Psychoanalytic Interpretation

This essay reexamines Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter as a meditation on the instability of symbols and the perils of artistry. Moving beyond conventional readings of sin and redemption, it explores how Hester Prynne's embroidery, Arthur Dimmesdale's sermons, Pearl's ambiguous vitality, the Puritan community's interpretations, and the narrator's ironic framing dramatize the double-edged nature of creative expression. Symbols in the novel resist fixed meaning, and acts of artistry both empower and endanger their creators, exposing them to misreading, moral judgment, and social sanction. By situating Hawthorne within a broader American literary tradition that includes Melville, Pynchon, and critiques by D. H. Lawrence, the essay highlights the recurring tension between the desire to stabilize meaning and the recognition of its elusiveness. The Scarlet Letter thus exemplifies how American literature grapples with the paradoxical power of art: simultaneously revelatory and concealing, liberating and perilous. Ultimately, Hawthorne's romance encourages readers to confront their own role as interpreters and to recognize that the act of creating, like the act of reading, is inherently fraught with ethical and aesthetic hazards.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850) stands as a seminal exploration of the human condition within the rigid framework of Puritan New England. Central to its narrative are the intertwined themes of guilt and fate, dramatized through the lives of Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth. The novel reveals how fate functions not only as a theological and social construct but also as a determinant shaped by individual choices, while guilt emerges as an inward psychological force that profoundly affects identity and destiny. Through the resilience of Hester's resilience, the hidden torment of Dimmesdale, and the portrayal of vengeance of Chillingworth, Hawthorne probes the tension between external determinism and personal agency. The Scarlet Letter itself, along with symbols such as Pearl and the forest, underscores the interplay between shame, guilt, and redemption. By highlighting the destructive potential of unacknowledged guilt and the paradoxical possibility of renewal through suffering, Hawthorne presents a complex moral landscape in which fate is both imposed and self-fashioned. This paper contends that the novel's enduring power lies in its ambivalent portrayal of guilt and fate as dual forces that shape not only individual lives but also communal values, leaving open the question of whether true redemption is attainable.

Cranial nerves (CNs) are essential components of the peripheral nervous system with central origins. Unlike spinal nerves, each of the twelve pairs has a unique function related to the head and neck. They can be purely sensory (CN I, II, VIII), purely motor (CN III, IV, VI, XI, XII), or mixed (CN V, VII, IX, X). Their roles are diverse: CN I (Olfactory) mediates smell, CN II (Optic) vision, and CN VIII (Vestibulocochlear) hearing and balance. Motor functions include eye movement (CN III, IV, VI), facial expression (CN VII), and swallowing (CN IX, X). The vagus nerve (CN X) extends into the thorax and abdomen to regulate autonomic functions.

In this paper, newly uncovered archival material from the Bowlby archives is presented on Bowlby's own dreams and dream interpretation. Although he was critical of orthodox psychoanalysis, Bowlby appears to have been seriously involved in Freudian dream interpretation in the 1930s and 1940s. Here, we present in annotated form his own interpretations of several of his dreams from that time and a series of lectures on dreams. In Attachment and Loss, classic dream interpretation is absent and Bowlby used the content of dreams as a reflection of the influence of real-life experiences on the representations of attachment relations, with a clear focus on grief, loss, and mourning. Bowlby's shift from psychoanalysis to a more behavioral approach and the introduction of the concept of "defensive exclusion" to supplant Freud's concept of "repression" may have led him to think about how grief and mourning may affect the content of our dreams.

The authors examine the concepts of repression and splitting and their interplay during the psychoanalytic process. Initially, repression was introduced by the clinical phenomenon of resistance, leading to the formulation of the association between intrapsychic conflicts and neurotic symptoms. Later, repression was linked to normal development and to personality organization. Splitting, on the other hand, has been defined in quite diverse ways. The two main definitions are of splitting within the ego, and splitting of representations of the self, and of internal and external objects. Repression and splitting are compared developmentally, dynamically, and with respect to their relationship to psychic functioning and energic conditions. Clinical material is presented from the analysis of a patient who presented with borderline personality organization and narcissistic features. During the initial phase of analysis, splitting associated with projection, projective identification and idealization were the main defence mechanisms. As the analysis progressed and the themes of omnipotence and mourning were explored with the simultaneous working through of drive derivatives expressed in the transference, repression gained ground over the more primitive defence mechanisms. The evolution of the case showed a gradual shift from splitting to repression and the association of repression with a more advanced psychic organization. This development reflected the dynamic movement from borderline to hysterical organization in psychoanalytic nosology.

This article is an integration of two creative arts therapy (CAT) studies that were conducted simultaneously in two special education middle schools, one from the perspective of the therapists and the other from the perspective of the parents of the student-clients. It explores the therapist's perception of their role within the school framework and of their relationship with the parents of the student-clients. It also examines parental expectations of the skills and training of the creative arts therapist and the school framework.

Cinema, with its capacity to speak to several senses at once, can portray a wide variety of inner experiences. One of these experiences is that of the diffi cult process of character change, although it might seem unlikely in a medium limited to about 120 minutes of viewing. To do this, the writers, director, and editors manage the elements of time and plot development. Groundhog day, an offbeat comedy that features Bill Murray in a role that foreshadows his later, serious parts, shows us a man trapped by his narcissistic defenses. The device of repetition becomes a representation of developmental arrest and closure from object relatedness. Repetition also becomes a means of escape from his characterological dilemma. The opportunity to redo and learn from experience-in particular, to love and learn through experience with a good object-symbolizes the redemptive, reparative possibilities in every life. Redemption, the suggestion that we are capable of change despite the fi xed quality of character, has been a central concern in western thought. Originally a subject of biblical texts, sermons, and tracts, this theme moved into literature with the advent of the modern novel. In earlier work I termed this theme the therapeutic narrative . Indeed, a radical view of psychoanalysis would be that Freud adopted a literary narrative as the central therapeutic mode of his new science . Film, the emergent art form of the 20th century, searches out the major narrative themes in our culture, among them the therapeutic. In the paradigm of the therapeutic narrative, a troubled person plays out his/her typical pattern in relation to an other who is more anonymous, a foil who is depicted in idealized and/or mysterious terms. The other becomes an object of desire, often-though not always-in a romantic plot structure. The interactional moves of the protagonist, which reveal his/her characteristic fl aws, are met by muted, attenuating responses by the other. The consequence, eventually, is a search for alternative solutions, motivated by a wish to gain love and approval. Through a process of trial and error, the protagonist discovers internal limitations, grieves, and discovers new possibilities. In Groundhog day the other is played by Rita, the producer of a TV weather segment that Murray is sent to broadcast. She is sweet-tempered, and disregards Murray's provocative abrasiveness, maintaining an accepting, positive attitude, but also her self-respect. Groundhog day is of particular interest to analysts for two reasons. First, it shows us psychological subjectivity-the process of change from a point of view that is

1. FOR A RESTORATION OF THE ECONOMIC PRINCIPLE IN PSYCHOANALYSIS, WITH FREUD 2 2. FACING THE PAIN AMONG CRISIS, DEFENSE AND CIVILIZATION. THE FREUDIAN PATH 6 3. SUFFERING COUNTERTRANSFERENCE, BEYOND FREUD 9 4. THE CURRENT CHALLENGE OF MASOCHISM 12 5. PAIN AND THE CURRENT ECONOMIC DOWNTURN 15 6. CONCLUSIONS 18

Dysregulation, as a phenomenon of disruption in the psychotherapeutic setting, may be evidenced in the psychoanalytic psychotherapy of diabetic patients presenting poor metabolic and treatment control. In the case of a female patient, violations of the setting via acting out behaviors provided an opportunity for working through and understanding in depth the patient's unconscious attempts to activate traumatic childhood experiences and introduce loss and confusion into the relationship with the psychotherapist. Dysregulation was considered in connection with the patient's pathological containment function, in conflicting part self and object representations, and in relation to traumatic experiences of maternal desertion. Improvement of the patient was identified in her relationships with the psychotherapist, significant others, and the medical health providers, as well as in the overall management of her diabetic treatment. Diabetes mellitus is a disorder which is caused by the body's inability to produce, or make proper use of insulin-a vital hormone required for the conversion of food into energy. Whilst the definitive cause of diabetes remains unknown, it appears that both genetic factors and increased weight may contribute to the disorder. For a considerable length of time, emotional disorders (depression and anxiety) have been thought to be related to diabetes, and studies have suggested that stressful events or psychiatric illness may precipitate the onset of the disorder. Causal factors that have been recognized for several decades implicate emotional dimensions such as loss and severe frustrations which are observed to relate to the onset of diabetes or the patient's history . During the long-term course of the illness,

Advances in the understanding and articulation of enactments allow a reassessment of analytical psychology's method of amplification. Subjective and objective aspects of the amplificatory process, evolving notions of its role in analysis together with the use of countertransference phenomena provide the frame for reexamination of this method. Using a single analytic day, this paper explores the inevitable play of enactments with a focus on countertransferential components contained in the act of amplification. An internal examination of such an act is used to attempt to identify and differentiate the operative personal, interpersonal and collective aspects. The impact and traces of this act are followed through the workings of the day and demonstrate that the impulse to amplify is a suitable object for analytic scrutiny. This leads to a more general question of the mythic nature of enactments.

Dermatological symptoms are explained in medicine in biological terms. Nevertheless, exploring the life history of dermatological patients can lead to seductive, but non-rigorously scientific interpretations which are of associative, or even symbolic nature. Moreover, associations of physical signs and life events, suggest us to consider our patients as subjects pervaded by the will to communicate not only through language, but also through their body and all its functions and malfunctions. Interpreting symptoms and eventually finding a meaning to the disease must not imply a causative attribution, because the very signification of cause and effect is probably beyond our grasp. Hence, aware of our limits, we should know whether we wish to treat the disease as a whole, considering that the observer (the doctor, the patient or the medicine as a theoretical corpus) is not only an observer from outside, but part of the disease that will be treated or described.

This research paper delves deeply into William Congreve's Restoration comedy "Love for Love" through the illuminating lens of Freudian psychoanalytic theory. Within the intricate tapestry of characters and plotlines, the study unravels the subconscious motivations and conflicts that propel the narrative forward. By applying Freud's fundamental concepts of the id, ego, and superego, it carefully dissects the inner workings of characters like Valentine, Angelica, and Sir Sampson, revealing the complex interplay between their hidden desires and societal constraints. Through this exploration, the paper sheds light on the multifaceted themes of love, desire, power, and identity woven throughout the play. It uncovers how characters' sense of self and quest for dominance are deeply influenced by their unconscious impulses, often in conflict with societal norms and expectations. Furthermore, the analysis delves into the defense mechanisms of repression and sublimation, showcasing how characters grapple with their inner turmoil and psychological complexities. Drawing upon foundational Freudian texts such as "The Interpretation of Dreams" and "The Ego and the Id," this research not only offers a comprehensive understanding of "Love for Love" but also provides valuable insights into the broader human condition. By peeling back the layers of the characters' psyche, it reveals universal truths about human nature and underscores the timeless relevance of psychoanalytic theory in the realm of literary analysis.

The psychological issues facing medical and surgical patients suffering from traumatic injuries are numerous and varied. These injuries may occur in the settings of armed conflict, terrorist attack, natural disaster, or accident. The goal of preventing or decreasing significant and disabling psychiatric comorbidity can be the objective and assignment of a Psychiatry Consultation Liaison Service (PCLS) within the hospital setting. A comprehensive trauma consultation service could be designed to assist the entire medical complex in its response to various events. The needs of the patient, the patient's primary support group, and the medical staff must be considered in the development of a treatment strategy for the setting of a traumatic event. This article describes the integration of a Preventive Medical Psychiatry Service (PMP) at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) into a traditional PCLS. The PMP model is built upon the biopsychosocial model and psychodynamic developmental concepts. In this day and age when technology, machinery, and scientific achievement are highly valued, the properties of human interaction may be afforded a lesser role. Victims of physical trauma, though in need of advanced medical technology, also require appropriate psychiatric interventions. Appreciation and recognition of the germane properties of psychodynamics allow conceptualizations which broaden the understanding of patients' feelings, thoughts, behavior, and their un-

The best known example of early dream interpretation is found in the Bible in the story of Joseph. Joseph was one of a large number of children of Jacob, the third of the Patriarchs, or early ancestors of the Jewish people. In his younger days, Joseph himself had dreams, recounted in the Biblical narrative, that were suggestive of significant changes that would occur in the relationship of Joseph to the rest of his family. This provoked resentment among his brothers, who decided to get rid of him. Stopping short of murder, they put him in a situation that resulted in Joseph's being taken into slavery in Egypt. For a while, Joseph's personal talents and charm led to a rise in his status in servitude, but the "anger of a woman scorned" was turned against him and he was put into prison. While in prison, he became renowned as a dream interpreter, which in turn led to his being appointed second-in-command in the land of Egypt after he had interpreted dreams of the ruler, Pharaoh, to Pharaoh's satisfaction. After Joseph's elevation to distinction in Egypt, the events foreshadowed in the dreams he had interpreted took place, and one of the consequences of these events was the emigration to Egypt of Joseph and Jacob's family-what was to be the nucleus of the developing Jewish nation. There are two pairs of dreams interpreted by Joseph. The first pair are two short, similar dreams, dreamed by different people, and their differences led to appropriate different interpretations by Joseph. The third interpretation is of the second pair of dreams, which were dreamed by the same person, in the same night, and were interpreted as being one dream. Freud made a brief reference to Joseph's dream interpretation in The Interpretation of Dreams, suggesting that it was based on symbolism and dis- missing this approach as being inadequate. However, there seems to be evidence that Freud did not have the Hebrew knowledge to explore and understand fully the important sources and reference material. The classical Jewish Biblical commentators made various references to Joseph's dream interpretations, but while they undoubtedly possessed many useful insights, none seem to have really understood how Joseph might have Brief Communications does not include references. These may be obtained by writing to the author.

This spoken paper explored Kleinian and post-Kleinian thinking about symbol formation and the implications it has on the development of creative practice for students in Higher Education, and offered some thoughts on the resulting challenges for lecturers trying to develop their students’ creative capacity and helping them negotiate this Primitive Space. One of the developmental achievements that Melanie Klein describes is of the infant’s successful negotiation of the depressive position, having first of all developed a primitive working ego through splitting processes associated with the paranoid-schizoid position. She recognises that the movement between these positions reoccurs throughout a person’s life to a greater or lesser extent. Hannah Segal suggests that symbolic equation, (lack of distinction between the symbol and the object that it symbolises) occurs when a person has not successfully negotiated movement from the paranoid-schizoid to the depressive position. True symbol...

PURPOSE: To study in detail the MR anatomy of the spinal cord and the ce rvicomed ullary junction that could serve as a reference for clinical MR studies. METHODS: Specimens of fresh human spinal cord and forma lin-fixed cervicom edullary transition zones were imaged with a 9 .4-T vertical bore magnet. Using a multisection spin-warp pul se sequence the param eters were se lected to produce essentially proton density images. RESULTS: The images obtai ned depict the microanatomical organization of the spinal cord and cervicom edullary junction. In the spinal cord , the central gray has the expected higher signal intensity compared with the white matter, which is, apart from its darker general appearance, characterized by the presence of a dense rad iall y structured neurogl ial framework of high signal intensity . A natomica ll y m ore compl ex regio ns such as the dorsal root entry zone, the adjacent posterior horn complex , and the crossi ng fibers of the cervicomedullary junction are seen as wel l as parts of th e microvascular system . CONCLUSION: Although cellular details are still beyond the limits of this investigati on , the images at 9.4 T show the spinal cord and cervicomedullary junction with detail comparable to low-power microscopic images of fixed sections, especially with respect to distinguishing gray and white matter, nuclei , tracts , and angioarchitecture .

The Author discussed in his article the problem of ethic foundations of pro moters of psychohistory. He argues that psychotherapeutic inclinations of scholars resulted in the alienation of this approach within historical sciences, what — in the end — did not prevent psychohistorians from becoming active outside the closed circle of the discipline.

It has been over 60 years since Ernst Mayr famously argued for the distinction between proximate and ultimate causes in biology. In the following decades, Mayr's proximate-ultimate distinction was well received within evolutionary biology and widely regarded as a major contribution to the philosophy of biology. Despite its enormous influence, there has been a persistent controversy on the distinction. It has been argued that the distinction is untenable. In addition, there have been complaints about the pragmatic value of the distinction in biological research. Some even suggested that the distinction should better be abandoned. In contrast, Mayr had consistently maintained the significance of the proximate-ultimate distinction in biology. There are also other attempts to defend the distinction. The paper examines the debate by taking an integrated History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) approach and argues for a functional approach to causal concepts in scientific practice.

Several pieces of literature suggest that most individuals who are successfully integrated into cults do not typically manifest symptoms of mental illness. However, the public is often taken aback by the lack of autonomy displayed by cult members and is bewildered by the ability of the cult leader and other cult members to transform fundamental personality functioning in an individual. Within the framework of an object relations model of personality structure and functioning as delineated by Otto Kernberg and using existing data concerning the cult experience, the authors engage in a theoretical exploration of cult membership. The authors propose that some behaviors exhibited by cult members may be a function of an object relations-level regression, which is exemplified by the activation of primitive defensive operations that are usually relegated to those suffering with severe personality disorders.

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This case illustrates how cultural issues can influence the progression of psychodynamic therapy. During the course of supervision, the resident learns how understanding the cultural similarities and differences between patient and therapist both enhances and hinders the treatment. The supervisor demonstrates the utility of parallel process during supervision in general and as a tool to uncover key cultural issues. The Grand Rounds discussant highlights cultural aspects of the case such as psychotherapy in a second language, assumptions about traditional roles, and demonstrations of closeness. "Ms. B" is a 38-year-old Ecuadorian woman in her first year of medical school who presented with the chief complaint: "I wish I could just accept and love my boyfriend." Ms. B was receiving therapy in a psychopharmacology clinic for 1 year from a psychiatry resident when she began describing worries about conflicts with her boyfriend of 2 months. The psychopharmacology resident referred Ms. B to the psychodynamic therapy clinic for a consultation. Ms. B's past psychiatric history is contributory for recurrent major depression, which had been in remission for 3 years since she began taking fluoxetine. She had no prior suicide attempts or hospitalizations. She reported no other symptoms of axis I pathology. The family history was notable for multiple family members being depressed and one family member attempting suicide. She reported no substance abuse and did not have any medical problems.

In a special issue of this journal, edited by Gantt and Cox (2010), the contributors applied biological and psychological perspectives to group therapy. See also Aron & Anderson (2000) on relational perspectives, Cohen (2011) in reference to somatic psychotherapy, Brownell (2010) on Gestalt therapy, and Eldridge & Cole (2008) and Ogden, Kekuni, & Pain (2006) on trauma-based treatment.

This paper uses a literary approach to explore what common ground exists in both psychoanalytic technique and views of the psyche, of 'person'. While Western literature has developed various views of psyche and person over centuries, there have been crystallizing, seminal portraits, for instance Shakespeare's perspective on what is human, some of which have endured to the present. By using Dante's Commedia, particularly the Inferno, a 14th century poem that both integrates and revises previous models of psyche and personhood, we can examine what features of psyche, and 'techniques' in soul-healing psychoanalysts have inherited culturally. Discovering basic features of technique and model of psyche we share as psychoanalysts permits us to explore why we have differences in variations on technique and models of inner life.

By assaying the aesthetic qualities of psychoanalytic interpretations and the psychoanalytic course (as one would for other aesthetic enterprises, such as drama, fine art, poetry, sculpture), we can evolve criteria for judging psychoanalytic form and content. These criteria shift, I suggest, to some degree just as artistic styles shift to address the existential needs and interests of the cultural era. Despite shifting styles, however, any aesthetic enterprise has enduring criteria that hold across time and even culture in order to judge whether a work is fine, mundane, or trivial. At one level, criteria are art-form specific: in drama or narrative forms, for instance, we have Aristotle's suggestion of beginning, middle, and end; for visual arts, we have Lomazzo's seven elements of good art. At another level, aesthetic criteria generalize across art forms in at least two ways: first, laypersons judge whether a piece is aesthetically pleasing without necessarily resorting to highly technical, specific criteria; second, we judge whether one art form fits with another: Is there an aesthetic fit between the sound of Beethoven's Eroica and its nominal heroic theme; is there a fit between the music of the Bach Double Violin Concerto and the movement of Balanchine's eponymic ballet? Aesthetics deal "with such notions as the beautiful, the ugly, the sublime, the comic, etc.,… as applicable to the fine arts, with a view to establishing the meaning and validity of critical judgment.… The study of the mind and emotions in relationship to the sense of beauty" (Random House Dictionary, 1987). Psychoanalytically, we were set on this aesthetic path by Freud's views that a good interpretation is judged by three criteria: content, timing, and affect (Freud, , 1913a. These are,

This case report focuses on the disappearance of a fixed pictorial iconic representation and transformation to symbolic (word) representation following the recovery of a repressed memory in a twelveand-a-half-year-old after thefirst eleven months of psychoanalysis.

This rich and readable paper explores the life and work of psychoanalyst Marion Milner (1900-1998) with emphasis on her contribution to understanding mystical states of mind in relation to psychoanalysis. Sayers skilfully traces the evolving threads of Milner's ideas as they weave through the course of her long and wide-ranging life, leaving the reader with a real sense of their relation to Milner's own individuation process. These ideas are concerned with 'drawing attention to the potential for health and creativity in undoing the obstacles to mystical oneness with what she sometimes referred to as God, the unconscious or the id' (p. 106). Mystical states are presented as experiences of 'union' which transcend the boundaries of self and other, past and present, inner and outer. The central thread of Milner's thinking, which Sayers extracts from various writings, is that 'creativity and psychological aliveness generally involve returning to the infantile illusion of inner-outer fusion with our mothers and the world around us' (p. 113). Sayers refers to other psychoanalysts, notably Bion, Winnicott, Coltart and Eigen, who think about the capacity for experiencing mystical states as an aspect of psychological aliveness. She also mentions the wariness of many psychoanalysts' attitudes to mystical experience and other regressive states characteristic of primary narcissism, but does not elaborate. The basis for this seems to me to be an equation between pathologically narcissistic states such as psychosis, and those which are more benign in nature. Milner's understanding of the difference was hard won through her experience of her own regressed states of mind, and the reader is left with a deep impression of her journey. Her 'mystical' perspective on regression is also offered by Bion's 'O' and by Jung's 'Self', and Sayers draws attention to the resonance between Bion's and Milner's work. From this perspective, the ego's capacity for 'embracing nothingness' which is fundamental to the creative psychological activity described in different ways by all three, is rigidly defended against by the delusional elements characteristic of psychotic and other malignantly regressed states. Milner thought that 'obstacles' to psychological aliveness originate in insufficient experience of the illusion of fusion in infancy, premature separation from it, or the fear of fusing with a mother experienced as dangerous. Hatred and envy are also linked with environmental failure, and the environments of love, of art, and of analysis offer the potential for these failures to be remedied in later life. Although she was deeply influenced by Klein during her training, she apparently departed from Kleinian thinking in this area by disregarding the idea of the death instinct and its influence. Milner had many psychological 'obstacles' of her own with which she contended. Significantly, when she was 11, her father had a psychotic breakdown. This 'made her

We may ask, where has the Other gone? If, as Kohut suggests, we have fully internalized the Other, does that mean the Other ceases to exist? Does it become just a pale trace within us, deprived of its originality, strength, and ideals? I wonder, haven’t we all, as inhabitants of modern society, internalized all the ideals and significant others of past times? The price of this autonomy must be a life in a world without significant others, without ideals?

This paper starts from the debates on whether the seemingly effortless creation of AI artworks, and by extension some Avant-Garde pieces, diminishes their artistic value. This leads to a broader inquiry into how effort, or the lack thereof, influences our perception of an artwork's quality and significance. Traditionally, effort in art has been seen in two ways. On the one hand, a skilled artist's work, which may appear effortless, is often valued for its apparent ease, reflecting genius or inspiration. On the other hand, the Romantic era highlighted the artist's internal struggle, shifting emphasis from technical proficiency to emotional and intellectual effort. Contemporary empirical research seems to confirm the existence of an "effort heuristic", suggesting that artworks perceived as requiring more effort are generally valued higher. Finally, this paper suggests defining a notion of "distributed effort" as a category for the appreciation of content and artworks that are the product of complex influences, tradition, technological advancements. As a conclusion it is suggested to investigate the possibility of "artificial effort" in AI-generated art.

ABSTRACT: This essay examines the question of perceptual vividness, which will lead to an exploration of condensation in its articulation with trauma. A hypothesis is then formulated around the existence of two different types of reproduction of the traces inscribed in the psychic apparatus: one to do with memory, the other with re-living. Jorge Luis Borges' story 'The Aleph' helps us to think about those traces as the letter - and about its relationship with perception as traumatic excess.

Allen Ruppersberg, "Fifty Helpful Hints for the Art of the Everyday" "I would say more than this if the question here were what I should have done; but it is what I have done, and unfortunately that is not the same thing." Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Confessions, p. 236 "The point is [that] with Baldessari it's always something else. It's this and that. He's not only interested in the choices one ultimately makes but in the whole universe of 8/5/2015 2 options we reject. As he says…while something is happening here, something else is happening there."

Would you consider looking at two paintings instead of reading a more ritualized abstract? In the first painting, the poet W. B. Yeats shows passages from his autobiography to his friend, the poet and painter George Russell. Russell is appalled to read that there is hardly a single fact accurate: "If you show me the manuscript," he tells Yeats, "I will correct the facts." Yeats airily dismisses the offer: "Oh, I do not want accuracy. I only want a picturesque sentence" (Kiberd, 2003). The second painting is an image I cherish in my mind for years: a photo of the Teatro del Mondo (the theater of the world) created by Aldo Rossi, the late Italian architect, for the 1979 Venice Biennale. Built in the Venice tradition of floating theaters, Rossi created a theater on water, a raft tugged by a boat. Within the panoramic view of Venice, there is a "huge piece of carpentry," which looks like a stageset of a child's dream memory: some big connected play-cubes made of light brown wood on a metal grid of scaffolding, and a blue pointed tower. For Rossi, this theater goes beyond the context of Venice. It is like "the Marine buildings in Maine, the wonderful tall light houses-'the houses of the light'-that observe and are observed.. .. [in a] Venetian method of construction. .. that seeks fantasy only in the real" (Rossi, 1979).

This research project examines the language of grief in textile art practice. It takes as its starting point the idea that, as individuals with experience of bereavement, we may carry with us an element of unresolved mourning. This is not the pathological condition of melancholia or complicated mourning, nor the fully resolved, completed state where mourning is over, but is a space between; a set of emotions which continue to be felt and may be brought to the surface by an event, situation, set of circumstances or encounter with, for example, artwork which may bring back feelings of grief and loss long after the death of someone close. This project investigates how cloth can be used in textile artwork to make a connection with this unresolved mourning and thereby contribute to the progression of the viewer’s work of mourning. The aims of the research are to explore how textile art can be used as a metaphor for grief and mourning and to consider how the staining and mending of cloth ...

Background: Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) played an important role in the psychiatric diagnostics, but in the last few decades the diagnostic-free complex phenomenological understanding of the phenomena of voice hearing became the focus of studies. Materials: Six semi-structured interviews with recovering voice hearers were conducted and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Discussion: The self-help group gives significant help in identification and dealing with the voices; therefore, it serves as turning point in the life story of voice hearers. Conclusion: Applying self-help group in clinical context contributes to better outcomes in treatment of voice hearers.

Suicide is a problematic subject in Freud's work. Although he wrote systematically about most other disorders, Freud did not write a paper on suicide. His thoughts about suicide appear as fragments in his theoretical works. Therefore, it is thought sometimes that Freud's formal writings about suicide are "minimal" and incidental (Hamilton, 2002), or, alternatively, the richness and breadth of the fragments have been noticed (Litman, 1970). Both of these views, I argue here, misrepresent the extent to which Freud thought about suicide, the problems suicide posed Freud as a subject for psychoanalytic thinking, and the place suicide has in his theories as a whole. In spite of appearances to the contrary, suicide played an important and even, at times, a role underpinning the development of Freud's thinking. The absence of a comprehensive paper on the subject needs to be understood not as an indication of a lack of interest, but, rather, as the outcome of a number of constraints that Freud was under-emotionally, personally, professionally, socially-with regard to this. To some extent, Freud's thinking about suicide has become obscured. Recovering a more rounded appreciation of Freud's thinking about suicide is important for contemporary practice and theory. This paper seeks to develop a deeper understanding of Freud's thinking about suicide. It aims to assess whether Freud did have a coherent and consistent theory of suicide, and then, if this can be identified, to describe its main features. Finally, the paper aims to assess why Freud's thinking of suicide took the shape it did.

Mahan Doğrusöz: I'm interested in your journey into psychoanalysis as a person who's had his background in the hard science of neuropsychology. What ignited your curiosity and led you into psychoanalysis, which is either ignored or seen as 'passe' in many scientific circles as far as we can see in the world today? Mark Solms: I studied neuropsychology because I was interested in the mental aspect of the brain. The thing that is fascinating about the brain is that unlike any other bodily organ or indeed any other thing in nature, it has subjective experience. In other words, it has a mind. So I thought by studying neuropsychology I would be studying this thing that has a mind. It was the mental aspect that interested me. But I was very disappointed and frustrated. Neuropsychology should really be called neurobehaviourism or neurocognitivism. It studies the functions of the mind, but it doesn't study experience at all. When I asked my professors when they were teaching me, for example, the memory functions of the brain, I said 'but why do we experience the memory? Why do we have the experience?' And they said 'don't ask questions like that'. So subjectivity is excluded from science because science aspires to objectivity. But subjective experience, as you know, because you're busy experiencing it right now, it exists, it's part of nature. We can't leave it out and if we don't study the mind also from a subjective perspective, we will never understand how it works. The brain has the capacity for experience for a reason. It must do something and if we leave that out of account, we'll never understand how that part of nature works. So it was out of my disappointment and frustration with neuropsychology that I turned to psychoanalysis. Because psychoanalysis studies subjective experience. And very importantly, not only is its method one that is designed to study subjectivity, but also from the study of subjective experience, it has developed a language for what subjects are made of and it's developed very sophisticated theories about this. So I wanted to bring not only the method but also these concepts and theories into neuroscience so that we could study this aspect of the brain. We could study neurological patients and neurological use, neurological methods alongside psychoanalytic methods, use neuropsychological concepts alongside psychoanalytical ones, so that we could really study the totality, both subjective and objective side of things. That led me to many interesting discoveries, for example, about the brain mechanisms of dreaming and the brain mechanisms of some very complicated neuropsychiatric disorders, like something called confabulatory amnesia, something else called anosognosia, and ultimately to the study of brain mechanisms of consciousness itself. So I have no regrets for having done what I did, even though my professors were horrified and my colleagues were horrified. They said that a neuroscientist studying psychoanalysis is like an astronomer studying astrology. Mahan Doğrusöz: They were very conservative in that sense.

PSYCHOANALYSTS' UNDERSTANDING OF THERAPEUTIC SUCCESS FEBRUARY 2005 CANDICE FISCHER, B.S., PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATOLICA DE CHILE M.S., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor David M. Todd Despite a relatively long-standing focus on studying treatment outcome, psychotherapy theorists as well as researchers continue to differ on definitions of therapeutic success. This lack of consensus is reflected in the difficulty in establishing a standard psychotherapy outcome battery. Following from this difficulty, differential outcomes may not be so much a function of the techniques or the therapists delivering the treatments, but rather from the application of different definitions of success (Hill & Lambert, 2004). The present study explored the way in which five psychoanalysts (each with more than 30 years of clinical experience) understand and conceptualize therapeutic success, as well as "un-success" within their own clinical practice. Qualitative analy...

It is unfortunate that the phrase "Frankenstein's monster" has, in the popular imagination, become associated with the lurching, inarticulate being portrayed in numerous films by Boris Karloff and others. In the novel that inspired those films, written by a teen-aged Mary Shelley, the creature is highly articulate and intensely self-analytical about his poignant situation. So is the novel's protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, the tragic overreacher who brings to life and then attempts to destroy his creature. From its first publication early in 1818 Frankenstein has excited interest and curiosity, but in recent years the work has, justly, received serious scholarly attention for its brilliant foreshadowings of numerous modern concerns. Frankenstein has been interpreted as a tale of excessive ambition, a social critique, a warning about the dangers of technology, and a myth of creation. Psychological and psychoanalytical interpretations have also been offered: the novel has been read as a tale of the "double," in which Victor and the creature are seen to be aspects of the same being; the monster has been characterized as a projection of the raging id, carrying out its creator's forbidden, destructive, unconscious wishes. In recent years, feminist scholars have been attracted to the work as a reflection of birth trauma and as a male appropriation of female functions and texts. The novel's ability to generate and sustain such a range of views amply demonstrates the suggestive richness of its artistic texture. 1 In these pages, I would like to discuss the novel from a different and, I think, especially apt perspective. The aspirations and interactions of the major figures of the story-Victor Frankenstein, his nameless creature, and the young seacaptain to whom he tells his story-prefigure and exemplify Karen Horney's account of the destructive effects of self-idealization, pathological vindictiveness, and the "search for glory." In turn, Horney's views provide excellent insights into the dynamics of the novel and the psychology of its major figures. Mary Shelley's mother, Mary Wollstonecraff, author of the feminist classic A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), died shortly after her daughter's

Language is one of the basic tools of psychiatrists. They use language to elicit verbal behavior from patients which in turn is analyzed to determine personality structure. Language is also used as a therapeutic tool to modify and control behavior. It is important for psychiatrists to develop techniques for eliciting data from patients and also to develop quantitative measure ments of the verbal behavior obtained from patients (cf., Engel, 1968; Martin, 1965). Pinpointing a dimension of an individual's personality structure, labeling and defining relevant dimen sions, and providing a handle to grasp pathological dimensions is no simple task for the beginning psychiatrist. The authors are of the impression that the most difficult endeavor in this area is to attempt to study all the parameters of an open-ended initial interview because of the large number of variables to contend with and analyze. Drs. Tokar and Brunse are on the staff at the Sepulveda Veterans Admin istration Hospital and at the

Historically, states of intoxication--like dreams and madness--are seen in either one of two opposed ways. The intoxicated are either "possessed" or "under the influence" of an external agency, or revealing hidden feelings or truths (in vino veritas). Along the same lines, artists who worked during LSD, mescalin or psilocybin intoxication often refer to feelings of either being "possessed" or "liberated," a difference that can be explained partly by their expectations and partly by their evaluations, which both tend to conform to the cultural dichotomy in interpreting the irrational. Both interpretations, however, tend to obscure not only the other, but also-it is posited-the paradoxical nature of the drug experience itself. Analysis of a protocol shows that intoxication might comprise feelings of "possession" as well as "liberation" almost simultaneously, and mediumistic and some psychedelic art shows stylistic traits that can be seen as the visual expressions of both these feelings. It seems that the "demoniacal" and "psychedelic" mode come together in experiential reality, only to be divided in the cultural sphere.

Background: Psychic transparency is described as a psychic crisis occurring during pregnancy. The objective was to test if it was clinically detectable. Methods: Seven primiparous and seven nulliparous subjects were recorded during 5 min of spontaneous speech about their dreams. 25 raters from five groups (psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, general practitioners, pregnant women and medical students) listened to the audiotapes. They were asked to rate the probability of the women being pregnant or not. Their ability to discriminate the primiparous women was tested. The probability of being identified correctly or not was calculated for each woman. A qualitative analysis of the speech samples was performed. Results: No group of rater was able to correctly classify pregnant and non-pregnant women. However, the raters' choices were not completely random. The wish to be pregnant or to have a baby could be linked to a primiparous classification whereas job priorities could be linked to a nulliparous classification. Conclusions: It was not possible to detect Psychic transparency in this study. The wish for a child might be easier to identify. In addition, the raters' choices seemed to be connected to social representations of motherhood.