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The article discusses various new frontiers in psychoanalysis and the expansion of human, scientific, and clinical horizons in the field. It highlights the importance of the intersubjective dimension in clinical work and the recent evolution of scientific knowledge in psychoanalysis. The article also explores the concepts of countertransference, total situation, and the role of the digestive system in mental life. Additionally, it discusses the theoretical and clinical features of control-mastery theory, the effectiveness of psychoanalysis in treating bipolar disorders, and the interdisciplinary dialogue between psychoanalysis and music. [Extracted from the article]

Why psychoanalysts came to conceive what Howard Levine (2021) calls a "problematic either-or extremity" between conflict theories and developmental trauma theories? It is hypothesized that at the roots of the polarity between these two different clinical attitudes there is an "originary trauma", a trauma that can never reach a full and effective figurability: a trauma that cannot be represented. Such a trauma constituted the caesura that on the one hand has produced a progress on the intellectual level (in the history of psychoanalysis, the birth of the psychoanalytic theory of unconscious fantasy), but, on the other hand, at the price of creating the lack of development of an affective capacity, not only of a cognitive capacity, of listening the traumaticity within the patient's communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we review the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental health (DSM), its scientific bases and utility. The concepts of "normality," "pathology," and boundaries between them are critically reviewed. We further use the concepts of mindfulness and mindlessness, and evidence from cognitive and social sciences to investigate the DSM clinical and social impact and we argue against its assigned overpower. We recommend including alternative perspectives to the DSM, such as mindfulness and positive psychology. We also argue for including mindfulness training in psychiatric residency and clinical psychology programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Late adolescents with career choice problems often have psychological problems as well. The starting point of this study was the question of career choice counselors whether potential clients with career choice problems and psychological problems could be accepted in career choice intervention, or whether it was better to advise them to seek help for their psychological problems. We investigated whether a successful career choice intervention reduced psychological problems, and whether this program was equally effective in participants with low and with high levels of psychological problems. Participants were 45 Dutch students (age 17-24) with career choice problems. They had above average levels of self-reported psychological problems before the start of the intervention. These problems decreased significantly following the intervention. With regard to vocational commitment development, the intervention was equally effective for participants with low or average and with (very) high levels of psychological problems before the start of the intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many social relationships are a locus of struggle and suffering, either at the individual or interactional level. In this paper we explore why this is the case and suggest a modeling approach for dyadic interactions and the well-being of the participants.To this end we bring together an enactive approach to self with dynamical systems theory. Our basic assumption is that the quality of any social interaction or relationship fundamentally depends on the nature and constitution of the individuals engaged in these interactions. From an enactive perspective the self is conceived as an embodied and socially enacted autonomous system striving to maintain an identity. This striving involves a basic two-fold goal: the ability to exist as an individual in one?s own right, while also being open to and affected by others. In terms of dynamical systems theory one can thus consider the individual self as a selfother organized system represented by a phase space spanned by the dimensions of distinction and participation, where attractors can be defined. Based on two everyday examples of dyadic relationship we propose a simple model of relationship dynamics, in which struggle orwell-being in the dyad is analyzed in terms of movements of dyadic states that are in tension or in harmony with individually developed attractors. Our model predicts that relationships can be sustained when the dyad develops a new joint attractor toward which dyadic states tend to move, and well-being when this attractor is in balance with the individuals? attractors.We outline how this can inspire research on psychotherapy. The psychotherapy process itself provides a setting that supports clients to become aware how they fare with regards to the two-fold norm of distinction and participation and develop, through active engagement between client (or couple) and therapist, strategies to conegotiate their self-organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussing Charles Rycroft's seminal paper “The nature and function of the analyst's communication to the patient,” presented in 1956 at the Freud Centenary, the author reflects on Rycroft's theory of what constitutes a healthy and a pathological communication and of the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis, linking it with Sándor Ferenczi's theory of trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]