 "I jump into a book - we take a book into our hands, and I become everybody, everywhere in every era. I become Emma Bovary - it is a very famous expression by Flaubert saying, “I am Emma Bovary, Emma Bovary c’est moi.” I become someone else in a different place, in a different time, in a different body, sometimes in a different sex. I can even become an alien, a princess, a count. Then I let go of my defenses and I delve into my existential struggles but in this transitional space of literature which is so unique because the story of the characters is our story"    Episode Description: We begin our conversation about the reading experience with Merav sharing with us her story of growing up in a family of writers. We discuss the factors within us that lead us to read and how it shares certain similarities with the clinical encounter. She considers the use we make of literature to help us make the intolerable more playfully bearable. The work of Jorge Semprun is discussed with examples given from his memoir Literature or Life. Merav shares with us her sense that the depressive position informs and allows for a more ethical engagement with the literary experience. We close with her reading the poem Eating Poetry by Mark Strand.    Our Guest: Merav Roth Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and a training and supervising psychoanalyst at the Israeli Psychoanalytic Society; She is the head of the psychoanalytic psychotherapy program, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University; and a researcher of psychoanalysis and culture (mainly literature and trauma). She is the former chair of the interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in psychoanalysis and the former founder and chair of the post-graduate Klein studies, both at the psychoanalytic psychotherapy program, Sackler School of Medicine. Together with Joshua Durban, Roth edited and wrote the Preface and introductions to the book Melanie Klein – Essential Papers II and also edited Klein's Psychoanalysis of Children and Brenman Pick's Authenticity in the Psychoanalytic Encounter. Her book Reading the Reader – a Psychoanalytic Perspective on Literature, was published by Routledge and is translated into Spanish.    Recommended Readings:   Jorge Semprun. Literature or life - Penguin, 1997.     Merav Roth. A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Reading Literature - Reading the Reader, Routledge, 2020.     Merav Roth. Mutual Witnessing between a Writer and her Readers in Etty Hillesum's Diaries, 1941 -1943 Psychoanalytic Review, 107(6), December 2020    Merav Roth (2018) True Love as the Love of Truth, Psychoanalytic Perspectives, 15:2, 186-198.    Merav Roth. Transference in the Days of Corona(IPA web) -     Etti Hillessum's book: An Interrupted Life: Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum [1941-43]  (a tremendously inspiring diary of a young woman during the Holocaust)  

Psychoanalysis On and Off the Couch

Why Do We Read Books? Literature and Psychoanalysis with Merav Roth, Ph.D.

 "The frame begins to cry - something gets broken in the analytic session. What do we do then? We interpret just based on early material, what we know about the patient, some kind of reconstruction?  Or are we facing a piece of reality that cannot be analyzed, just analyzed. It might be acknowledged that you have to face it in some way or other, and this is the similarity with what might happen when the 4th wall is disrupted."     Episode Description: We begin with an understanding of the 4th wall as it refers to the actor's stage - the removal from reality, immersion in metaphor, and the illusion of not being witnessed. Isaac describes how this informs his sense of the analytic frame which he sees as a "choreography between the internal and external worlds." We discuss the challenge of engaging patients when the dyad together faces external dangers. These moments provide an opportunity for "connectivity" to be followed by a return to metaphor. We close by discussing his personal journey from Argentina to eventually landing in the United States. We consider the similarities and differences between analysis in Buenos Aires and in New York.    Our Guest: Isaac Tylim, PsyD is on the Faculty and Clinical Consultant New York University Postdoctoral Program and is a Fellow and Training Analyst at the Institute For Psychoanalytic Training and Research. He is a former Secretary of the IPA committee in the UN, Co-Founder of the Trauma and Disaster Specialization Program at the NYU Postdoctoral Program, and is a past member of the editorial board of JAPA    He played the role of Ferenczi in a theatrical event based on the correspondence between Freud and Ferenczi- (Prague, London, Buenos Aires, New York, Philadelphia. Denver)    Recommended Readings:    The Power of Apologies in Transforming Resentment into Forgiveness, I J of Applied Psychoanal Studies, 2005. 2(3).     Living with Terror. Working with Trauma, Skyscrapers and Bones. Memorials to Lost Objects in the Culture of Desire. In D Knaffo,2004, NY: Aronson    Terrorism and the Psychoanalytic Space (co-editor) 2003, NY: Pace University  Ethical Notes on Disrupted Frames and Violated Boundaries.     Psychoanalysis in Argentina. A Couch with a View. Psychoanalytic Dialogues.1996  6 (5)        Reconsidering the Moveable Frame in Psychoanalysis. (Co-editor), 2018 London and New York: Routledge    The Fourth Wall Comes Down. Creative Responses to the Unexpected Room. 2018  NY IPTAR    The Power of Apologies in Transforming Resentment into Forgiveness I J of Applied Psychoanal Studies.2005  2(3).  

The 4th Wall and the Movable Analytic Frame with Isacc Tylim, PsyD

 “First, when we started to work online, it was exhausting. Now, I cannot say it is exhausting at the same level but it is still exhausting. You feel very tired and you miss the in-person contact. It has been more than one and a half years...I think that we will be able to think about the consequences and the impact of working in this way, and in the upcoming years we will have a lot of material.”    Episode Description: We begin with a review of our first two podcast conversations - the first being the inaugural episode and the second coming one year later at the beginning of the COVID lockdown. Now we are able to look back at what we hope is the worst of the pandemic and its impact on our lives and on analytic practice. The clinical implications for online and in-person contact will be studied for some time ahead. Virginia discusses her views on the politics of the IPA, the meaning of being the first woman president, and the importance of her being a child analyst. We close with an affirmation of her optimism for our field which is seen as more essential than ever.    Our Guest: Virginia Ungar M.D, is a Training Analyst at the Buenos Aires Psychoanalytic Association (APdeBA) where she lives and practices. She specializes in child and adolescent analysis, was the former Chair of the IPA’s Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis Committee (COCAP) and of the Committee for Integrated Training. Dr. Ungar was given the Platinum Konex Award for Psychoanalysis in 2016.  She has just completed her term as the President of the International Psychoanalytic Association, 2017-2021.  

Presidential Reflections on Psychoanalysis with Virginia Ungar, MD (Buenos Aires) 

 They forced me into this tiny little interrogation room off the big anteroom, a whole mob of policemen shouting and screaming. I thought I would perish there, that I was going to die there and then, which was exactly what they wanted me to think. Their intention was to overwhelm me with terror, and they did. But then Swanepoel’s interrogation partner, a man named Harvey Richter, produced this brick and he held it up in front of me right across my eyes and I thought, looking at its granular surface, that it would abrade my face when he hit me with it. But he didn't, he put it down in front of me and said: Stand on it.    Episode Description: John begins our journey through his past by describing his family life before his arrest and torture at the age of 21 at the hands of the South African Security Police. We learn of his family's longstanding history of opposition to political injustice. He then recounts his methods of survival during his imprisonment which included forming a 'relationship' with the brick he was forced to stand on for days and nights. He also internally relied upon his loving parents, his girlfriend, his Jewish identity, and The Sounds of Silence. He was held in solitary confinement and brutalized until his release to travel to Israel.  After establishing his life in England, John eventually began training as a psychotherapist. He describes having life-changing personal treatments including two analyses and he has become a contributor to the field especially to the world of analytic group therapy. He shares with us vignettes of patients he has worked with and how he has turned 'swords into plowshares' in his efforts at transforming his own scars into the act of healing others.    Our Guest: John Schlapobersky, BA MSc is a psychoanalytic and couple psychotherapist and a group analyst accredited by the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy. After many years in private practice at the Group Analytic Practice, he established his own Bloomsbury Psychotherapy Practice in 2009. He is also a training analyst and faculty member at the Institute of Group Analysis and an honorary research fellow at the Birkbeck College University of London. He has served as faculty at the London Centre for Psychotherapy, Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships (TCCR) and is a founding member of the British Society for Couple Psychotherapists and Counsellors. He teaches internationally on topics that include group studies, psychoanalytic and relational theory, and trauma. His commitments include programs in Australia, China, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Japan, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, the USA, and elsewhere. He was Program Chair for the Group Analytic Society Symposium in 2011: Cultures, Conflict, and Creativity. John was formerly a Consultant Psychotherapist for the Traumatic Stress Clinic, London, and The Medical Foundation for Victims of Torture which, as a founding trustee, he helped establish in 1985. It is now called Freedom From Torture, a leading human rights charity.    Recommended Readings:  Bernstein, H. (1994) The Rift: The Exile Experience of South Africans. London: Jonathan Cape. Reissued Persephone Books, Bath UK, 2020.  Pines, M. (1998) Circular Reflections: Selected Papers in Psychoanalysis and Group Analysis. Jessica Kingsley, London.  Rosenthal, N. (2014) The Gift of Adversity. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin.  Sachs, Albie. (1969) The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs. London: Sphere. Reissued Africa Book Centre, London, 1978.  Sachs, Albie (1990) The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter. Oakland: University of California Press. Reissued Souvenir Press, 2014.  Schlapobersky, J. (2016) From The Couch To The Circle: Group-Analytic Psychotherapy In Practice. Routledge, London.  Schlapobersky, John R.(2021) When They Came For Me: The Hidden Diary Of An Apartheid Prisoner. Berghan Books, Oxford and New York.  

Fifty Years On, a Survivor of Torture Reflects on his Therapeutic Practice with John Schlapobersky, BA MSc (London)

 I observe what many of the French analysts and my supervisees say [about online treatment] - they are absolutely happy by how fantastic the patients talk, they talk much easier than before, they have dreams, and they relate their dreams and even sexual fantasies which they never did before. I understand them of course because they talk to them as easily as they would talk to a taxi driver that they will never see again.     Episode Description: We begin by recalling our first conversation in March 2020 (Episode #43) at the beginning of the lockdown in Paris and the switch from in-person to online analytic treatment. We discuss the impact of the missing bodies in the office and its implications for the freedom that some patients now feel to be more open. Marilia wondered about how analysands will feel when they return to in-person treatment after revealing more online than they would have otherwise tolerated. This forced experiment in technique will hopefully shed light on what is essential in our work in contrast to what are non-essential "rules."  We also discuss her 45 years of practicing analysis, her deepened comforts in aloneness, and her view on the future of our field.    Our Guest: Marilia Aisenstein is a Training and Supervising Analyst in the Hellenic Society and the Paris Society and past president of the Paris Society. She has served as the IPA's Board representative to the Executive Committee and the past president of the International New Groups Committee. She has been the Editor and co-founder of the French Review of Psychosomatics and President of the Paris Institute of Psychosomatics.  Her most recent book translated into English is Desire, Pain, and Thought.    Episode referred to  http://ipaoffthecouch.org/2020/03/31/episode-43-a-report-from-paris-with-marilia-aisenstein/    

The Return to the Office with Marilia Aisenstein, Part II

 A decade ago I started to tell my colleagues that there is something big here in the therapeutic room and if we don’t talk about it in the room and in supervision there’s something we are missing here. We are not talking just about two people who can speak only on the humanistic level - just to be human one to the other or a good object one to the other. We have to talk about what is going on outside and how every one of us in this therapeutic dyad is coming from a threatening group to the other.     Episode Description: We begin by appreciating how ethnic affiliations have a presence in the therapeutic encounter. Whether therapist/patient cultural allegiances are manifestly similar or different, when the therapeutic space allows for exploration internal meaning can be revealed. These possibilities become fraught when the external representations of these ethnicities are at actual war. Dr. Srour describes working through his countertransference struggles which he felt was essential in coming to empathize with the internal experiences of his Jewish patients. He characterizes this as 'political countertransference' and feels that the freedom to speak of outside realities in the treatment dyad is an essential aspect of a deepening psychotherapy.    Our Guest: Dr. Roney Srour, a Palestinian-Israeli clinical and educational psychologist is married and the father of 2 sons who lives in Haifa and works as a clinical psychologist in the Israeli Ministry of Health and in private practice. Dr. Srour teaches and researches “psychodynamic psychotherapy with cultural and political competence” at the University of Haifa and is a lecturer and supervisor in two post-graduate programs of psychotherapy. He is an activist in the field of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.    Recommended Readings:  Gorkin, M. (1986). Counter-Transference in Cross-Cultural Psychotherapy: The Example of Jewish Therapist and Arab Patient. Psychiatry, 49, 69-79.      Srour, R. (2015) Transference and Countertransference Issues During Times of Violent Political Conflict: The Arab Therapist-Jewish Patient Dyad, Clinical Social Work Journal, 43(1).      Baum, N. (2011). Issues in Psychotherapy with Clients Affiliated with the Opposing Side in a Violent Political Conflict. Clinical Social Work Journal, 39, 91-100.      Altman, N. (2000). Black and White Thinking: A Psychoanalyst Reconsiders Race.  Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 10(4), 589-605.      Ghassan Kanafani, Men in the Sun Lynne Rienner Publishers 1999   

Cultural Complexity: Palestinian Therapist - Jewish Patient with Roney Srour, PhD

 "Thousands or millions of people who will never meet each other sharing certain sentiments - these sentiments have historical, cultural and linguistic backgrounds. When I started this, of course, conflicts between large groups have certain realistic aspects as you can imagine: political, personal and legal ones, but underneath those I figured out that everything is in the name of maintaining and protecting one's large group."    Episode Description: Dr. Volkan begins by describing his experience of loss and conflicted mourning as a stimulus for his life-long study of large group phenomena and its application to international diplomacy. We review his concepts of 'chosen trauma' and 'chosen glory' as they function to emotionally collapse time for large groups seeking to intergenerationally transmit a sense of collective entitlement. Dr. Volkan gives examples of how his understanding of large group phenomena has informed and impacted diplomatic negotiations. We conclude with his sharing his view of both the progress that psychoanalysis has made over the past half century and some of his concerns for its future.    Our Guest: Vamık Volkan, MD is an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, a former president of the International Society of Political Psychology, the Virginia Psychoanalytic Society, the American College of Psychoanalysts and the Emeritus President of the International Dialogue Initiative (IDI). He applied a growing theoretical and field-proven base of knowledge to issues such as ethnic tension, racism, transgenerational transmissions, leader-follower relationships, and other aspects of national and international conflict. He was a member of the International Negotiation Network (INN) under the directorship of former President Jimmy Carter (1989-2000). He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times with letters of support from 27 countries. Dr. Volkan is the author, co-author, or editor of sixty books.    Recommended Readings:  Volkan, V.D. (2006, 2019). Killing in the Name of Identity: A Study of Bloody Conflicts. Durham, NC.: Pitchstone.    Volkan, V. D. (2013). Enemies on the Couch: A Psychopolitical Journey Through War and Peace. Durham, NC: Pitchstone Publishing.    Volkan, V. D. (2015). A Nazi Legacy: A Study of Depositing, Transgenerational Transmission, Dissociation and Remembering Through Action. UK: Karnac.    Volkan, V. D. (2017). Immigrants and Refugees: Trauma, Perennial Mourning, and Border Psychology. UK: Karnac.    Volkan, V. D. (2020). Large-Group Psychology: Racism, Societal Divisions, Narcissistic Leaders and Who We Are Now. UK: Phoenix.    Volkan, V. D. (2021). Sexual Addiction and Hunger for Maternal Care: Psychoanalytic Concepts and the Art of Supervision. UK: Phoenix.  

Large Groups, Diplomacy, and Psychoanalysis with Vamik Volkan, MD

 "I was somebody who all throughout my academic career was very affected by good teachers. In fact, my becoming a psychologist – I took my first psychology undergraduate course as a junior and it had such a profound effect upon me that I stayed in college an extra year to get all the requirements to go on to a Ph.D. program. There have been certain teachers that I’ve had that have really inspired me and changed my life."     Episode Description: We begin by discussing the origins of the book Dear Candidate which consists of 42 letters written by senior analysts from around the world to candidates in training. Notable is the enthusiasm, wisdom, affection, and encouragement that the older generation conveys to the future generation of psychoanalysts. Fred and I each read to each other favorite paragraphs from selected letters that emphasize valuing international input into one's clinical thinking; tolerating uncertainty; recognizing one's place in the social/political arena; addressing the literal and fantasy-driven physicality of the work, and acknowledging all that it means to be an aging analyst. Fred shares with us his own journey of learning and the importance to him of having had teachers who made a difference in his life.    Our Guest: Fred Busch, Ph.D. is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. Dr. Busch has published over 70 articles in the psychoanalytic literature, and five books, primarily on the method and theory of treatment. His work has been translated into ten languages, and he has been invited to present over 160 papers and clinical workshops nationally and internationally. His last three books were: Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind; The Analyst's Reveries: Explorations in Bion's Enigmatic Concept; and Dear Candidate: Analyst from Around the World Offer Personal Reflections on Psychoanalytic Training, Education, and the Profession. All published by Routledge.       Recommended Readings:  Busch, F. (2013). Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind: A psychoanalytic method and theory. Routledge: London    Busch, F. (2019). The Analyst's Reveries: Explorations in Bion's Enigmatic Concept. Routledge: London.    Green, A. (1974). Surface Analysis, Deep Analysis (The Role of the Preconscious in Psychoanalytical Technique). Int. Rev. Psycho-Anal., 1:415-423.    Gray, P. (1982). "Developmental Lag" in the Evolution of Technique for Psychoanalysis of Neurotic Conflict. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 30:621-655.    SEARL, M. N. 1936 Some Queries on Principles of Technique Int. J. Psychoanal. 17:471-493  

Wisdom and Enthusiasm for Today's Candidates with Fred Busch, PhD

"She [his mother] felt that his kicking was deliberate evil and she responded with wishes for an abortion. She also stopped breastfeeding because she felt that the sucking was so strong and aggressive that it was destroying her. Without the father as a triangulating object he had no one to contain this - every child needs a container of his aggression."   Episode Description: July 22, 2021 marks the 10-year anniversary of the murder of 77 individuals and the injuring of hundreds more by Anders Behring Breivik - the largest mass murder in Norway since World War II. This was a freely admitted act done under the guise of an extreme right-wing ideology of 'saving Europe.' We discuss the role of psychoanalytic hypothesizing in such cases given that "In psychoanalysis, the validity of an interpretation lies in the dialogue with the patient..." We consider the relative importance of individual psychopathology vs cultural ideology with special attention to what leads such an individual to cross over from imagination to action. On the cultural side, it is noted that we face a challenge in recognizing both the value of opening one's culture to new influences and also honoring the mores and history of one's traditions.   Our Guest: Dr. Philos Siri Erika Gullestad is professor emeritus of clinical psychology, University of Oslo, and Training and Supervising Analyst, IPA. She is former Head of the Department of Psychology and former President of the Norwegian Psychoanalytic Association. Dr. Gullestad is the author of many articles and books in psychoanalysis. Her most recent book, with Bjørn Killingmo, is Theory and practice of psychoanalytic therapy. Listening for the subtext. Routledge, 2020. Dr. Gullestad was awarded the Sigourney Prize 2019.

A Psychoanalytic Consideration of Mass Murder - the Norway Experience with Dr. philos. Siri Erika Gullestad

 "In such moments [of shared danger] you work with the present and not the representation. In analysis we work all the time with representation - the transference is a representation, the countertransference is a representation. They are related to our past when such things happened. At these moments it’s not important if the patient goes over their Oedipus or not, if he has a good momma or a bad momma. In this moment I can say to the patient: “Wow, we are going through something both together, try to talk, I will talk and you talk, and we will see what is coming up from that."     Episode Description: The realities of the recent hostilities between Israel and Hamas challenge familiar conditions for analytic work. The threat of imminent physical danger to both parties in the dyad pervades the clinical setting at such times as it has intermittently for decades. Dr. Gampel describes years of experience integrating the facts of external forces into a treatment process that simultaneously honors internal reality as well. We discuss her work with her analytic colleagues in their study group on this topic called A Wall Falls Down as well as her 30 years of work in Gaza with her Palestinian colleagues. We close with her recounting her family's journey from Lithuania to Argentina and then to Israel.    Our Guest: Yolanda Gampel, Ph.D., Training Analyst, and past president (1989–1991) of the Israel Psychoanalytic Society; Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology and Program of Advanced Psychotherapy, Sackler Medical School, Tel-Aviv University; Invited Associate Professor, l’Université de Paris Nanterre de 1985-1987 et à l’Université Lumière II en 2001 Lyon  Dr. Gampel won the Hayman International Prize for Published Work Pertaining to Traumatized Children and Adults, 2001, and the Mary S. Sigourney Award, 2005.  Dr. Gampel's work has focused on social violence and its impact on development and on the therapeutic process. She has worked with Shoah survivors and South American and Israeli victims of trauma. She has also established a training program in dynamic psychotherapy for Palestinian psychologists in Gaza and participated in the training program organized from the summer of 1993 until 2000 through the auspicious of Tel Aviv University.    Recommended Readings:  Yolanda Gampel, The Wounded Passion: The Inner Experience of an Israeli Psychoanalyst bPs 467-477 | Published online: 22 Oct 2020, in INQUIRY: Summary: A Moment of Theoretical Focus on Passion, Faith, and Truth. Silence and Bearing Witness, the Riddle of Survival. The Background of the Unheimlich. Events in Israel and Their Effects on Psychotherapeutic Working Trough.    Yolanda Gampel, The Pain of the Social, Pages 1219-1235 | Published online: 23 Dec 2020 International Journal of Psychoanalysis    Puget, J., and L. Wender. 1982. “Analista y paciente en mundos superpuestos.” [Analyst and Patient in Overlapping Worlds]. Psicoanálisis 4: 502–503. [Google Scholar]    Puget, J., and L. Wender. 1987. “Aux Limites de l’analysabilite. Tyrannie Corporelle et Sociale.” [At the Limits of Analysability: Physical and Social Tyranny]. Revue Française de Psychanalyse 51 (3): 869–885    Janine Puget. How Difficult It is to Think About Uncertainty and Perplexity Pages 1236-1247 | Published online: 23 Dec 2020. International Journal of Psychoanalysis  

Psychoanalysis during Wartime: The Israeli Experience with Yolanda Gampel, PhD

 "A big part of my graduate education at Harvard was critical thinking. The general idea that theories come and go, even the data come and go because it’s modified as new experimental paradigms develop. So the idea of fixity. that “now we now know and it’s set in stone”, was not at all in my thinking by the time I left Graduate School if it ever had been."   Episode Description: Guest host, Dr. Joel Whitebook, interviews another elder from our field, Dr. Fred Pine. A discussion of the history of Dr. Pine's long and rich career is not only fascinating in its own right, but it also raises an important question: what combination of character traits and personal experience allows one to become an independent thinker? Dr. Whitebook also invites Dr. Pine to explain his basic theoretical approach which is both clinical and developmental. When he observes a phenomenon in an adult patient, Dr. Pine asks “what can we hypothesize about the person's development so that it would have produced the phenomenon in question?” And when he observes a developmental phenomenon, he asks the opposite question “what sort of adaptive and pathological phenomena might we expect to result from it in the person's later life?” It was through this use of a clinical/developmental approach that Dr. Pine was able to introduce many important innovations in our field.    Our Guest: Dr. Fred Pine is a Professor Emeritus in psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In 1956, he received his Ph.D. from Harvard University's Social Relations Program, where he studied with such eminent scholars as Henry Murray, Gordon Allport, Clyde Kluckhorn, and Talcott Parsons. After working for six years at the NYU Research Center for Mental Health, Dr. Pine did his psychoanalytic training at The New York Psychoanalytic Institute. In addition to his own extensive contributions to the literature, Dr. Pine was also a co-author of a psychoanalytic classic, The Psychological Birth of the Infant.    Recommended Readings:  Pine, F. (1979). On the Pathology of the Separation-Individuation Process as Manifested in Later Clinical Work: An Attempt at Delineation. Int. J. Psychoanal.  60:  226-242.    Pine, F. (1993). A Contribution to the Analysis of the Psychoanalytic Process. Psychoanal Quarterly. 62: 185-205, 1993.    Pine, F. (2004). Mahler's Concepts of "Symbiosis" and "Separation-Individuation":  Revisited, Reevaluated, Refined.  Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. 52: 511-533.    Pine, F. (2006). If I Knew Then What I Know Now:  Theme and Variations.  Psychoanalytic Psychology. 23:1-7.    Pine, F. (2011). Beyond Pluralism:  Psychoanalysis and the Workings of Mind. Psychoanalytic Quarterly. 80: 823-856.    Pine, F. (2005). Theories of Motivation in Psychoanalysis. In: A Textbook of  Psychoanalysis. Eds.  Person, E. S., Cooper, A., and Gabbard, G. Washington, D.C.:American Psychiatric Assoc. Press, pp. 3-19.    Pine, F. (1998) Chapter 5. The ego in the session. In: Diversity and Direction in Psychoanalytic Technique. New Haven:  Yale Univ. Press    

An Independent Thinker: Joel Whitebook Interviews Fred Pine

"In the group that I co-chair on the Aging Analyst we’ve talked a lot about what difference it makes having practiced a long time. One of the ideas that emerged is not only that this varies from person to person, but that there is a lot more freedom to use some different approaches, less rigid, less specifically theory focused. The role of life experience certainly changes what you hear and how you hear it."   Episode Description: We discuss how practicing analysis for many decades impacts one's approach to the work. Dr. Notman has focused her career on women's psychology, especially as it relates to body image and reproduction. She has also worked at the interface between psychoanalysis and psychiatry. A leitmotif of her analytic thinking is the importance of listening to the patient's felt experience — not theory and not what you think they should be saying. We discuss the impact on one's work of living through history and cultural movements, from anti-Semitism to feminism to racism, and how this informs one's attunement to the experience of otherness that is both universal and particular. We close with some thoughts on the importance of organized psychoanalysis widening its tent while also maintaining what is unique to becoming a psychoanalyst.   Our Guest: Malkah Notman, MD is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (BPSI) and has been practicing for over 50 years. She is a Professor at Harvard Medical School and on the faculty of Cambridge Health Alliance. She is co-chair of the BPSI committee on the Aging Analyst where they have been exploring the impact of age on changes in one's work and also on working with older patients.   Recommended Readings: Settlage, C. Transcending Old Age. IJP 1996, 77, part 3, pp 549-564   Notman, M. Reflections on Widowhood and its Effects on the Self, Psychodynamic Psychiatry. 2014, vol 42, pp 65-88   Orgel, S.A. Patient Returns. JAPA ,2013:61, pp935-946

The Elder Analyst with Malkah Notman, MD

 "I started to notice that the very things that I was seeing in patients on the couch were occurring at a much greater macro level in society - the issues of disavowal, of exceptionalism, of abandoning reality if it means that you have to give something up. That is why I got so interested in the subject as an analyst because I thought: We have something to say about what is happening in the world."     Episode Description: We discuss the differing states of mind with which the climate crisis is currently being viewed. One assumption is built on exceptionalism with its characteristic omnipotence of thought, idealization, and denial of separateness. The other is object-related with its recognition of fragility, mourning, and the potential for joy.  We consider the implications of applying insights from the couch to the culture. We appreciate the importance of 'lively entitlement' as contrasted with its narcissistic version and how that liveliness invigorates so many of our passions. We review case material, the recognition of both manifest and latent levels of meaning, and the role of 'therapeutic activism'. We conclude with learning a bit about Sally's early years and its role in her current dedication.    Our Guest: Sally Weintrobe, BScHons, Chartered Clin. Psychol., a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytic Society, and chair of the International Psychoanalytic Association's Climate Committee. Formerly she was a member of senior staff at the Tavistock Clinic, Hon Senior Lecturer at the Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London and she Chaired the Scientific Committee of the British Psychoanalytic Society. Her published areas of interest are entitlement attitudes and their relationship to grievance and complaint, prejudice, our relationship to nature and psychoanalytic reflections on the climate crisis. She is one of the 31 Global Commissioners from different disciplines for the (2021) Cambridge Sustainability Report. She edited and contributed to (2012) Engaging with Climate Change: Psychoanalytic and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, New Library of Psychoanalysis.  Her new book is (2021) Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis: Neoliberal Exceptionalism and the Culture of Uncare, published by Bloomsbury.      Recommended Readings:  Psychoanalytic and Psychosocial Perspectives on the Climate Crisis. Hoggett, P. (2012).   Climate Change in a Perverse Culture. In S. Weintrobe (Ed.), Engaging with Climate Change: Psychoanalytic and Interdisciplinary Perspectives. London: New Library of Psychoanalysis and Routledge.    Orange, D. (2017). Climate Change, Psychoanalysis and Radical Ethics. Oxford: Routledge.    Randall, R. (2012). Great Expectations: The Psychodynamics of Ecological Debt. In S. Weintrobe (Ed.). op cit.    Searles, H. F. (1972). Unconscious Processes in Relation to the Environmental Crisis. Psychoanal. Rev., 59 (3): 361–74.    General Background to the Climate Crisis. Higgins, P. (2015). Eradicating Ecocide. London: Shepheard Walwyn.    Klein, N. (2019). On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal. London: Penguin.    Nixon, R. (2011). Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.    Raworth, K. (2017). Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist. London: Penguin.    Thunberg, G. (2019). No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference. London: Penguin.  Wallace-Wells, D. (2019). The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future. London: Penguin.    

Repairing the Other - Our Planet with Sally Weintrobe

"It’s very exhilarating to have shared an in-depth experience with another person the way you do as an analyst. You know the inner workings of people’s struggles, of their strengths, and of the things they overcome. We’re granted such a privilege to be part of someone’s’ world and to be able to help them get more freedom and more pleasure in that world, and when it works well, the patients are really exhilarated in the end."     Episode Description: Dr. Kantrowitz discovered many facets of the analytic process, termination period, and post-analytic time that challenge assumptions under which the field has been operating. She derived these conclusions from detailed interviews with 82 individuals who had completed their analyses. We review the common post analysis intrapsychic processes that former analysands face and recognize that neither certainties nor formulas do justice to the authenticity and variety of their experiences. We discuss the multiplicity of affects that accompany endings and review the delicacy of negotiating the closeness and distance that the two individuals may face in post-analytic contacts. We conclude with Dr. Kantrowitz sharing some of the personal meanings that her interest in termination has had for her.   Our Guest: “Hard to believe; I have been doing psychoanalysis for almost 50 years. I began my training at a time when psychologists were not permitted to analyze patients except for research purposes. If not for this requirement, I wonder whether I would ever have begun a research project since my interest was only in being a clinician — and it is true to this day. Since my early progressive education taught me to question authority, it was always hard for me to just accept what we were taught. My research has been in investigating issues that made no sense to me: the ability to predict who is analyzable in advance; psychoanalysis as a one-person enterprise; countertransference as inevitably pathology rather than informative; how we preserve confidentiality in writing about patients; there being only one way of terminating a psychoanalysis. My interest has always been in character. I have always been a reader of novels, wanted to be a writer originally but lacked that imaginative ark. I've been lucky to find a way to integrate my love of character and writing in my professional work. I have written four books: The Patient's Impact on the Analyst (1996); Writing about Patients: responsibilities, risks, and ramifications (2006); Myths of Termination: What patients can teach analyst about endings (2014) and The Role of Patient - Analyst Match in the Process and Outcome of Psychoanalysis (2020) as well as over 40 papers. Over the years my writing has become more and more purely clinical, and I have felt increasingly able to be more personal, hopefully without being inappropriate, in what I write. I love to supervise, to teach, to mentor and have been fortunate to have ample opportunity to do all of that as a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute as well as working with many other analysts in other states.  Psychoanalysis has also provided me with a world of colleagues many of whom have become close friends. My hope is that I have helped to convey and provide for others some of the richness and joy that psychoanalysis has brought to my life.   Recommended Readings: Kantrowitz, J.L. (2015). Myths of Termination: What Patients Can Teach Psychoanalysts About Endings. Routledge, London   Kantrowitz, J.L. Reflections on Mortality: A Patient Faces Death. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Assn.2017: 65:673-686   Kantrowitz, J.L. A Psychoanalytic Memoir: The Analyst, Enabled and Disabled by What's Persona. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Assn,2020.:68 83-100.  

Thoughts about Termination with Judy Kantrowitz, PhD

"The workbook contextualizes the child in his or her network. The idea being that the more the child has a supportive network and that they can use this network, the more they will be able to face the aspects of COVID-19. So it’s not only the illness and having people in the family who are ill or might have died, but also the other impacts of COVID-19 which is to livelihood."   Episode Description: We begin by describing the challenges to making mental health resources available to children in a materially impoverished community in South Africa. Ms. Davids organized a team and built upon the work done by Dr. Gilbert Kliman who had created a workbook for American children to aid in processing the difficult emotional circumstances of living under COVID. She and her South African colleagues modified this workbook to meet the cultural characteristics of the local community. We discuss the format and content of the workbook and its success in aiding the children in representing their individual voices as well as their place in the collective chorus. We close with her sharing her family history of community outreach in South Africa.   Our Guest: Jennifer Davids M.Sc. Clinical Psychology (U.C.T) is a child, adolescent and adult psychoanalyst, a member of the teaching staff at BPAS, a supervising analyst for child and adolescent psychoanalysis at the British Psychoanalytical Society in London as well as the Director, Africa Projects, at the Children's Psychological Health Center in San Francisco, California.   Workbook: http://www.sdu.uct.ac.za/sdu/publications/books   Email: kapjen@btinternet.com   Recommended Readings: Eagle, G. and Kaminer, D. 2013 Continuous traumatic stress: Expanding the Lexicon of Traumatic Stress.Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 19,2,85-99.   Marans, S., Smaller, M., Twemlow, S. and Oppenheim, L. 2014 Round Table: Being A socially Active Psychoanalyst in the 21st Century. Journal of Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy 13,4, 283 -297.   Straker, G. & the Sanctuaries Counselling Team. 1987 The Continuous Traumatic Stress Syndrome: The single therapeutic interview Psychology in Society, 8, 48-78.   Holinger, P.C., Spira, N., Barrett, D. and Barrett, T.F. 2020 Psychoanalysis and public health: Potential for integration? International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies 17:39-48.

A Psychoanalytic COVID Workbook for Children in South Africa with Jennifer Davids, M.Sc.

Psychoanalysis applied outside the office.

hubhopper

Psychoanalysis On and Off the Couch

hubhopper