Search

This article suggests that psychoanalysis can take place both in the private office and out of the office in community-based settings. It provides historical background about the way in which psychoanalysis came to be thought of largely as an office-based practice for an affluent, culturally specific clientele. The article describes efforts at training candidates and students in the use of spontaneously occurring interactions in community-based settings in a range of cultural and socio-economic contexts, in order to illuminate unconscious interpersonal and intra-psychic dynamics. It suggests that the mentalization fostered by psychoanalytic processing of these interactions can provide an important protective element to an expanded range of people against the inter-generational transmission of trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that on both the small-scale level of the interpersonal relationship, and the large-scale level of society, the manic defense makes it difficult to care about others, and so militates against a sense of social responsibility. I address four basic questions: what is the nature of social responsibility? What is the nature of the manic defense? How does the manic defense interfere with the potential for social responsibility? And, on a more general level, what are the issues with respect to methodology for efforts such as this one to link psychoanalysis and social theory? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]