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A Contract to Terminate: Mourning the End of the Transference.
As we journey with the author through the final months of her analysis, she shares with us the intense feelings associated with her decision to terminate the analytic relationship and her anticipation of the ending. The process of mourning brings up traumatic memories, revelatory dreams, and a myriad of emotions.ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Modern Psychoanalysis is the property of Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.
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Altering Psychotic Processes: Integrated Psychoanalytic Treatment of a Schizophrenic Patient.
This paper explores the differential effects of the integrated psychodynamic treatment of a schizophrenic woman. In the initial stage of treatment, supportive interventions including hospitalizations, social skills training, and holding functions were supplied by a day-treatment program, and supportive/expressive interventions to contain anxiety and overstimulation were provided by the therapist. Later in treatment, more extensive expressive interventions were introduced to correspond maximally to the patient's level of functioning. A core psychoanalytic intervention targeted specific hallucinations as expressions of unmodulated affective experiences, while the day-treatment program focused on impulse control and coping skills. The treatment approach resulted in significant improvement in the patient's quality of life and led to fewer suicide attempts and a reduction in the medical cost associated with those attempts.ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Modern Psychoanalysis is the property of Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.
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Autistic and Dissociative Features in Eating Disorders and Self-Mutilation.
This paper explores the meaning of self-harm behavior and the treatment of patients who engage in it. Vulnerable individuals can derive a feeling of power and omnipotence from cutting, burning, or starving themselves or engaging in bulimic purging or other self-harm. The case of a woman with a long history of self-mutilation is presented, in which autistic and dissociative elements are paramount. Like the autistic child who fears she is at the brink of falling into madness, the self-harmer throws herself into madness, merging the boundaries between self and other in a dedifferentiated, dissociated state. Inflicting pain and injury on oneself is a protective mechanism that can arise when one experiences the terror of feeling alone and helpless, at the mercy of predators. Having lacked the ability to develop transitional objects for self-soothing, self-harmers instead prey upon themselves with hard autistic objects, a perverse form of self-soothing. In comparing the dissociative and autistic features of self-harm, the paper raises questions about the relationship between autistic and dissociative processes and their relationship to psychoses.ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Modern Psychoanalysis is the property of Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.
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Books Received.
A list of books received by the publication "Modern Psychoanalysis" in January 2008 is presented which includes "Language, Symbolization and Psychosis," by Giovanna Ambrosio, Simona Argentieri and Jorge Canestri, "Intimacies," Leo Bersani and Adam Phillips and "Relational Theory and the Practice of Psychotherapy," by Paul L. Wachtel.
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Caroline and Gold: The Study of a Fragmented Ego.
This paper presents an in-depth case study of a schizophrenic woman who experiences a subjective sense of having another personality, a part of herself that she experiences as being separate. The author discusses the role the patient's alter has played in her life and describes how modern psychoanalytic techniques and interventions used in her treatment have assisted in her cure. The countertransference feelings induced by the patient are also discussed.ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Modern Psychoanalysis is the property of Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.
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PERVERSION: PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVES/PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOANALYSIS.
The article reviews the book "Perversion: Psychoanalytic Perspectives/Perspectives on Psychoanalysis," edited by Dany Nobus and Lisa Downing.
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Psychoanalysis and the "Cognitive Unconscious": Implications for Clinical Technique.
Recent empirical research from the field of cognitive science in the areas of perception, memory, learning, intuition, decision making, and motivation suggests a radical reconception of mental life, in which the role and scope of the unconscious is vastly increased and the role of consciousness is correspondingly reduced. Many of these empirical findings support the psychoanalytic conception of the centrality of unconscious processes in guiding behavior. However, if this radical reconception proposed by cognitive science is true, it suggests that psychoanalysis may need to revise its conception of insight in therapeutic action and reconsider aspects of clinical technique such as anonymity, action, and emotional communication. It is proposed that reverie and mutual regression are unconscious states that could be empirically investigated.ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Modern Psychoanalysis is the property of Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.
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The Life and Death of the Unconscious in Modern and Contemporary Art.
The connection between modern art and the unconscious mind is largely an untold story. The author identifies two strands in the psychoanalytic conception of the unconscious and shows how they figured in modern art from the surrealists to the abstract expressionists. He then traces a progressive repudiation of unconscious processes in the making of pop, minimal, and conceptual art.ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Modern Psychoanalysis is the property of Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.
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The Second Annual Phyllis W. Meadow Award for Excellence in Psychoanalytic Writing.
The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Claire Kahane on termination in relation to psychoanalysis and another by Sharon Klayman Farber on self-harm behavior.
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UNDERSTANDING ADOPTION: CLINICAL WORK WITH ADULTS, CHILDREN, AND PARENTS.
The article reviews the book "Understanding Adoption: Clinical Work With Adults, Children and Parents," edited by K. Hushion, S. B. Sherman and D. Siskind.
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Working through Silence with a Schizophrenic Woman.
The psychoanalytic literature regarding the meaning of silence in the analytic session as well as ways to understand and resolve resistance to talking is reviewed. A detailed case study illustrates the application of modern psychoanalytic techniques and interventions in work with a preverbal schizophrenic patient. The therapist's resolution of her countertransference resistances allowed her to experience feelings present in the silence and to become more aware of the patient's nonverbal communications.ABSTRACT FROM AUTHORCopyright of Modern Psychoanalysis is the property of Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.
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