Psychoanalytic Process
The Michigan Psychoanalytic Council
September 8-November 10, 2008

Carol Levin, M.D.

    

What is it that we analysts mean when we use the phrase “psychoanalytic process”?  How do we identify it, and what are its demands and usefulness?  How do we participate in its creation (through our “analytic attitude” and our “techniques”)?  How do we communicate hope and our trust of analytic process, and how do we help our patient to develop the shared analytic goal of expanding his/her capacity for dealing with her/his internal and external processes, i.e. to restart a derailed development.  What are the relative contributions to the transformative power of psychoanalytic process of “insight” and “experience”, of psychic reality and unconscious processes, of fitting together of both the patient and the analyst, of the analyst’s empathy, understanding, and of his/her effort to help the patient create meaning and find words for what he/she is saying/feeling/doing? 

 

In grappling with these questions, we will both read and discuss papers and chapters written by analysts from a multiplicity of theoretical perspectives and present and discuss clinical vignettes from the class participants’ analytic work.  As is traditional in courses on psychoanalytic process, we will sample the vast psychoanalytic literature on these interconnected topics of psychoanalytic process, therapeutic action, analytic listening, interpretation, insight, the third, psychic change, reconstruction, the analyst’s participation in the psychoanalytic process, as well as the use of the couch.  I am not including the foundational concepts of transference, countertransference, therapeutic alliance, enactment, impasse, resistance and self-disclosure because they were covered in my earlier Transference/Countertransference course and will be included in future MPC courses.

 

I am aware that in my enthusiasm for these topics I have included [too] many readings, and we will decide in class which of the readings for each week to focus on. I imagine that you have already read some of the papers, and we could decide that class members will summarize some for the group to make the number of pages everyone would read more manageable, or simply leave one or two out of the discussion, but I wanted you to know about all these papers.  I will also provide bibliographies of additional major papers for reference.

 

 

Abbreviations

CP Contemporary Psychoanalysis

IJP International Journal of Psychoanalysis

IRP International Review of Psychoanalysis

JAPA Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association

PD Psychoanalytic Dialogues

PI Psychoanalytic Inquiry

PP Psychoanalytic Psychology

PQ The Psychoanalytic Quarterly

PSP Progress in Self Psychology

PSC Psychoanalytic Study of the Child

 

Week 1—September 8, 2008:  The Concept of Psychoanalytic Process I

Boesky, D. (1990) The Psychoanalytic process and its components. PQ 59:550-584.

Vaughan, S. C., Spitzer, R., Davies, M. & Roose, S. (1997). The definition and assessment of analytic process: Can analysts agree? IJP 78: 959-973.

Smith, H. (2002) Creating the psychoanalytical process. IJP 83: 211-228.

Bornstein, M. (2006) Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy: getting it right at last.  Paper presented at MPC, East Lansing, September 2006.

 

Week 2—September 15, 2008:  The Concept of Psychoanalytic Process II

Loewald, H. (1979) Reflections on the psychoanalytic process and its therapeutic potential. PSC 34:155-167.

Hoffman, I. (1991) Toward a social constructivist view of the psychoanalytic situation. PD 1:74-105.

Pizer, S. (1992) The Negotiation of paradox in the analytic process. PD  2:215-240.

Bromberg, P. (1993) Shadow and substance:  a relational perspective on clinical process. PP 10:147-168.

 

Week 3—September 22, 2008: Therapeutic Action I

Strachey, J. (1934) The nature of the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis.  IJP 15: 127-159.

Loewald, H. (1960) On the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis.  IJP 41:16-33.

Hoffman, I. (1994) Dialectical thinking and therapeutic action in the psychoanalytic process. PQ  73:187-218.

Bucci, W. (2007) Dissociation from the perspective of multiple code theory, Part I.

CP 43:165-184; Part II 43:? [copy from author]

Fosshage, J. (2005). The Explicit and implicit domains in psychoanalytic change. PI 25:516-539.

          

Week 4—September 29, 2008:  Therapeutic Action II

Clyman, R.H. (1991) The Procedural organization of emotions:  a contribution from cognitive science to the psychoanalytic theory of therapeutic action.  JAPA 39(S): 349-382.

Stern, D.B. (1996). The Social construction of therapeutic action. PI 16:265-293.

Jones, E. (1997) Modes of Therapeutic Action. IJP  78:1135-1150

Stern, D, et al. (1998) Non-interpretative mechanisms in psychoanalytic therapy:  the ‘something more’ than interpretation. IJP 78: 903-921.

Gabbard, G. and Westin, D. (2003) Rethinking therapeutic action. IJP  84:823-841.

 

Week 5—October 6, 2008: Analytic Listening and the Third

Schwaber, E. (1983). Psychoanalytic listening and psychic reality. IRP 10:379-392.

Lichtenberg, J. (1999) Listening, understanding and interpreting:  reflections on complexity. IJP 80: 719-737.

Ogden, T.H. (2004) The Analytic third: implications for psychoanalytic theory and technique.  PQ 73(1): 167-195.

Ornstein, P. and Ornstein, A. (1985). Clinical understanding and explaining: the empathic vantage point. PSP 1:43-61.

 

Week 6—October 13, 2008: Interpretation and Insight

Ornstein, P. and Ornstein, A. (1980) Formulating interpretations in clinical psychoanalysis. IJP 61:203-211.

McLaughlin, J. (1988) The Analyst’s insights PQ  57:370-389.

Aron, L. (1992) Interpretation as expression on the analyst’s subjectivity. PD 2:4, pp. 475-507.

Schlesinger, H. (1995) The process of interpretation and the moment of change. JAPA 43: 663-688.

Poland, W.S. (2002). The Interpretive attitude. JAPA 50:807-826. 

 

Week 7—October 20, 2008: Neo-Kleinian Views

Joseph, B. (1983) On understanding and not understanding. IJP  64: 291-298.

Spillius, E. (1994) On formulating a clinical fact to a patient. IJP  75:1121-1132.

Ogden, T. (1994) The concept of interpretative action. PQ  73:219-245.

Feldman, M. (1997). Projective identification: the analyst's involvement. IJP 78:227-243.

 

Week 8—October 27, 2008: Reconstruction, Working Through and Psychic Change

Orstein, A. (1991). The dread to repeat: the working through process in psychoanalysis. JAPA 39:377-398.

Pulver, S. (1992). Psychic change: insight or relationship? IJP 73:199-208.

Kiersky, S., Beebe, B. (1994). Reconstruction of early nonverbal relatedness in the treatment of difficult patients. PD 4:389-408.

Kantrowitz, J. (1995) The Beneficial aspects of the patient-analyst match. IJP  76:299-213. 

 

 

Week 9—November 3, 2008: The Analyst’s Participation I

Casement, P.J. (1991) Learning from the Patient.  New York and London, The Guilford Press.  Chapter 4: Forms of Interactive Communication, pp. 64-86.

Stolorow, R. (1997). Dynamic, dyadic, intersubjective systems: an evolving paradigm for psychoanalysis. PP  14:337-346.

Fishman, G. (1999) Knowing another from a dynamic systems point of view:  the need for a multimodal concept of empathy. PQ  68:3, pp. 376-400.

Seligman, S. (2006) Paying attention and feeling puzzled:  chaos, creativity and the analyst’s effectiveness.  Presented at the IARPP Meeting, Boston.

 

Week 10—November 10, 2008: The Analyst’s Participation II

Ehrenberg, D. (1996) On the analyst’s emotional availability and vulnerability. CP 32:275-285.

Pally, R. (2001). A Primary role for nonverbal communication in psychoanalysis. PI 21:71-93.

Pally, R. (2007). The Predicting brain: unconscious repetition, conscious reflection and therapeutic change. IJP  88:861-881.

Celenza, A. (2005) Vis-à-vis the couch:  where is psychoanalysis? IJP 86-1645-1659.

Stern, D. B. (2006) Untitled paper.  Presented at the IARPP Meeting, Boston.

Bass, A. (2007) When the frame doesn’t fit the picture. PD 17:1-27.

 

Borderline, Narcissistic and other Character Disorders
The Michigan Psychoanalytic Council

September 8-December 15, 2008

Ellen VanDeMark, M.A.

 

I.  Hysterical Personality Disorder

 

Felix Deutsch, “A Footnote to Freud’s ‘Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria’”

           

David Shapiro, Neurotic Styles (1969)

            Chapter 4: Hysterical Style

 

Christopher Bollas, Hysteria (2000)

            Selected Readings

 

           

 

II. Masochistic Personality Disorder

 

Jack Novick and Kerry Kelly Novick, Fearful Symmetry (1996)

Chapter 2: “The Essence of Masochism

Chapter 3: “Masochism and the Delusion of Omnipotence From a

Developmental Perspective”

Chapter 7: “Externalization as a Form of Relating: The Dynamic Underpinnings

of Abuse”

            Chapter 12: “Negative Motivation and Negative Therapeutic Alliance”

 

Additional Reading:

 

Leon Wurmser, Torment Me, But Don’t Abandon Me

Chapter 4: “The way from Ithaca to Golgatha – The Analysis of a Masochistic

Sexual and Character Perversion”

           

 

III. Narcissistic Personality

 

Elsa F. Ronningstam, Editor, Disorders of Narcissism: Diagnostic, Clinical, and

Empirical Implications (1998)

 

Chapter 6: “Transference and Countertransference in the treatment of Narcissistic

Patients”

            Chapter 7: “Psychoanalysis of Patients With Primary Self Disorder” Paul H.

Ornstein

Chapter 8: “An Object Relations Theory Approach to Psychoanalysis With

Narcissistic Patients” Lucy LaFarge

            Chapter 13: “Affect Regulation and Narcissism” Henry Krystal

 

Peter Giovacchini, Impact of Narcissism: The Errant Therapist on a Chaotic Quest (2000)

            Chapter 5: “Narcissism and Countertransference”

 

IV. Dissociative Personality (Dissociative Identity Disorder)

 

Alan N. Schore, Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self (2003)

            Chapter 4: “Advances in Neuropsychoanalysis, Attachment Theory, and Trauma

Research: Implications for Self Psychology”

 

Pat Ogden: Kekuni Minton, Clare Pain, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach

to Psychotherapy (2006)

 

Foreword: Bessel A VanderKolk

Chapter 1: “Hierarchical Information Processing: Cognitive, Emotional, and

Sensorimotor Dimensions”

            Chapter 5: “Defensive Subsystems: Mobilizing and Immobilizing Responses”

            Chapter 8: “Principles of Treatment: Putting Theory into Practice”

 

Onno van der Hart, Ellert R.S. Nijenjuis, Kathy Steele, The Haunted Self: Structural

Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization (2006)

 

Chapter 1: “Structural dissociation of the Personality” Basics

Chapter 8: “Traumatization as a Syndrome of Nonrealization”

Chapter 9: “The Hierarchy of Action Tendencies”

Chapter 10: “The Phobic Maintenance of Structural Dissociation”

 

Additional Reading:

            Chapters 15, 16, 17: “Treatment and Beyond . . .”

 

V.   Schizoid Personality

 

Harry Guntrip, Schizoid Phenomena, Object Relations and the Self (1976)

           

Chapter 1: “The Schizoid Personality and the External World (1952)

            Chapter 2: “The Schizoid Problem, Regression and the Struggle to Preserve an

Ego” (1961)

            Chapter 7: “The Self-Induced Blockage of the Maturing Process” (1960)

            Chapter 8: “The Nature of the Primary Failure in Ego – Development”

 

 

 

 

Bertram Karon and Gary R. Vandenbos, Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia. The Treatment

of Choice (1981)

 

Chapter 2: “Historical Introduction”

Chapter 3: “Schizophrenia; coping With a Terrible World”

Chapter 7: Countertransference: What Am I doing Here?”

 

VI. Additional Readings

 

Leon Wurmser, Torment Me, But Don’t Abandon Me. Psychoanalysis of the Severe

Neuroses in a New Key (2007)

           

Chapter 3: “Character Perversion”

Chapter 5: “Superego as Herald of Resentment”

 

VII. Being A Character

 

Christopher Bollas, Being a Character. Psychoanalysis and Self Experience (1992)

            Chapter 3: “Being a Character”

            Chapter 4: “Psychic Genera”

 

 

* Nancy McWilliams, Psychoanalytic Diagnosis. Understanding Personality Structure in the Clinical Process (1994)

(Recommended for Review)