Abstract
Personal Encounters in Psychoanalysis
In this section we encounter personal reflections from analysts about their analytic selves. We all have yearned for a glimpse of the inner workings of the mind of the analyst, both within and beyond the walls of the consulting room. How do analysts determine what to say, what to interpret, when to wait tactfully, when to sally forth? How do they cope with their own feelings of loneliness, disappointment, pleasure, anger, and pain? In her review of Robert Winer and Kerry Malawista’s Who’s Behind the Couch, a collection of personal and often intimate interviews—of psychoanalysts, by psychoanalysts, from around the globe—Aisha Abbasi shares her marvel and delight in being able to engage, as a reader, in a compelling and thought-provoking set of conversations. In many of the interviews, Abbasi discovers gems that illuminate something in a new way or bring important questions to mind. Her review brings the reader into dialogue with the analysts interviewed and with the editors who assembled the book. In these pages, Abbasi tells us, we will be able to discover the analyst behind the couch: “The interviews collected here provide inspiring insights into how and why these analysts became the analysts they are today, and how they help their patients.” The conversations in this book are fascinating, engaging, and an important pathway to understanding—as Winer and Malawista suggest in their title—“the heart and mind of the psychoanalyst.”
Sybil Houlding’s review of Stephanie Brody’s Entering Night Country: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Loss and Resilience offers a different view of the analyst’s internal experience, this one through the lens of loss and the transience of life. Houlding offers a close reading of Brody’s intimate reflection on loss, mortality, and the art of psychoanalysis. In her volume, Brody explores the power of analytic work to create boundaries within which patient and analyst can risk a deep exploration of intimacy. Houlding describes how Brody draws on stories and myths to assess the impact of a surprising and weighty medical diagnosis on her work with patients. In reading Brody, Houlding tells us, the reader will take “an unusual journey through grief and the byways of loss through one analyst’s experience.”
Psychoanalysis and the Divine
Psychoanalytic thought deals with stories that are at once unique and universal in their capacity to inspire marvel and awe; as such, it has much in common with spiritual and religious scholarship. Paula Hamm’s review of Salman Ahktar’s Silent Virtues offers a unique and inspiring view of the intersection between psychoanalysis and spirituality. In his examination of the virtues of patience, curiosity, privacy, intimacy, humility, and dignity, Ahktar brings psychoanalytic thought to bear on a close study of these human values, each of which shares the common element of human compassion. Of Ahktar, Hamm writes, “He has the extraordinary ability to connect with deep, universal places inside of people. . . . Patience, curiosity, privacy, intimacy, humility, and dignity are core human qualities. Seen through the heart of a contemplative attitude, they are glimmers of our divine nature.”
In Jacob and Joseph, Judaism’s Architects and Birth of the Ego Ideal, Nathan Szajnberg presents an alternative to three father-son narratives prevalent in Western cultures, each of which—as reviewer Harvey Schwartz notes—is “organized around an essential violence”: the stories of Laius and Oedipus; Abraham and Isaac; and God and Christ. In contrast, Szajnberg writes, the biblical relationship between Jacob and Joseph is “infused with the capacity to transmit hopes” by nonviolent means. In an appreciative reading of Szajnberg’s text, Schwartz remarks that Jacob’s “paternal attunement” is key to the development of “a secure identity and a dependably benevolent ego ideal” in his son Joseph. Discerning Szajnberg’s “whispered considerations on masculine development,” Schwartz cites Peter Blos Sr.’s work on the “dyadic paternal phase,” describing the importance of an “early paternal buddy system.”
Integration: The Old and the New
In a climate of skepticism toward psychoanalysis, we strive to hold fast to the unique contributions we have already made, and—at the same time—to welcome progress and evolution in our thinking about a rapidly changing world. In David Cooper’s review of Steven Axelrod, Ronald Naso, and Larry Rosenberg’s Progress in Psychoanalysis: Envisioning the Future of the Profession, we are invited to reflect on the nature of progress in the field of psychoanalysis. Drawing on theory, research, and work beyond the consulting room, contributors to this volume consider how to bring psychoanalytic thinking and understanding into the contemporary world, while still adhering to the fundamental values and premises that are at the core of psychoanalytic practice. Though change can be complex and may require an uncomfortable reckoning with the past, Cooper points to a new attitude emerging within the profession as a whole: “Where once there were walls,” he writes, “now there is a welcome mat; where once there was an air of superiority, now there is a sincere curiosity and openness to what outside groups and individuals have to offer our field.” As he suggests, change is important and inevitable. Cooper implores us to let the world at large know that psychoanalysts have an important role to play in contemporary times and are committed to the pursuit of a broadening perspective.
Our next review picks up the examination of current themes in psychoanalysis from a global perspective. Contested Issues in Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice offers a view of contemporary psychoanalysis from the perspective of Rafael Paz, a prominent Argentinian psychoanalyst. In keeping with his assertion that “it is poetic reason which is pertinent to psychoanalysis,” Paz writes in a deliberately thought-provoking style; with few exceptions, each paragraph of this text comprises a single sentence. As reviewer Eddy Carrillo observes, Paz’s book “is as much about raising questions as it is about proposing answers.” Among questions Paz presents for consideration, Carrillo writes, are “What is the true domain of psychoanalysis? How does the realm of the individual interact with the social/cultural?” and “What are the pros and cons of psychoanalytic institutions and adherences?” Writing from the vantage point of South America, Paz integrates what Carrillo describes as “the classical Argentinian Freud/Klein tradition” with post-Freudian/Kleinian models. A central concern of Paz’s—influenced by his reading of post-Freudian theory—is the impingement of “an invasive society,” driven by “the rules of . . . finance capital,” that “tends to capture the most personal of appetites,” crowding inner mental spaces. As Carrillo understands it, Paz’s book identifies an important role for psychoanalysis in defending the “centrality and dignity of inner spaces.”
Psychoanalytic Tributes
Last we offer two reviews that spotlight the wisdom and impact of foundational thinkers in psychoanalysis. Reviewer David Carlson describes as “an enthusiastic, wide-ranging tribute” to Anni Bergman a volume edited by M. Hossein Etezady, Inga Blom, and Mary Davis, titled Psychoanalytic Trends in Theory and Practice: The Second Century of the Talking Cure. Most contributors to the book are child analysts, each—as Carlson observes—“profoundly moved by [Bergman’s] personal impact” on their psychoanalytic education, research, and practice. Highlights featured in Carlson’s review include a scholarly piece on “Emotional Development and Affects” (by Harold Blum, on a subject long of interest to him) and an excellent chapter on “Psychological Testing for Psychoanalysis” (by Michael Garfinkle and Sarah Lynn Richardson).
In a thoughtful appreciation of Building Bridges: Selected Psychoanalytic Papers, reviewer Martin Nass traces the evolution of Helen Gediman’s thinking over a career spanning fifty years. The book serves partly as “a journal of changes in our field,” some of which Gediman has helped us achieve. For example, Nass writes, Gediman “debunks the myth of the silent analyst who is a ‘blank screen,’ arguing instead that the analyst can attend to the relationship without losing focus on the drives.” Nass, who has elsewhere described characteristics of the creative mind, finds in Gediman’s writing a generative capacity “to allow room for contrasting points of view, moving from either/or to both/and.” Indeed, we hope that this collection of reviews will serve to stimulate creativity, wonder, fresh views, and new understandings of familiar analytic tales.
Why I Write
We close with Arnold Richards’s contribution to Why I Write, “A Childhood Dream Fulfilled.” Richards, a former Editor of JAPA, remains active as a writer and editor, and as publisher of IPBooks. Here Richards muses about his life as reader, writer, and literary champion of his fellow psychoanalyst-writers. His piece reveals how love of language, love of writing, and love of reading may form the core of a psychoanalyst’s soul.