Gratitude, freedom and refusal.

This paper is an exploration of gratitude as a fundamental concept in psychoanalysis. Melanie Klein's classic article "Envy and Gratitude" (1957) named gratitude at one pole on an axis of human suffering and flourishing, but with a few notable exceptions, the article stimulated research into envy. This paper explores the historical and philosophical traditions that have, to some extent unconsciously, influenced our contemporary understandings of gratitude. The paper also works to explore the social and ethical meanings of gratitude as well as gratitude's psychoanalytic significance. The aim is to uncover the overall psychic significance of gratitude and its place in human flourishing.

America's Lacan AprÈs Coup.

Lacan's effect in America was dramatic but limited following his 1975 visit. His polemic with ego psychology in Écrits radically changed the way literary critics, notably feminist critics, thought about psychoanalysis, while in those same years-the 1970s and 1980s-American psychoanalysts, taken up with their own reactions to ego psychology, paid him little attention. Yet après coup, looking back at that period, Lacan can be counted among those who contributed importantly to a major shift in our conception of psychoanalytic process: our contemporary sense of acts of reading-including clinical listening-as acts in themselves, rather than as steps toward the interpretive determination of hidden meaning. In acts of reading inspired by Lacan, feminist critics helped free Freud's theory of disavowal from its origins in the male anxieties of the castration complex. Speaking as the disavowed "others" of psychoanalysis, Lacan's feminist readers also went beyond him in moving psychoanalysis toward acknowledgment of questions of social and historical reality, including its own. Regarding this evolution, it can be speculated that hidden behind the bitterness of the split in the 1950s and 1960s between Lacan and the once European, now American ego psychologists can be found an unconscious agreement. On both sides of the Atlantic, psychoanalysis had had its reasons, if different reasons, to disavow for years the ways it was implicated in the unspeakable trauma of recent European history.

El carácter científico del psicoanálisis: una reconsideración de la argumentación de Freud / The scientific character of psychoanalysis: a reconsideration of Freud's line of argument

La discusión respecto al carácter científico del psicoanálisis es continuada y multifacética. En la actualidad, la extensión y variedad de aspectos implicados es aún mayor. En este contexto el presente trabajo plantea una reconsideración de la línea de argumentación de Freud respecto al carácter científico del psicoanálisis. Frente a una visión bastante difundida que concibe la perspectiva científica de Freud como un reflejo del positivismo, el presente trabajo, apoyándose en líneas de investigación recientes, propone la reconsideración de dicha perspectiva de modo más matizado y sostiene que se basa en una argumentación mantenida a través de toda su obra. (AU)

The discussion on the scientific character of psychoanalysis is continuous and multifaceted. Currently the extent and variety of the implied aspects in it has even increased. In this context this article presents a reconsideration of Freud's line of argument regarding the scientific character of psychoanalysis. Against a quite spread view that conceives Freud's scientific perspective as a reflex of positivism, this article, sustained by recent research on Freud, proposes the reconsideration of Freud's perspective in a more exhaustive way and holds that it is based on a line of argument maintained through all his work. (AU)

CULTURAL HISTORY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS IN THE AGE OF NEUROSCIENCE.

In this paper I have chosen the topic of psychoanalysis in the age of neuroscience, with the aim of showing why the cultural history of psychoanalysis still matters. To make myself better understood I shall refrain from evaluating the current findings in neuroscience and limit myself to reporting briefly on them. Although I do not regard myself by any means as an expert in that field, I may be permitted to offer a few ideas about it. In this regard, there is presently a significant predominance of biological ideologies and practices regarding the treatment of mental illness, which implies an increase in the interest in etiology, nosology, definitions, and the effectivity of treatments. Even so, those psychoanalytic historians and/or analysts among us who are committed to psychoanalysis and its therapeutic implications, irrespective of what drugs might be prescribed and what the research findings might conclude, believe that patients still want to be listened to in depth and always will. For that reason, it is justified to ask why the cultural history of psychoanalysis still matters in a contemporary mental health environment that is ever more oriented towards the neurosciences.

Interpreting Interpretation.

Interpretation of the latent meaning of manifest content is the core of the traditional approach to psychoanalytic treatment. The main purpose of such interpretation is to enhance the patient's self-knowledge, in particular his or her awareness of unconscious wishes and their embeddedness in inner conflicts. An assumption of classical psychoanalysis is that veridical interpretations-as Freud put it, interpretations that tally with what is real in the patient-will be especially effective therapeutically. These basic assumptions have been called into question, as reflected in such concepts as "narrative truth" and the overriding importance of the patient's "assured conviction" regarding interpretations. Also called into question is the therapeutic value of "deep" interpretations intended to uncover repressed impulses. To an important extent, these have been replaced by interpretations of defensive processes just below the surface of consciousness, and interpretations that make connections among different experiences, both of which are intended to help the patient understand how his or her mind works. There is also an increased emphasis on nonsemantic aspects of interpretation, as well as some degree of skepticism toward the therapeutic value of interpretation itself, along with an increased emphasis on the implicit interpretive aspects of the therapeutic relationship. Finally, representative research is presented on the relation between transference interpretation and therapeutic outcome.

Neiko-erotic: contemporary erotic literature in the light of Freudian psychoanalysis / Neiko-erótica: a literatura erótica contemporânea à luz da psicanálise freudiana

RESUMO: Este texto objetiva apresentar uma leitura da literatura erótica contemporânea a partir da teoria psicanalítica de Sigmund Freud. Percorrendo a história da escrita feminina e da literatura erótica, verifica-se o surgimento da chamada literatura erótica contemporânea. Entre as características desse gênero, destaca-se o cenário das tramas eróticas que torna central um eixo sombrio no qual gravita a sexualidade das personagens que, à luz da teoria freudiana, pode ser lida como um caráter disruptivo, característica fundamental das relações amorosas. Nesse viés, para que a erótica se valha como tal, torna-se necessária a presença de um traço discordante que nomeamos de neiko-erótico.

ABSTRACT: This text aims to present a reading of contemporary erotic literature based on Freud's psychoanalytic theory. Going through the history of women's writing and erotic literature, we can see the emergence of the so-called contemporary erotic literature. Among the characteristics of this genre, the setting of erotic plots stands out, which makes central a dark axis in which the sexuality of the characters gravitates which, in the light of Freudian theory, can be read as the disruptive character, a fundamental characteristic of love relationships. In this bias, for eroticism to be valid as such, the presence of a discordant trait that we call neiko-erotic is necessary.

Georges Perec's Zeit-Raum: Creating a Space of Remembrance.

Georges Perec's memoir of his analysis, "The Scene of a Stratagem" (1977), is part of a literary oeuvre characterized by innovative forms addressing the paradoxical task of telling a story that cannot be told. His life history was constructed from memory traces, veiled behind the untimely death of his parents in World War II. The memoir tells the story of his analysis in adulthood with Jean-Bertrand Pontalis, at a time when Perec was struggling with depression and writer's block. Beneath doubts and the tedious analytic routine, Perec presents analysis as a space in which memory traces can be given new life. The historical past takes place in a space Walter Benjamin calls time-space (Zeit-raum), or time-dream (Zeit-traum). This space is created in a flash of co-incidence between dreaming and waking. History, then, is created in a space where archived memory traces are transformed into present experience. Perec creates a kind of Benjaminian dream-space of the past to deal with the fragmentation of memory that follows traumatic loss. The significance of this distinct space is discussed in relation to the challenge of representing traumatic experiences while remaining faithful to the dreamlike and fragmented nature of the space.

Theories and practices of psychoanalysis in central Europe immediately after World War II.

Shortly after World War II, psychoanalytic societies in Central Europe were gradually resuming their pre-war activities. Starting in 1945, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland saw the revival of their psychoanalytic circles which subsequently engaged in psychoanalytic knowledge transmission, especially in the face of the Communist state institutions' growing disapproval of psychoanalysis. This article traces the history of the psychoanalytic movement's rebirth in Central Europe. The author discusses the activities of Viennese, Budapestian, Praguian and Varsovian circles post-1945 in order to examine the practices of collective thinking and identify diverse models of the transmission of Freudianism. The attempt to explore the complex mechanisms of psychoanalytic knowledge dissemination in the immediate post-war period, both in its theoretical and practical dimensions, can contribute to a more profound understanding of the history of psychoanalysis in Central Europe after 1945. It also points to the significance of a more inquisitive approach to the internal dynamics of these intellectual circles which were forced to develop outside of state academic institutions due to socio-political reasons.

"Day's Residues": One Vertex Among Many.

The post-Bionian paradigm in psychoanalysis invites us to listen to the session as a waking-dream-thought where unconscious-thinking-in progress is continuous. The hypothesis put forward here and illustrated using clinical material is that we can use the notion of day's residues as a metaphor to refer to the incoming narrative of the patient. Whatever the patient brings to the session can be conceived as "day's residues" in that they are potential instigators of waking-dream-thought in the session. This metaphor helps the analyst place brackets around the outside of the session, deconcretizing what apparently are hard facts, so that immediate contact is made to create a shared perspective, possibly producing in this session "food" for the mind. To create the waking-dream-thought of the session, the analyst may consider listening to the incoming narrative as a metaphor. This is not a new or different concept but a particular kind of elaboration on the metaphoric stance taken by psychoanalysts of all stripes; it is an elaboration that expands the ways we can describe the session and narrow the gap between talking about the session and the experience of the session itself.

A agressividade na etapa inicial da teoria freudiana / Aggressiveness in the early stage of Freudian theory / La agresividad en la etapa inicial de la teoría freudiana

Ao longo de sua teoria, Freud procurou compreender e explicar as manifestações agressivas e hostis do ser humano. Podemos dividir essas explicações em três fases. Na primeira, do início de seus escritos até 1913, é enfatizada a ligação entre as manifestações agressivas e as pulsões sexuais. Na segunda, de 1914 até os textos que precedem Além do princípio do prazer (1920), ganha ênfase a abordagem das manifestações agressivas decorrentes das pulsões do Eu. Na terceira, a partir de 1920 até o final de sua obra, as manifestações agressivas passam a ser pensadas, sobretudo, como derivadas da pulsão de morte. Neste artigo, concentramos nossa atenção na primeira fase da teorização de Freud sobre agressividade, com o objetivo de descrever e analisar como o autor concebeu as manifestações agressivas nesse período. A maioria das publicações sobre a agressividade na obra freudiana abordam as ideias apresentadas pelo autor a partir de 1920, de forma que permanece ainda pouco elucidada sua concepção prévia sobre o tema, o que justifica o presente trabalho.

Throughout his theory, Freud sought to understand and explain the human being's aggressive and hostile manifestations. We can divide these explanations into three phases. In the first one, from the beginning of his writings until 1913, the link between aggressive manifestations and sexual instincts is emphasized. In the second phase, from 1914 to the texts that precede "Beyond the pleasure principle" (1920), the aggressive manifestations arising from the ego-instincts are emphasized. In the third phase, from 1920 until the end of Freud's work, aggressive manifestations are thought, above all, as derived from the death instinct. In this article, we focus our attention on the first phase of Freud's theorization on aggressiveness, discussing how the author conceived aggressive manifestations in this period. Most publications on aggressiveness in Freud's work address the author's ideas since 1920, so his previous conception on the subject remains unclear, which justifies the present work.

A lo largo de su teoría, Freud intentó comprender y explicar las manifestaciones agresivas y hostiles del ser humano. Podemos dividir estas explicaciones en tres fases. En la primera, desde el inicio de sus escritos hasta 1913, se enfatiza el vínculo entre las manifestaciones agresivas y las pulsiones sexuales. En la segunda, desde 1914 hasta los textos precedentes a Más allá del principio de placer (1920), se enfatiza el abordaje de las manifestaciones agresivas derivadas de las pulsiones del Yo. En la tercera fase, desde 1920 hasta el final de su obra, las manifestaciones agresivas pasan a ser pensadas, sobre todo, como derivadas de la pulsión de muerte. En este artículo, centramos nuestra atención en la primera fase de la teorización de Freud sobre la agresividad, con el objetivo de describir y analizar cómo el autor concibe las manifestaciones agresivas en este período. La mayoría de las publicaciones sobre la agresividad en la obra freudiana abordan las ideas presentadas por el autor a partir de 1920, por lo que su concepción previa sobre el tema permanece poco trabajada, lo que justifica el presente estudio.

The Extremes of Contemporary Violence: From a State of Paralysis to the Transformation of Trauma.

Psychoanalysis is today faced, clinically and conceptually, with extremes of violence and forced exile, creating a need to rethink clinical work with patients whose life has been marked by disaster. In work with foreign patients, difficulty in speaking about trauma is sometimes attributed to a linguistic barrier; however, the experience of terror can in any situation whatever be expressed only with difficulty. Cultural differences must not be ignored, but the clinician must find a way to facilitate speech in a subject experiencing a state of dread. Speaking cannot be forced. Offering a presence in which the analyst accepts being the recipient of what is unbearable and recognizes the subject's current state of chaos is essential in establishing or mobilizing transference in work with patients subject to unlinking. This can initiate a transformation of the trauma, as is shown in two clinical vignettes of refugee patients in France who were victims of terror in their countries of origin. The approach discussed here differs from the earlier ethnopsychiatric method, which would reduce these others to exotic envelopes of their culture, independent of their subjectivity.

How does reading (dis)locate space? Reading "The Call of the Woods" ("La voix du bois") by Pierre Bergounioux.

On the threshold between loss and its representation: masochism as a defence against the risk of depression. This article explores defensive modes of masochism based through the case study of Sarah, a 25-year-old patient who is regularly followed in psychoanalytical therapy. I will postulate the idea that fetishization of moral masochism should be seen from the perspective of melancholic processes. Drawing on several moments of her therapy, I will illustrate how the primitive idealization of the introjected and denigrated object in the melancholic process lays the conditions for a decisive moral masochism, and whose unconscious idealization defends against depressive breakdown.

Drive theory, redux: a history and reconsideration of the drives.

A large and significant portion of contemporary psychoanalytic theory has given up on the drives. The shift toward object relations in the 1940s and 50s, the scepticism about metapsychology in the latter half of the twentieth century, and a general confusion about the coherence of Freud's drive theory have all contributed to their slow decline in prominence. There are legitimate criticisms of the drives that deserve attention but the drives themselves require a careful examination before any successful defence of their place in the metapsychology may be mounted. The current paper provides an account of the drives informed by the intellectual history of German and English thought related to the drives and instincts as they came to Freud. This history allows us to clearly distinguish between "drive" (or Trieb) and its conceptual neighbour "instinct" (or Instinkt).

"Are we dead?": time in H. D.'s dialogue with Freud.

This paper presents H. D.'s dialogue with Freud on the theme of time and timelessness. Freud presented a conception of time that varied in accordance with the various levels of consciousness. But while linear time is presented in Freud's writing as an essential part of development and mourning, timelessness has not been fully developed as such. A discussion of Freud's conception of time is followed by a reading of H. D.'s memoir Tribute to Freud. H. D. offers a series of reminiscences of different periods in her life, with an emphasis on her analysis and on Freud. The reading of the memoir presents an intense and stimulating narrative of the encounter with Freud at the time of analysis and in après-coup. This translation revolves around timelessness as a path into a realm of imagination and fantasy, not sufficiently acknowledged by Freud as such, yet crucial to H. D.'s quest for an innovative poetic voice. The significance and elusiveness of timelessness is discussed using ideas from André Green and Walter Benjamin.

Revision of Drive Theory.

Several deep revisions of Freud's theory of the drives are proposed: (1) Drives are conscious and are in fact the source of all consciousness. (2) Drive energy is equated with variational free energy and is therefore quantifiable in principle. (3) There are not two drives but many, seven of which may be described as "emotional" as opposed to "bodily" drives. (4) All drives are self-preservative or preservative of the species; there is no death drive at work in the mind. This means, at the mechanistic level, that all drives are homeostatic and anti-entropic. (5) The great task of mental development is to supplement instinctual predictions about how our multiple drive demands may be met and reconciled with each other. This work is done by learning from experience, mainly through voluntary behavior, which is governed by conscious feelings.

Mirror, Mirror: Freud and the Reversible Self-Object Dyad.

Freud is often negatively contrasted with object relations and relational theorists for holding to a metapsychology in which drives are understood as innate and predetermined in their development, are thought to follow the pleasure principle in a "hydraulic" manner, and are not seen as influenced by real objects. While that theory is certainly one dimension of Freud's thinking, it is paralleled by another, quite different model positing a "mirror" relation in which affectively charged reversible self-object dyads, as opposed to purely internal dynamics, are the constituent elements of mental life. This view, more compatible with theories placing greater emphasis on the constitutive role of self-object relations, may further the reconciliation of Freudian and object-relational theories.

What Use is Freud?

More than a hundred years into our field's development, examining Freud's place in psychoanalytic education is timely. What authority does he hold for psychoanalysts in 2021? Is he still the architect, or overseer, of psychoanalysis? Freud has been a metonym for psychoanalysis, yet the history of Freud's identification with the totality of psychoanalysis has had important unfortunate consequences. Negative aspects of this identification subtly linger, interfering in our collective appreciation of post-Freudian theoretical innovations. Too much of psychoanalysis has been "bought at the company store" of Freud's ideas. Though part of this problem is created by idealizations of Freud, much of it stems from Freud's precocious emphasis on psychoanalytic findings within his tripartite definition of psychoanalysis. As a result, many of his theoretical accounts were taken prematurely as definitive building blocks for a comprehensive psychoanalytic theory, when in fact they were only provisional formulations. Presently, portions of Freud's theories are silently withering on the psychoanalytic vine. Data from the PEP-Web archive reveal the declining use of a set of once important, closely linked conceptions-Freud's psychosexual theory and his characterology-and illustrate the kinds of Freudian ideas that have lost their usefulness. The indispensable and enduring elements in his work are identified.

Return of the Repressed: Revisiting Dissociation and the Psychoanalysis of the Traumatized Mind.

Psychoanalytic treatment is often indicated when trauma and its psyche/soma companion, dissociation, severely disrupt symbolic functioning and associative linking. After Freud's initial thinking on these matters, repression replaced rather than supplemented dissociation (which occasions segregating units of experience) as the primary defensive response to severe trauma. Because psychoanalysis had "repressed" the salience of dissociation as actively motivated (though passively experienced), an unnecessary schism has occurred between trauma theories and mainstream North American psychoanalysis, and within psychoanalysis itself. To fully restore dissociation's role in primitive mental states and provide a more integrated approach to technique, it is necessary to comprehend the triadic nature of trauma, which entails economic/drive, structural conflict and deficit, and object-relational factors. For a treatment model that addresses defensive dissociation in the here and now, primary and secondary dissociation must be distinguished, with each differentiated from splitting and repression. Technique requires addressing unconscious, repressed fantasies associated with the "trauma," object-relational patterns that interfere with linking, and psycho-economic issues that have disrupted ego functioning. A clinical example illustrates both the analyst's persistence in suffering the dead, eerie space of dissociated trauma and efforts to find language that helps structure the patient's somatic and enacted expressions (and accompanying dissociative and repressive processes) by which traumatic experiences are registered and conveyed.

Diferenças / Differences / Diferencias / Différences

Esta apresentação - não apresentada, por causa da irrupção da atual pandemia - pretende resgatar a inquietação que está na origem da teoria dos campos: a de que as distintas escolas de psicanálise talvez possuam uma função terapêutica comum. Para isso, esboça um estudo sobre a noção de diferença.

This presentation - not presented, due to the outbreak of the current pandemic - aims to rescue the suspicion that is at the origin of the Multiple Fields Theory: that the different schools of psychoanalysis may have a common therapeutic function. For that, it outlines a study on the notion of difference.

Esta presentación, no presentada debido al brote de la pandemia actual, tiene la intención de rescatar la inquietud que es el origen de la Teoría de los Campos: que las diferentes escuelas de psicoanálisis pueden tener una función terapéutica común. Para eso, delinea un estudio sobre la noción de diferencia.

Cet exposé - dont l'exposition est empêchée par la pandémie actuelle - compte récupérer la préoccupation qui est à l'origine de la Théorie des Champs: celle selon laquelle les différentes écoles de psychanalyse peuvent avoir une fonction thérapeutique en commun. Pour cela, on élabore une étude sur la notion de différence.

Scientific thinking styles: The different ways of thinking in psychoanalytic case studies.

Historian and philosopher John Forrester argues that psychoanalysis is characterized by a style of scientific thinking and reasoning that he coins "thinking in cases". Since Freud, case studies have been used as a medium for sharing, demonstrating, discovering, expanding, consolidating and "thinking" psychoanalytic knowledge. In this paper, we seek to clarify and enrich Forrester's idea of thinking in cases. We first attend to issues around the lack of definition for thinking styles, and we propose a more detailed description for what might constitute a scientific thinking style. Second, we outline how thinking in cases differs from other kinds of thinking styles. In doing so, we argue that some of the criticisms directed at case studies are the result of a confusion between statistical and experimental thinking styles and thinking in cases. Finally, we propose that there is more than one way of thinking in cases. We distinguish between cases as exemplars for analytic generalization, cases as exemplars for analogical learning, and cases in the service of empirical generalization. By making these implicit thinking styles explicit, we seek to demonstrate the importance of case studies at all levels of psychoanalysis: clinical, research, training and teaching.