Articles:
Grünberg, K., Markert, F. (2017). Child Survivors: Stolen Childhood—Scenic Memory of the Shoah in Jewish Child or Adolescent Survivors of Nazi Persecution. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 77(2), pp. 105–127.
Abstract: Even today, there is inadequate awareness and recognition of Child Survivors whose psychic development was most seriously and lastingly marked and impaired by Nazi persecution. Based on their research the authors describe the delayed psychosocial consequences of the persecution of Child Survivors and postulate a fourth sequence of the traumatic process in old age. The authors discuss their involvement in the Child Survivors Conferences held in Berlin in 2014, and they describe micro-processes in the “scenic memory of the Shoah” related both to trauma transmission itself and to central conflicts in German-Jewish relations in post-Nazi Germany. Case vignettes illustrate the Child Survivors’ scenic memory of the Shoah.
Silverman, D. K. (2017). Insecure Attachments and Their Intermingling Transferences. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 77(2), pp. 128–145.
Abstract: There are least two different but interrelated motivational systems in human beings both of which begin in infancy: the attachment system and the separate, but interacting, psychodynamic system. Each of these systems is the basis of transference. A major focus of the paper is the affect-regulating feature of the attachment system. Infants’ emotional states can be well-regulated or dysregulated as they emerge in interactions with their primary caregiver. Aberrant interactions of dysregulation typically lead to the development of insecure or disorganized attachments. Rudimentary transference fantasies initially emerge as the child makes sense or meaning about such maladaptive interactions. Our complex minds comprise multi-determined, personally organized fantasies which include those derived from both the attachment system and the psychodynamic one. I present a clinical description of how these two transference fantasies intersect in the mental life of a patient. A clinical case is offered whose focus is on enactments, transferences, and countertransference.
Kuchuck, S. (2017). From Ghost to Ancestor: Sàndor Ferenczi’s Impact on Clinical Social Work. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 77(2), pp. 146–162.
Abstract: Beginning in the 1920s, Freudian psychoanalytic theory had a deep impact on social work practice and education and helped to professionalize clinical social work. Not as well-known was the role that Freud’s patient and colleague Sándor Ferenczi played in this evolution. Through a review of the relevant literature and primary sources—some presented here for the first time—I will explore the ways in which Ferenczi’s work directly impacted the development of clinical social work.
Bown, A. (2017). Anxious laughter: Mauron’s Renversement and Gogol’s Overcoat. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 77(3), pp. 163–176.
Abstract: Inside and outside of psychoanalysis, laughter has often been thought of as relating to anxiety, with the usual line being that laughter can be a response to anxiety or a way of dealing with it. This article argues that laughter cannot be said to eradicate or ‘deal with’ anxiety and that laughter is always unsettling precisely because it contains anxiety and indicates its continuing threat. The article discusses Freud and Lacan on anxiety, as well as Charles Mauron, an understudied writer whose Psychocritique du Genre Comique was the only sustained study of psychoanalysis and comedy until very recently. I argue here that Mauron’s idea of renversement holds a key to understanding the relationship between laughter and anxiety. Rather than using a collection of isolated examples to illustrate individual points, in the second half of the article I provide a more sustained discussion of these ideas in relation to Nicolai Gogol’s short story “The Overcoat.”
Peterson, C. A. (2017). Songs in the Countertransference or “Gilding the Philosophic Pill”. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 77(2), pp. 177–191.
Abstract: Songs that interrupt the psychoanalytic psychotherapist’s countertransference reverie are invariably relevant and potentially useful. Like any other countertransference “presence,” songs accompanying the narrative may contribute to understanding both patient and analytic process. Taking their intrusive, fecund, pesky presence one step further, song lyrics may be used as metaphor-saturated interventions, helping reach the well-defended patient. Five brief vignettes illustrate the process. Because we must learn to tolerate ordinary unhappiness, Blues music, a carrier of preconscious mythic themes (love and work), may prove especially useful, helping the patient indirectly embrace everyday wisdom, endure hard times, universalize misery, and see ourselves in the roomy mirror of metaphor.
Book Reviews:
Molofsky, M. (2017). Book Review. Deciphering the New Antisemitism, edited by Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2015, 568pp. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 77(2), pp. 192–194.
This impressive book, offering essays by 19 authors on the topic of the recent upsurge in virulent anti-Jewish hostility, is daunting, not by sheer size, which is considerable, but by the very fact of its existence, the very fact of what must be its focus the worldwide rise of a pernicious, persistent anti-Semitism. The topic of course must be explored, and is explored with painstaking scholarship, intensive scrutiny of the subject itself, commitment, eloquence, and passion…
Vijayakrishnan, A. (2017). Book Review. Would-be Wife Killer: A Clinical Study of Primitive Mental Functions, Actualised Unconscious Fantasies, Satellite States and Developmental Steps, by Vamik Volkan, Karnac Books Ltd., London, 2015, 192pp. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 77(2), pp.195–197.
Journey metaphors are widespread in descriptions of psychoanalyses but in this book the analogy is particularly fitting. The author takes us on a gripping four decade long analytic expedition; stopping briefly at various points along the way to savour key moments and taking small detours to illustrate points of theory and technique. This is the author’s third full length analytical description after What Do You Get When You Cross a Dandelion with a Rose (Volkan, 1984) and The Search for the Perfect Woman: The Story of a Complete Psychoanalysis (Volkan & Fowler, 2009). Vamik Volkan is a renowned teacher and author whose expertise in the psychoanalytic understanding of psychosis as applied to individuals and institutions are well known…
Hristeva, G. (2017). Book Review. Psychoanalysis and Literature: The Stories We Live, by Marilyn Charles, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, PA, 2015, 273pp. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 77(2), pp. 198–200.
In a letter dated 5 November 1913 the famous Swiss psychiatrist and friend of psychoanalysis Eugen Bleuler remarked to Freud, “despite your great achievements in science, psychologically you are actually an artist to me” (Schröter, 2012, p. 203, my translation). Freud’s preoccupation with science is well known, as is his infatuation with literature and art. From its very beginning psychoanalysis has been widely adopting and applying imagery from literature. In return, it has enriched literature with its own interpretations and instruments of understanding, providing literary authors with new insights and tools. Psychoanalysis and literature have had a very dynamic relationship of many fruitful exchanges which has, however, also revealed some rivalries and animosities (Hristeva, 2009)…
Freeman-Carroll, N. (2017). Book Review. Micro-trauma: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Cumulative Psychic Injury, by Margaret Crastnopol, Routledge, New York, 2015, 268pp.
American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 77(2), pp. 201–202
This valuable book deserves an audience of clinicians and interested public alike. Crastnopol applies contemporary psychoanalytic understanding of early development: the micro-analytic study of early patterns of communication between parents and infants, and assessment of attachment styles in infancy (she cites the work of Beebe & Lachmann, 2014; Tronick & Beeghly, 2011). She builds on the formulations that different styles of relating, predictive of later psychopathology, evolve in childhood, and that attention to the details of repeated interactions can yield important truths about the emotional life of an individual…
Turtz , J. (2017). Book Review. The Brain, the Mind and the Self: A Psychoanalytic Road Map, by Arnold Goldberg, Routledge, New York, 2015, 164pp. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 77(2), pp. 203–205
Arnold Goldberg’s book, The Brain, the Mind and the Self: A Psychoanalytic Road Map is innovative, philosophically grounded, and quite thought-provoking. His entry into the philosophical domain of defining and contrasting the terms mind, brain, and self is fascinating, enlightening and well worth the read. By differentiating these terms, Goldberg sees an opportunity for psychoanalysis to free itself from the constraints of psychiatry and neuroscience in order to grow and develop along its own unique path…