis. The author highlights the need to explicitly articulate implicit theoretical concepts and acknowledges the influence of subjectivity and sociocultural positioning on understanding these concepts. Stern's paper explores the idea of a complex selfobject experience and introduces the notions of fittedness and specificity of connection. The author relates Stern's ideas to their own work on twinship experiences. The article also addresses the dangers of dehumanizing others through objectification and reductionism, both in clinical practice and in broader societal contexts. The concept of empathy and its role in therapy are also discussed. The author examines the ideas presented in two other papers, one by Stern and one by Goldin, and reflects on how these ideas relate to the issue of difference. The author suggests that empathy involves recognizing both similarities and differences between individuals, and that therapy can only be effective when these aspects are acknowledged and embraced. The author also advocates for a more self-aware and less ethnocentric approach to therapy in order to better address issues of difference. [Extracted from the article]

This article, titled "An intervention on a living room carpet," describes a sensitive intervention with a 15-year-old Arab girl named Nur who was experiencing severe anxiety attacks during a war. The author presents three vignettes that illustrate the transition from anxious states of mind to soothed ones through their intervention with Nur and her mother. The author emphasizes the importance of urgency and vigilance in approaching each request for intervention during times of emergency. The article highlights the significance of reaching out and providing support in unconventional settings, such as entering Nur's home during troubling times. The intervention ultimately helps Nur find a sense of calm and cope with the harsh reality through creative activities. The author expresses gratitude to Nur and her family for allowing them to join them during these challenging times. [Extracted from the article]

The article is an editorial introduction to the latest issue of the journal "Psychoanalysis: Self & Context." It highlights the diverse range of articles included in the issue, which cover topics such as empathy, therapy for patients with Alzheimer's Disease, the treatment of misophonia, and psychoanalytic education on diversity. The editorial also mentions the inclusion of papers from therapists in Israel discussing the traumas of 10/7 and the ongoing war, including perspectives from Palestinian therapists. The issue concludes with an introduction to a book on self psychology by John Riker. The editors invite readers to share their responses to the articles via email. [Extracted from the article]

In his discussion of Gentile's and Togashi's Plenary papers, the author explains how they are initially destabilizing, but ultimately reorienting and profoundly hopeful for us in these threatening, uncertain times. He reviews the arguments that the papers present, explores how they are challenging to him as a representative of a 1960's liberal, Self Psychological perspective and illustrates how they can be applied to clinical work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reading, reviewing, and now discussing Dan's paper has been for me a moving twinship experience, one felt at many levels: We are both Diaspora Canadian Jews growing up in the shadow of World War II and the Holocaust. And like Dan, when he spoke the name of the German Jewish individual inscribed on each stolperstein, my own emotion, on standing before my Uncle Max's gravestone inscribed with his name, date of birth and death, was immediate and overwhelming as tears and sobbing overtook me. While, for myself my "Uncle Max paper" constitutes my signature paper, only Dan can be the final arbiter of what, if anything constitutes his signature creation. Of course, as Dan mentions in his paper, twinship experiences celebrate both sameness and difference, whereby difference points to that which is special and unique about the other. [Extracted from the article]

This article discusses William J. Coburn's emergence theory of free will and freedom. Coburn explores the conceptual question of how to reconcile free choice with a deterministic brain. He proposes that the interactional and adaptational capacities of complex systems allow for the emergence of individual agency and freedom of choice. Coburn also emphasizes the importance of ownership of one's choices and relational accountability in the enactment of true freedom. The article highlights the ethical dimension of Coburn's theory and its implications for psychoanalytic practice. [Extracted from the article]

This paper explores the empathic nuances of the therapeutic process with a person experiencing ongoing psychosis associated with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, and with a history of severe relational trauma. Incorporating the self psychological principles of working with the therapist's and client's forward edge, utilizing experience-near empathic attunement, and the somatic psychotherapy essential for kinaesthetic conversation were essential elements for the ongoing integration of the client's self. This work demonstrates the development of a nuanced understanding of pathological accommodation with its internal self-organizing dynamics as well as offering examples of forward edge movement. Interweaving vignettes from a two-year period with the subjective and intersubjective somatically animated experiencing of the therapist, the puzzle of how to work with all parts of the client unfolds gently and carefully. This paper outlines how connections were made between the two participants, in a clinical sense and within the client, creating a sense-making structure within the nuclear self experience of the client. Real life clinical experiences of what somatic psychotherapy, undertaken within a relational, intersubjective psychodynamic process, looks and feels like are in short supply. The presentation of this case hopes to remedy that by demonstrating the body mind integration required to work this way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges readers to examine how the "halls of power" within the psychoanalytic enterprise, and our own institutions mobilize our hatred and 'white rage' often subtly and imperceptibly towards non-whites. It raises the question: Are the marginalized and all non-white worlds also represented in our theories and training programs? He argues for a critical pedagogy which begins by our own racial self-examination and interrogation of our collective "implicated subjectivities" in the inhuman treatment of our patients, supervisees and colleagues – especially non-whites but whites as well because their unexamined racism dehumanizes even them. Using his own lived experiences in these psychoanalytic halls of power over 20 years, the author questions our tendency for universalizing, including self psychology's central concept of empathy, especially as it is practiced. How shall we redress past and contemporary iniquities in order to make reparations, create a more just and inclusive psychoanalytic theory and practice and what might that look like? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even during years of separation Federico was present in Suhrida's heart, with his death she had lost him physically, but the memories remained just beneath the surface, provoking grief at unexpected moments. This essay is primarily an appreciation of the wonderful paper by Suhrida Yadavalli, which is more than your regular academic or clinical paper. Discussion As I noted in the beginning of this essay, I see Suhrida Yadavalli's paper as a contribution to the work of revision of model of mourning. Finally, Suhrida shows how resources such as yoga and meditation can provide the practitioner with the opportunity to confront the inevitably painful and at times, sad world, to respond creatively and perhaps with joy, celebrating its tragic beauty. [Extracted from the article]

This editorial introduces the latest issue of Psychoanalysis: Self & Context, which features a range of articles exploring various topics in clinical psychology. The issue includes papers on the concept of freedom in the clinical space, the cultural significance of the "evil eye," non-traditional methodologies in self psychological treatment, and the experiences of women who are childless. The journal also presents a case study on treating a schizophrenic patient, a narrative on grief, and book reviews. The editors invite readers to provide comments and raise issues for future editions. [Extracted from the article]

Beginning with Kohut's classic 1959 paper on the subject, empathy has been conceptualized as a process of finding something in one's self (introspection) that has resonance with one's experience of the other. This paper, inspired by advances in queer studies, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the Black American theater, identifies the limitations of this understanding. By putting Kohut's ideas about empathy in dialogue with French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, Black American playwrights Jeremy O. Harris, Michael R. Jackson, and James Ijames, and the author's own clinical experience, a queered empathy is theorized that relies less on self-reference and more on passibility. The theoretical and clinical implications of this shift are explored, and the possibilities for a queered Psychology of the Self that contain a heightened possibility for responsiveness to marginalized experience are suggested. The hope of this paper is that the reader, from a multidisciplinary perspective, will be inspired to imagine a psychoanalysis and Self Psychology for all that has the potential to flourish for generations to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a response to Amanda Kottler's discussion of my paper "Empathy on a Continuum." I define my favored version of psychoanalysis as an experience about experience, in which the situations in the patient's lifeworld are as important as the here-and-now situation between them in the telling. This version requires that the analyst engage the two forms of empathy described in my main article. But it also requires that analyst and patient meet each other in a virtual space of imaginative storying. I go on to to propose that this imaginative, experience-oriented psychoanalysis offers a more intuitive way to interact with patients around racial and cultural differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the author extends his metatheory of needed relationships to posit a more complex form of selfobject connection than has been previously theorized. He argues that there are degrees of selfobject connectedness and that for the fullest, most transformative connection to be actualized certain conditions in the patient's experience of the analyst need to be met. The co-creation of such conditions amounts to a new needed relationship—a transformational intersubjective medium—uniquely co-created and unpredictably emergent within each analytic dyad, which somehow comes to address a traumatic relational breach in the original parent-child field and restores an ethic of care, lawfulness, competence and love that was the patient's original birthright. This amounts to a fully relational self psychology, but a more forward edge relationality than that of mainstream Relational theory, which, at least historically, has placed more emphasis on repetition and enactment than on what the author calls the needed relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a paucity of literature demonstrating the efficacy of psychoanalytic psychotherapy for patients with Alzheimer's or other dementias. This paper examines the challenges and richness of this kind of treatment for both patients and analyst through the use of a narrative case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Misophonia is a condition in which everyday sounds evoke pain and reactive aversion. The etiology of misophonia is largely unknown, with discordant conceptualizations of its roots, ranging from psychiatric, to neurological, to a combination of auditory processing and neurobiological dysfunction. Common protocols are focused on symptom reduction and management, though have not been proven to be clinically effective. For these reasons, it is generally considered to be difficult to treat. In this paper, I re-consider misophonia as a complex interweaving of auditory, neurobiological and relational experience. Reflecting upon a clinical case, I present misophonia in the context of self-with-other regulation from a developmental lens, traverse the landscape of misophonic self states, explore the complex toll of dissociation and intergenerational trauma in relational space, and consider ways in which the painful somatic-auditory bell of misophonia concretizes self and relational "hope" and "dread". Finally, I will offer some thoughts on how psychoanalytic psychotherapy can create new relational-neurobiological pathways out of the misophonic experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an intersubjective journey between an analyst and her patient, a woman beset by a lifelong fear that she is actually a robot, not a human being. Alienated from the human world, the woman sustained her sense of self by creating emotional ties to fantasy selfobjects. The patient is saved by these ties and undone by them too. On the one hand, these connections carry her striving for health and stability. On the other, they shield her from what she most longs for—the warmth of a human heart. Interactions between her and her analyst reveal the grip of a powerful unconscious organizing principle: She must cleanse herself of feelings and serve the master. Claiming her place as a human among humans rests on her liberation from this horrifying belief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the historical development of psychoanalysis, the solitude of the patient in the session room has evolved over time in the direction that the mind cannot be considered separately from one’s story and external reality. While I was working on writing a discussion paper on Mustafa’s case, I was under the devastating effect of the earthquake disaster that occurred in my country. Therefore, my discussion paper is shaped by my associations of the vulture in Mustafa and Eva’s room and the context in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of whether to see partners individually as part of couple therapy has been hotly debated in couple therapy circles for decades, but has rarely been addressed in the psychoanalytic couple therapy literature, especially the self psychology literature. In an effort to fill that gap, this paper briefly reviews the reasons many couple therapists have traditionally avoided such sessions, encourages a reevaluation of those concerns, and suggests ways to minimize or reduce the risks. It argues strongly that in some cases, individual sessions can be an attuned, empathic response to the needs of one or both partners and the most effective way to help improve the relationship between them. Rather than hard-and-fast rules, the paper advocates that couple therapists use their empathic understanding of each partner's history and inner world, the couple's dynamics, and their own needs and motivations, to make attuned, empathically responsive decisions based on each partner and couple's particular needs at a particular time. Clinical vignettes are used throughout the paper to illustrate key points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alyson may already be sensing this intuitively when she writes: "I think it was important to [Kathleen] that I was willing to keep looking at her, seeing, feeling and acknowledging the hurt I had caused" (Kepple, [2], pp. 584-585). As testament to the power of Alyson's overall response, Kathleen wells up with tears which spill down her face as she feels Alyson's full recognition of her experience. I feel honored by Alyson Kepple's use of my 2019 paper, "Airless Worlds", to help her make sense of her patient Kathleen's life-long struggles with the sequelae of her parents' disappointed, frightened, and reflexively aversive responses to her from birth on. Alyson describes how she and Kathleen spent "a good part of our first year together exploring her somatic complaints in great detail" (Kepple, [2], p. 588). [Extracted from the article]

In this case, presentation of a patient who experienced severe sexual abuse in childhood and attempted to manage his traumatic dreams and flashbacks with autoerotic asphyxiation, the author describes how she tolerated the anxiety of a life-threatening symptom while engaging in a deep and transformative treatment. She writes about her understanding of the symptoms, how she bore the accompanying anxiety, and what the mutative forces were that led to the patient relinquishing the symptom and progressing forward. Mutative factors included the creation of a relational home, ongoing awareness of forward edge meanings of the patient's behaviors (including the potentially lethal symptom) and the establishment of deep mutual trust, both generally and specifically in the patient's capacity to know what he needed in order to grow. These factors helped the patient integrate his sense of shame and self-loathing. The therapist's deep trust in the patient's sense of what he needed as she guided the treatment deepened the bond between them and created the paradoxical sense of both intensity and calm that the patient longed for. This paper details dreams that illustrate the nature of the therapeutic relationship and the patient's internal experience. The therapist details her own experience in the co-transference in this highly charged case. Overall, this paper will help therapists to recognize, connect with, and protect traumatized patients, while not being distracted by the frightening symptoms themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are always practicing in a time of threat and loss, but what changes is the nature of the threat and the loss: is it shared or not shared, known, or not known, disclosed by force or disclosed by choice? This paper explores the themes of trust and belonging as the essence of the psychoanalytic frame and the parallel processes of how our own traumas, as psychoanalysts, warp and weave through our relationships with our patients over time. The pandemic has gifted us with a perfect storm of shared traumas and created new opportunities for navigating, negotiating, rupturing and repairing, and healing, as the frame was forcefully bent, broken, and rebuilt in the context of this global crisis. The pandemic has emphasized the importance of lifting the veil of secrecy and bringing those of us who live these complex lives of service, as both healers and suffering strangers, into community and dialogue. To illustrate these themes, this paper explores the parallels between "Jennifer" my patient of 14 years and my own journey through life and analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing heavily on Indigenous authors, this paper explores the historical roots to the emergence of Canada as a genocidal and apartheid state with respect to its Indigenous peoples. A major theme of the paper is that historical injustices grounded in settler colonial priorities continue to inform contemporary socio/political contexts that maintain Canada's status as a racist, apartheid and genocidal state with respect to Indigenous peoples. Examples drawn from the Lytton fire of 2020 and the November floods in British Columbia highlight that the needs and rights of Indigenous peoples will always take a back seat to Canada's corporate economic interests. A corollary to the paper constitutes the dismantling of Canada's "Big Lie" that Canada is a progressive country that has shown considerable progress in its relationship with Indigenous peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I describe how my painting practice restored and sustained a more coherent and vitalized sense of self during the isolation, loneliness and sense of unrealness, dislocation, and lost world order brought about by Covid. I describe how the intersubjective and physical process of painting, and the nonverbal, embodied experience of creating art re-situated me in a world that felt real and allowed me to know and reflect on emotional experiences not available verbally until represented in visual, concrete form. I present a brief clinical example to illustrate how my artistic practice during Covid decisively informed an appreciation of the importance of a co-constructed selfobject experience that recognized how essential a patient's own affirmed creativity was for enhancing her sense of vitality, agency, and possibility of positive change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I aim to explore how an expansion in my sense of self resulting from explorations of meanings within a perceived transgression allowed for a long overdue expansion within my patient and fostered a development in our ability to reach and sustain an ever-deepening empathic connection. The primary thesis of this paper is that expansion within the analyst, though often unwelcome and painfully difficult, can illuminate greater complexity and radically redefine the idea of self and security in connection. Specifically, I focus on the transition between the false and the authentic self and ways in which that transition then enters clinical work. I also highlight the importance of continuing to focus on being present with the person before us, rather than minding the experience of intersubjectivity via theoretic constructions. I share relevant personal experiences and argue that a shift toward a more authentic self enhances the mutual and co-occurring process of expansion within a clinical dyad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The writer shares the course of treatment with a gender nonbinary teenager and their parents that utilized techniques from drama therapy, relational self psychology, sculpting, and family therapy. Following the rupture and attempted repair with the patient's parents, work with the patient and their family finally led to a joint decision to terminate treatment. This case study discusses the clinical challenges and implications of working within a family system in which parents' values misalign with the psychotherapist's treatment goals. This paper contains misgendering that can emotionally trigger some individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates the integration of guided visualization, drawn from clinical hypnosis, in a self-psychologically informed treatment with a traumatized patient. In providing a hypnotic script, I serve as a witness and felt presence as I accompany the patient as she draws upon her imagination. Images and written reflections engage her capacity to creatively symbolize her childhood trauma with distance and reflective space. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy unlocks state-dependent memories and stimulates new associations and self-compassion. Within a psychodynamic framework, these creative interventions titrate the destabilizing impact of traumatic recall by empowering the patient as an active agent, utilizing her creative resources to create an expanded, healing narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evil eye, the harmful effects of the envious gaze, is a common superstitious belief in many societies around the world, including Turkey. Since ancient times, people have developed a wide variety of practices and rituals to ward off the evil eye. It is generally believed that the evil eye is motivated by one of the most challenging emotions, envy. The discussion of envy has a long history in psychoanalysis. Unfortunately, psychoanalytic self-psychology has neglected envy and confined it to the concept of fragmentation products. This paper aims to contribute a self-psychological understanding of an envy-related cultural concept, the evil eye. The evil eye-related phenomena in Turkey, such as the harmful potential of gazes, the use of talismans and amulets for protection, and the fear of praising and exhibition, are discussed from a self-psychological perspective. Several short clinical vignettes delineating the evil eye in clinical practice are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unmet cultural norm of motherhood can constrain a woman's sense of social equality. Childlessness is often accompanied by social stigma and shame. The author identifies personal barriers within both patient and analyst that were unforeseen prior to the treatment process. The author implements reverie to open deeper aspects of her mind that allows further exploration into the patient's dreams. This interplay between analyst and patient evokes additional memories from the patient's earlier life. The paper is written in a lovely prose style that demonstrates the creative growth of the author while transforming the artistic pursuits of the patient. Both patient and analyst benefit from this mutual awareness of limitations towards new creative possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows the theoretical similarities between Harm Reduction Psychotherapy and Heinz Kohut's Self Psychology, and delineates how each of these clinical perspectives complement and enhance one another. Using these two theories in tandem provides further opportunities for clinicians to treat a larger proportion of the substance using population not yet ready for cessation or abstinence. A case involving crystal meth addiction is presented, and aspects of the treatment are explicated including identifying the self-regulatory and symbolic functionality of substance use, and working with the patient's own ambivalence about his behavior. A self- object "twinship" is also highlighted as having an important mutative impact on the treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that Heinz Kohut’s papers on narcissism brought forth a re-evaluation of a patient’s healthy self-regard. Indeed, those pivotal essays open up a novel perspective and, with it, clinical possibility by ceasing to cast a patient’s narcissistic concern in a purely pejorative light—as more primitive or less adaptive mode of being—to seeing it as an approvable sign of psychic health. Less well known, however, is Kohut’s corollary insight, notably that an emotional climate, what he calls the deeply ingrained value system of the Occident, is responsible, in large part, for the wholesale devaluation of narcissism. My focus in this paper is with this less well known but equally important insight, and my aim is to properly understand Kohut’s observation that an allegiance to this deeply ingrained value system may have a deleterious impact on clinical practice. I close by suggesting that we let Kohut caution us that smuggling in altruistic moral presuppositions can be a hindrance to clinical work, and that we pause before we follow the trend in contemporary psychoanalysis that encourages us to take an ethical turn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a review of Susan Kassouf's densely argued paper: Human among the more-than-human. Retrofitting Kohut for the Anthropocene, wherein Kassouf applies self psychology to an understanding of climate crisis and proposes an additional selfobject tie, the tie to the more-than-human, which is the world entire. Her claim is that the precarious self's need for safety, if untransformed, results in impermeability to the more-than-human world, which in turn accounts for our disregard of the health of the planet. Kassouf's goal is to promote permeability of the self with the more-than-human. This reviewer commends Kassouf on her original and thoughtful extension of Kohut's theory. He raises the question whether the primary self state is not one of profound vulnerability, where precarity already constitutes a derailment in the tie to the more-than-human. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I show that the "narcissistic libido' out of which the self emerges is best conceived as de-sexualized eros, for this is the kind of energy that can love ideals, love ourselves (self-esteem), and love connecting with others (selfobjects). I draw upon Plato and the late Freud to amplify how seeing the self's energy as eros allows us to understand the self as daimonic, aesthetic, and developmental—a striving to attain evermore complex versions of itself. Eros is also an "experience-near" way to conceive of the self's energy, as we immediately know when we are feeling intensely erotic about an activity, another person, a work of art, etc. I will further show how eros can be transformed into sexualization and narcissistic rage when the self is traumatized, thereby explaining why selves have these two kinds of by-products when traumatically injured. Conceiving of the self's energy as eros gives us an important way to come to know our selves: we are what we love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constance Dunlap, in a powerful recitative to Dennis's paper titled I A Renewed Appeal for Vigorous and Positive Action i , adroitly identifies the key points in Kleinian theory which support the theoretical foundation of Dennis's argument. It is from this vastly different perspective that Sperry considers Dennis' treatment of Mrs A. From this viewpoint, she offers an alternative interpretation of Mrs A's choice of a Black analyst. While acknowledging the usefulness of Dennis's use of the Kleinian lens, he raises the question as to whether Kleinian theory can adequately address the desire to care and be cared for. Why would we, at Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, choose to feature and build an issue around an article submitted by a Black Kleinian analyst?. [Extracted from the article]

In this paper the author offers a discussion of Ebony Dennis' paper, "The Paranoid-Schizoid Poison and Envious Attacks on the Black Other" (this issue, pp. 141-153). The author summarizes Dennis' perspective on whiteness as well as that of other psychoanalytic authors. Similarities and differences between racism and ableism are discussed, and the author offers a history of the disability rights movement, the main concepts in the field of critical disability studies, and a clinical discussion illustrating ableism and nondisabled privilege in the clinical process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents the treatment of a deeply traumatized, high conflict couple, massively overwhelmed by multiple stressors. Building upon the rich legacy of self psychology, this paper aims to illustrate how couple therapists can invite traumatized partners to move from despair and rage into hope and connection. This treatment approach is fundamentally based upon a systems perspective, but nested within that overarching stance are several foundational principles, including: 1) the concept of thirdness, or the view that surrendering one's own perspective for the sake of connection allows an additional perspective 2) empathic, subject-centered listening that includes emotional dwelling as advocated by self psychology; 3) conceptualizing the system as a whole, rather than only the individuals, as lacking adequate soothing; 4) recognizing the influence of cultural forces upon the couple; 5) working with each partner's self states or the idea that each individual has many parts within themselves and when invited into the treatment room can generate greater connection and healing; and 6) enlisting the partners as co-therapists. These basic tenets helped a mutually traumatized couple find their way out of fear. The paper illustrates how even in a barren landscape, where there is emotional dwelling, hope can germinate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines conjoint couples therapy as a treatment modality for fostering individual development. The central thesis is that self psychologically informed couples therapy—because it simultaneously offers both the therapist's empathic immersion in each partner's subjective world and the inevitable confrontation with the other partner's differently organized subjectivity—offers a unique therapeutic experience that transcends the current dialectic in psychotherapy between provision and confrontation. After a brief introduction to intersubjective systems theory, the paper examines the individual's experience in couples therapy. Disruptions and repairs of each partner's narcissistic vulnerability can create new pathways for adult development. Two issues in individual development are then discussed in detail: the tendency of past experience, especially trauma, to dominate the present, and the difficulty partners have to recognize and tolerate alterity. Each issue offers the possibility of individual development within the couples therapy context. The paper concludes with a case example that demonstrates both partner's mastering of vexing individual issues in a conjoint context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary psychoanalytic couples therapy technique may commonly include individual sessions in the course of treatment. Informed by a couples therapy case that required flexible adaptations, this paper proposes that including a substantial course of individual sessions may still make up a couples therapy. When navigating ambiguity and making adaptations as required by this case, a guiding principal is development. The paper considers theoretical factors relating to this expansion of technique and other adaptations, and possible consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends concepts from infant research and intersubjective systems theory to couples treatment. Infant research views human development as taking place in a two-person developmental system, in which the caregiver and the infant coordinate to foster infant development. Couples treatment is by analogy seen as a three person developmental system. Systems based psychoanalytic theories are applied to the couple/therapist system, particularly in regard to the oscillation between hoped-for selfobject experiences and feared repetitive experiences. Infant research has shown that the origin of our sense of self, others, and self-with-others emerges from the ongoing, largely nonverbal, dialogue between infants and caregivers. The attachment security from infancy is reorganized by adult relationships. The therapist looks to help partners (1) repair disruptions when they occur, (2) recognize each other and in turn feel recognized and (3) have greater ability to reflect or mentalize on their partner's and their own mental states. The "back and forth weave" of the therapist's attention is shown to have particular salience in fostering development. The paper concludes with a case example of how a single look or expression disrupts the couples enjoyment of an anticipated day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the author expands his thinking about "airless worlds" in individual therapy to work with couples. Living in an airless world refers to a process of internalizing negating messages from parents to their children such that the adult child continues to view and treat themselves in more or less the same negating ways that their parents had. Individuals suffering from the syndrome tend not to have separated from their internalized parents sufficiently to be able to develop their own senses of self, agency, and reality and therefore tend, transferentially, to create a similar kind of unconscious bondage with their adult partners. When adult partners co-create a communicative system wherein each unconsciously cedes to the other the power to define their experience of themselves, an airless world has been created in their relationship. An unconscious dependency on, and negation of, the other renders constructive intersubjective dialogue virtually impossible (i.e. dialogue that takes into account both parties' subjectivities). By way of focusing on his work with one couple whose capacity for competent constructive dialogue had broken down completely over many years, the author demonstrates both the operation of airless world dynamics in couples and his approach to introducing "psychic air" into their airless marital systems. Central to his approach is an expansion of the idea of therapeutic empathy to include "empathy with the needs of the system." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a discussion of the therapeutic process in the case presented in Paolo Stramba-Badiale's paper Hope and Uncertainty. The Subjective Experience of the Body During the Covid-19 Pandemic. The patient's face was disfigured by the surgical treatment of cancer. This discussion considers psychosomatic perspectives of European and African theoreticians and integrates Kohut's concept of the somatic self with more recent concepts of psychoanalytic Self Psychology. The patient's psychological healing process, mediated through the therapeutic relationship with her analyst, combined with the paradoxical impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and their impact on the eventual integration of her disfigured face—her injured body self—into her whole self, will be explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I promptly read their co-authored paper, Self Psychology and the Concept of the Nuclear Self: A Dynamic Systems Perspective (J. Trop & Trop, [5]). B Sarah: b Gabe, you were saying earlier that even though you're not a clinician or a therapist - Jeff, you will turn to Gabe to bounce ideas off about particular cases. At the International Association for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology conference in 2019, I attended a plenary, A Dynamic View of Self hood, Affect and Political Context. [Extracted from the article]