Introduction:
Koritar, K.(2016). Introduction. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 76(4), pp.313–321.
Ferenczi was invested in using psychoanalysis as a tool for helping the healing process in individuals who were traumatized, scarred, and damaged by environmental, interpersonal events, often perpetrated by close family members. Acts of commission or omission by a narcissistic significant other can damage the tender developing psyche by causing fragmentation of the self, dissociation and identification with the aggressor, which in turn can cause pathological distortions in personality development…
Articles:
Gurevich, H. (2016). Orpha, Orphic Functions, and the Orphic Analyst: Winnicott’s “Regression to Dependence” in the Language of Ferenczi. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 76(4), pp. 322–340.
Abstract: Early developmental trauma is imprinted in the psyche by survival fragmentation and dissociation. Traumatized patients need the analyst to be actively involved and allow for regression to dependence in order to strengthen, create and construct their psychic functioning and structure so that environmental failures will be contained and not rupture continuity of being. I suggest that Ferenczi’s and Winnicott’s ideas about regression to dependence in analysis are fundamental contributions to these quests, and that Ferenczi set the foundation, which Winnicott further explored and developed. I would like to focus on their clinical theory of treating early developmental trauma of the psyche, describing it in the less known language of Ferenczi, reviving his concept of Orpha and its functions. The complementarities of the two approaches can enrich and broaden our understanding of the clinical complications that arise in the analysis of such states.
Koritar, E. (2016). Relaxation in Technique Leading to New Beginnings. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 76(4), pp. 341–353.
Abstract: This paper explores how standard analytic technique may result in a repetition of past traumatic experiences in the transference and countertransference analytic situation. Relaxation and elasticity of technique can lead to re-integration of previously fragmented ego functions, and in remembering and re-experiencing of previously repressed symbolic representations of fragmenting past traumatic experiences, resulting in neocatharsis and working through, thus healing wounds and scars sustained in self development. This healing process will be described through a detailed depiction of an analytic process introducing relaxation of technique, in a response by the analyst, to the patient’s Orpha (self-protective) function. Responsiveness to the patient’s implicitly or explicitly expressed needs, in the analytic space, may require a departure from standard technique for a deeper level of dynamic work where symbolization of unrepresented emotional experiences becomes possible.
Eekhoff, J. K. (2016). Introjective identification: the analytic work of evocation. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 76(4), pp. 354–361.
Abstract: This paper focuses on a particular counter-transference process—introjective identification and the evocation it enables. Introjective identification enables evocation because it engages the analyst’s radical openness to the experience of the patient at the most primordial level. The accumulated wisdom of Ferenczi and those who followed him is used to discuss the role of introjective identification in the treatment of patients with non-neurotic structures.
Seitler, B. N. (2016). When Words Were Wanted, but Woefully Wanting, We Waged War with Chess. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 76(4), pp. 362–375.
Abstract: What do you say to a child who rarely speaks? How do you work with such a youngster? What are the sine qua nons or guiding principles upon which analysts can draw? And, how do we know if we are being helpful? Sam was 9-years when I began treating him. He was extremely withdrawn and rarely spoke more than a few words. Instead, he mainly played chess. I did not know at first whether Sam’s taciturn demeanor was due to shyness, limited verbal abilities, or the stultifying effects of trauma. Fortuitously, during one of many seemingly “innocent” games of chess, Sam happened to make a bold move, to which I admiringly remarked, “What a move, you’re killing me.” His surprising reaction permanently altered the trajectory of treatment. Curiously, upon returning from summer vacation, not only did Sam no longer need to play chess, but he also found his voice. It was then that he began to discuss things for the first time. Initially, what he said was cloaked in symbolic and indirect referents, suggesting that there were things about which he still could not speak. I proceeded with patience and eventually Sam was able to disclose what he had been harboring inside. In this article, I will discuss the role and psychoanalytic meaning of chess in Sam’s play therapy and how it served as a means of symbolically expressing an unspoken, yet ongoing trauma; how it non-verbally, and thus safely communicated Sam’s desperate need for understanding and his urgent (but silent) disguised plea for help.
Kelley-Lainé, K. (2016). The Economy of the Totalitarian Mind: the Case of the Immigrant Child. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 76(4), pp. 376–388.
Abstract: Immigration in early childhood can be considered as a traumatic situation. It often goes unrecognized since children adapt to most conditions and conform to their environment with astonishing agility. Inspired by the sensitive work of Sándor Ferenczi, and Donald Winnicott, regarding the psychic economy of maturational processes, the author explores the concept of totalitarian functioning and its obstruction of the growing psyche. Before birth we are all totalitarian, one with the mother; this symbiotic, invincible state of survival mode is prolonged as the immature newborn child ignores the requirements of reality and enjoys omnipotent pleasure through hallucination. The loss of place in immigration often becomes the loss of identity—the question of “where am I?” becomes confused with “who am I?” Clinical practice exposes this fragility in adults torn from their home environment at an early age, forced into precocious maturity, never to grow up in reality. Through clinical examples, the author illustrates how totalitarian mental functioning of “all or nothing, right or wrong, black or white” is exposed in the transference and can be worked through within the psychoanalytical space.
Szekacs-Weisz, J. (2016). Emigration from within. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 76(4), pp. 389–398.
Abstract: Listening to the stories of people belonging to different generations in motion—both in our consulting rooms and our personal lives—served as introductory lectures into the fundamental aspects of changing context. Through these rich and diverse stories, one enters a territory which is not only multilingual but multidimensional: defined and shaped by historical, political, economic and socio-cultural transformations. Giving voice to these silent stories proved helpful for us when going behind walls that traditional analysis could not always penetrate, partly because, in many cases, analysts and analysands have been struggling with the same untouchable issues. It is our professional task to find creative ways to make sense of past and recent experiences of emigration, new prejudices, discriminative forms and attitudes—in order to achieve a better psychoanalytical understanding of the external and internal confusion that has been brought about by the immense changes during the past centuries and the present one.
Erös, F. (2016). Psychoanalysis and the Emigration of Central and Eastern European Intellectuals. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 76(4), pp. 399–413.
Abstract: One of the most important phenomena in the intellectual history of the 20th century was the exodus of the European mind, the emigration of persons, ideas, techniques, and institutions in the vast areas of social, human, and natural sciences, as well as in literature and the visual arts. Among these exiled intellectuals, psychoanalysts formed a special group. This paper examines the major lines of the emigration of psychoanalysts from the countries of issue to the countries of reception. It focuses, in particular on Hungarian analysts and analytic candidates who left their country of birth in two waves, first after the failure of revolutions in 1918/19 for Berlin, and then after 1938, to escape the Nazis. The paper comments on the existential situation of émigré psychoanalysts in light of Hannah Arendt’s writings on refugees.
Book Reviews:
Zuckerman, J. R. (2016). Book Review. The Legacy of Sándor Ferenczi: From Ghost to Ancestor, edited by Adrienne Harris and Steven Kuchuck, Routledge, New York, 2015, 300pp.
American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 76(4), pp. 414–417.
Sándor Ferenczi embodied a full-hearted, vulnerable and devoted approach to the subject of psychoanalysis and to his patients. His humane mutuality and tenderness spoke to me, as it did to many of my colleagues. It was thus a thrill to travel through this new collection of contributions from international Ferenczi scholars, edited by Harris and Kuchuck, resting on the shoulders of Harris and Lewis Aron’s groundbreaking edited work, The Legacy of Sándor Ferenczi (1993). This new work unites a variety of diverse subjects, including: new historical data concerning Ferenczi, his personal history, his historical surround, the ways he suffered from disparaging reactions to his ideas (especially Freud’s) and the prominence of his pioneering insights today. The essays also continually weave around the painful reminder of the colossal loss to psychoanalytic wisdom when our history is dismissed and our forefathers exiled…
Finn, M. (2016). Book Review. Reading Michael Balint: A Pragmatic Clinician, by Helene Oppenheim–Gluckman, Routledge, New York, 2015, 102pp. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 76(4), pp. 418–419.
The rehabilitation of Sandor Ferenczi’s thought and reputation is arguably one of the most important developments in contemporary psychoanalysis. He is literally the forefather of both British Object Relations Theory and the American Interpersonal perspective in his role as analyst to both Melanie Klein and Clara Thompson. It is therefore timely that Dr. Oppenheim–Gluckman has summarized the work and career of one of Ferenczi’s most influential students, Michael Balint for a contemporary readership. In her subtitle she refers to Balint as a pragmatic clinician. Balint was primarily concerned with the clinical application of psychoanalytic understanding. He was critical of sectarianism and authoritarianism in psychoanalysis. As a deep expression of his ecumenicism this Hungarian Jew converted to Unitarianism…
Friedman, H. J. (2016). Book Review. Reveries: An Unfettered Mind, by Antonino Ferro, Karnac Books, London, 2015, 224pp.American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 76(4), pp. 420–422.
If, as often has been said, all politics are local, then the same could be said to apply to all psychoanalysis. Nothing could illustrate this more effectively and one might say beautifully than this brief and enigmatic book by one of Italy’s best known psychoanalysts. Reveries: An Unfettered Mind by Antonino Ferro is a book of waking dreams or dream fragments and at times lengthy narratives that have been generated in Ferro’s mind during the time he spends analyzing his patients…
Rachmani, V. (2016). Book Review. Growth and Turbulence in the Container/Contained: Bion’s Continuing Legacy, edited by Howard B. Levine and Lawrence J. Brown, Routledge, 2013, 323pp.American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 76(4), pp. 423–426.
Bion’s second generation practitioners—the bulk of whom remain in Europe and Latin America—have taken up and extended his work. Largely unexplored in any depth at most interpersonal, self psychological or relational institutes in the United States, beyond a deferential nod to the containing/contained concept, Bion’s prolific writing and wealth of supervisory descriptions continue to find fresh interpretation, particularly surrounding his later work…
Turtz, J.(2016). Book Review. Between Mind and Brain: Models of the Mind and Models in the Mind, by Ronald Britton, Karnac Books, London, 2015, 141pp. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 76(4), pp. 427–429.
Ronald Britton’s book, Between Mind and Brain: Models of the Mind and Models in the Mind, is not an easy read. It is intellectually challenging, but very rich in substance and well worth the struggle. To really appreciate the connections Britton is making amongst ideas that emerge from fields as far ranging as psychoanalysis, philosophy, literature, mythology, neuroscience and quantum physics requires at least two readings of this book…
Molofsky, M. (2016). Book Review. Tea with Winnicott, by Brett Kahr, with illustrations by Alison Bechdel, Karnac Books, London, England, 2016, 288pp. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 76(4), pp. 430–432.
Claiming a book is a tour de force is a strong statement, and Tea with Winnicott deserves the designation. Brett Kahr is an eminent Winnicottian scholar, affiliated with Tavistock, who in 1996 published D. W. Winnicott: A Biographical Portrait, the first full-length biography of Donald Woods Winnicott. This biography won the 1997 Gradiva Award offered by the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis…