Psychoanalysis and its critics

Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 2019

perspective on the nature of psychoanalysis. All of these trends, called for throughout this volume, are evident today. This book is written for a psychoanalytically sophisticated audience. Some of the difficult theory (Jurist, Naso, Lichtenstein) and research (Graf and Diamond; Waldron et al.) material is unlikely to find a readership among nonanalysts, but the ideas and information the book contains must be circulated beyond analytic circles. It is important for the larger world to know that psychoanalysis has changed, and that analysts have changed. We might suggest that progress begets progress (unless it doesn't), but that at least we can mark as progress whatever makes further progress more likely. And the attitudes presented by the contributors to this book are welcoming of new theory and applications. This is a crucial message to convey to analysts and nonanalysts alike.

American Imago, 2008

In each chapter there is a discussion of practical, clinical issues. Then the authors exemplify an analytic attitude and possible interventions. This illustrates the attitude of the authors: ''According to our opinion it is the quality of the psychoanalytic space that is decisive for whether the initiated process can be called psychoanalytic' ' (p. 69). The suggested definition of the psychoanalytic space is as follows: ''The psychoanalytic space is constituted by the sum of the psychological qualities that activate, focus, enlarge and maintain the patient's transference to the therapist'' (p. 86). In the chapter about the therapist's interventions there is a short passage about interpretation of dreams. The authors clearly state that they do not give dreams a special place when listening and see the material in the same way as anything else, where the meaning and importance are decided by the actual clinical situation. Then follow two clinical examples. Part Three, 'Theory about Change' describes curative factors in a psychoanalytic tradition and in a short chapter how to validate psychoanalytic processes by the narrative of the patient and by an in-depth interview. The Epilogue ends with the following dictum: ''The narrative of life is inscribed in the form' ' (p. 233). The whole book is rooted in clinical work, the daily relation to the patient, to the analyst and the relation between them. Underteksten can be recommended for the experienced therapist who wants to be challenged by new ways of thinking about classical psychoanalytic thought as well as for the student who wants to understand and experience the spirit of psychoanalytic therapy and how long-term treatment in depth works. The book is written in nuanced and accurate language and is well supplied with a table of contents, references, name index and index. Since its publication the book has been translated into Danish and has found a place in the curriculum in different psychotherapeutic trainings.

Psychotherapy, 2013

Books about psychoanalysis tend to be either vast and indigestible or uncritically simplistic. Often they appear to emanate from an arcane pre-21st Century world in which patients luxuriate indefinitely on analyst's couches and where the notion of evidencebased practice is seen as the work of the devil. There is also the perennial theory-practice gap: psychoanalytic theories abound, but bear a tenuous relationship to what goes on in the consulting room, and what is distinctive about psychoanalysis as a therapeutic method. Jeremy Safran, a leading psychodynamic psychotherapy researcher and teacher, and former chair of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, deftly avoids these and other pitfalls in this laudable, readable, and reliable introductory text. The bulk of the book, and its accompanying DVD, is devoted to an exposition of the techniques, achievements and problems of real-life psychoanalytic therapy as exemplified by his work with "Simone" (? someone/everywoman), an African American young woman suffering from depression, bulimia, and relationship difficulties. This is buttressed before and after with a brief history of the psychoanalytic movement and consideration of its evaluation and possible future developments. Safran adopts throughout an enquiring, unpartisan, clinically oriented, social-relational perspective. He starts by locating the origins of psychoanalysis in its historical context of alienated Jewish intellectuals at the threshold of the modern world. He argues that their marginal social status gave Freud and his followers a vantage point from which to critique the dehumanized post-Enlightenment environment they encountered. This countercultural vantage point is one of the guiding threads of the book. Safran sees the reflective psychoanalytic stance as a counterpoint to the emphasis on speed, superficial goals, and fragile search for "success" that permeates Western culture, including nonpsychoanalytic therapies. He goes on to trace the evolution of psychoanalytic theorizing from the classical intrapsychic model to the relational perspective which he espouses. Outcome and process goals, no longer focused on negotiating ambivalence and drive management, are now the

Online journal available here: http://pacja.org.au/?p=2913 This edition of PACJA promises an eclectic and exciting collection of articles under the broad theme of psychoanalytic theories and therapies. What characterizes these different articles – the first three in particular – is an analysis of analysis or, in Jon Mills’ terms, an internal critique of psychoanalytic theories and therapies. This critique from within is important; it is part of the process of scholarly and clinical reflection and revision and yet, as Mills describes, it is so often fraught. While critique from outside psychoanalysis is predictably dismissive, faulting psychoanalytic concepts such as the unconscious on their lack of empirical evidence or theories such as infantile sexuality on their apparently preposterous and fantastical qualities, critique from within tends to be fractious and lead to splits within and across schools.

The Other Scene, 2013

Psychotherapy and Counselling Journal of Australia

Psychoanalysis has had a long gestation, during the course of which it has experienced multiple rebirths, leading some current authors to complain that there has been such a proliferation of theories of psychoanalysis over the past 115 years that the field has become theoretically fragmented and is in disarray (Fonagy & Target, 2003; Rangell, 2006). In this paper, Kenny surveys the past and present landscapes of psychoanalytic theorizing and clinical practice to trace the evolution of Freud’s original insights and psychoanalytic techniques to current theory and practice. First, the article sketches the evolutionary chronology of psychoanalytic theory; second, it discusses the key psychoanalytic techniques derived from clinical practice, with which psychoanalysis is most strongly identified; third, it interrogates whether Freud’s original theoretical conceptualizations and clinical practices are still recognizable in current psychoanalytic theory and practice, using four key exemplar...

Infant Observation, 2020

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 2001

Psychoanalytic Principles in Psychiatric Practice. A Remedy by Truth, 2024

In this approachable book, Mark Kinet offers a unique methodology for integrating psychoanalytic work in the psychiatric setting. Written in Kinet's trademark accessible and personable manner, Psychoanalytic Principles in Psychiatric Practice will inspire the training psychiatrist and psychotherapist, as well as the more experienced practitioner, to consider a more panoptic approach to working with patients. "This is one of the best attempts to bring Freudian psychoanalysis to the 21 st century. Kinet takes you on a personal journey through the psychoanalytic landscape, reviewing and integrating Freudian and Lacanian approaches with object relations theory, neuropsychoanalysis and attachment approaches. There is always something new to discover for the reader. Recommended for both adventurers and the more cautious within the psychoanalytic tradition." Patrick Luyten, professor KULeuven (B) and University College London (UK). "Mark Kinet can plausibly defend the unique perspective of psychoanalysis because, unlike many of his colleagues, he embraces its theoretical and clinical diversity, and he remains abreast of developments in neighbouring fields: psychiatry, psychotherapy and neuroscience.

Frenis Zero psychoanalytic journal, 2020

In this last number of our journal we published some papers sharing one common concern: in a situation in which psychoanalysis risks to suffer for a relative isolation from other psychotherapeutic approach and <<methodological links to biology, psychology and psychiatry, and, above all, lacking in sufficient empirical research to support the efficacy of psychoanalytic treatment>> (J. P. Jimenez, 2012, in "Psychoanalysis and its Borders, edited by G. Leo, p.127), we have to spread a psychoanalytic literature not solely based on hermeneutic principles, but open to confining fields of science (neuroscience, Infant Research, etc.) in order to strengthen "the evidence base of psychoanalysis" in accordance with which psychoanalysis <<should (...) develop closer links with alternative data gathering methods available in modern social and biological science>> (Fonagy et al., 1999, in Fonagy, Kaechele, Krause, Jones, Perron, "An open door review of outcome studies in psychoanalysis: Report prepared by the Research Committee of the IPA at the request of the President, University College, London, p.45).