New Books in Psychoanalysis

Pragmatism, as a philosophical concept, is often misunderstood and misapplied. Fortunately, I had the chance to speak with Philip Rosenbaum, psychoanalyst and editor of the book Making our Ideas Clear: Pragmatism in Psychoanalysis (Information Age Publishing, 2015)about what pragmatism really is and how it informs clinical theory and praxis. We discuss how pragmatisms influence reaches far back to the beginnings of psychoanalysis, in Sigmund Freud’s original ideas, and up through the ways clinicians conceptualize their work in the present. Dr. Rosenbaum’s book and our discussion raise prescient questions about how we evaluate our ideas, questions that will be relevant to clinicians and non-clinicians alike. Philip Rosenbaum is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst trained at the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis & Psychology. He serves as Director of Counseling and Psychological Services at Haverford College, co-editor of The Journal of College Student Psychotherapy, and associate editor for the journal Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Eugenio Duarte, Ph.D. (www.eugenioduartephd.com) is a licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. He treats individuals and couples, with specialties in LGBTQ issues, eating and body image problems, and relationship problems. Follow him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

4 Jan 201750min

The Interpersonal School of psychoanalysis developed independent of the classical tradition in the United States early in the twentieth century, and was a harbinger to the relational thinking of the current day. Yet, the contributions of interpersonal analysts have often been glossed over or ignored completely. In his new book of collected papers, The Interpersonal Tradition: The Origins of Psychoanalytic Subjectivity (Routledge, 2015) Dr. Irwin Hirsch, writes in depth of the contributions of interpersonalism to psychoanalysis, including a fuller understanding of key concepts such as countertransference enactments and the impact of the analysts subjectivity on the therapeutic relationship. In this interview we discuss some of the key figures in interpersonal thought, how Dr. Hirsch became an analyst (and a writer) and his provocative and honest opinions on many aspects of current psychoanalytic theory and practice. Find Chris Bandini on Twitter @cebandini Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

9 Des 201658min

When it comes to the history of psychoanalysis and psychiatry in the United States, to paraphrase Luce Irigaray, one never stirs without the other. While Freud sent Theodore Reik across the ocean to promote lay analysis, A.A. Brill, president of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, was preparing to divorce the International Psychoanalytic Association. Brill, driven by a fear that psychoanalysis might be seen as quackery and so discredited, sought to guarantee that the only people allowed to practice psychoanalysis in America were medical doctors. Then came the Anschluss: humanitarian efforts were made to bring the very-same IPA members the Americans sought to separate from onto American soil. This is a pretty well known tale–told by Gay, Hale, Roazen and others; enter Orna Ophir’s book, On the Borderland of Madness: Psychosis, Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry in Postwar USA (Routledge, 2015), offering a much needed explanation of how psychoanalysis in America lost its patina. This intellectual history closely studies, via a reading of key journals, the way two professions, for years dancing in close embrace, began to fall out of step. In the same way that the birth of a child with developmental disabilities can reveal a cleavage in what was once thought to be a secure marital bond, debates over the treatment of psychosis led to the eventual separation of two longstanding bedfellows: psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Ophir pieces together the confusing, and previously untold, tale of how psychoanalysis came to be marginalized–and what role psychosis played therein, for its role was key. To carry the conflicted parent metaphor a little further, when a child suffers from psychic distress one member of a couple might seek to understand that suffering in genetic terms while the other spouse might examine the kind of care shown that child: the story of psychiatrically influenced psychoanalysis and non-psychiatrically influenced psychoanalysis line up similarly. While it is commonly known that the release of new medications to treat psychotic pain beginning in the late 1950s, and the birth of community psychiatry in the 70s, and of course the release of the anti-psychodynamic DSM-III in the 80s all played a role in arguments for the superfluity of analytic treatment for psychosis, Ophir argues that psychoanalysis got sidelined because American psychoanalysts, given their long-standing embrace of psychiatry, were duly handicapped. How to let go of the safety-net of psychiatry–that which is deemed irrefutable, scientific and biologically bound–and still survive was their question. Using ideas from the sociology of the professions/knowledge, Ophir argues that analysts engaged in jurisdictional turf wars that the treatment of psychosis brought to the fore. In a profession largely populated by psychiatrists, during a time when psychosis came to be largely seen as a brain disorder rather than a defense or a remnant of pre-oedipal disturbance, analysts had to decide which side they were on. Analytic clinicians, attempting to stay relevant, began to employ the language of psychiatry, supporting what Ophir calls “the neosomatic revolution” only to find that by doing so, they had thrown out the (psychotic) baby with the bathwater. Discursive shifts, be it in politics or a profession, have deep impacts–(when we hear analysts using the language of brain as opposed to mind we are in the presence of the data produced by that impact) and we see proof of this today: very, very few analysts treat psychosis. As in most every divorce that involves children, custody is not usually distributed evenly. Ophir tells the story of how analysts handed over their psychotic patients ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

7 Nov 20161h 1min

In Feminine Law: Freud, Free Speech, and the Voice of Desire (Karnac Books, 2016), Psychoanalyst Jill Gentile explores the intersection between Freuds fundamental rule of free association and freedom of speech in a democracy, two subjects with obvious connections; however, as Gentile points out, surprisingly few writers have attempted to linked the two. In this interview, which spans the history of psychoanalysis and the U.S. Constitution, Gentile describes how both the psychological discipline and the political system aim at common goals, and that both psychoanalysis and democracy situate freedom in a particular space, a space governed by what Gentile calls a feminine law. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

21 Okt 20161h

The life of the German-born, pioneering American psychoanalyst, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, is intriguing enough in itself, but in the biography, To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World: The Life of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann (Other Books, 2005), we learn that Fromm-Reichmann played an integral role in mid-century psychoanalysis. In this interview, with the author, psychologist, and historian, Gail Hornstein, we trace not only Fromm Reichmann’s many accomplishments, but also the history of Chestnut Lodge where she worked for many years, her relationships with Erich Fromm and Harold Searles, as well as the cultural impact of the book written by her patient Joanne Greenberg, I Never Promised You A Rose Garden. To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World is essential reading for anyone interested not only in the history of American psychoanalysis, but also psychoanalysis in general. You can find Chris Bandini on Twitter @cebandini. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

13 Okt 201659min

In Yearnings of the Soul: Psychological Thought in Modern Kabbalah (University of Chicago Press, 2015), Jonathan Garb, the Gershom Scholem Professor in the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, explores the rich psychological tradition in modern Kabbalah and modern mysticism. Tracing Kabbalistic writing from sixteenth-century Safed to contemporary New York, he shows how both psychoanalysis and modern Kabbalah have been expressions of the process of modernization. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

22 Aug 201630min

Why do relationship partners so often feel isolated and unsatisfied despite all their efforts to show love and caring to one another? And how do they break out of the self-defeating cycles that get them there? In their new book, Irrelationship: How We Use Dysfunctional Relationships to Hide from Intimacy (Central Recovery Press, 2015), Mark Borg, Grant Brenner, and Daniel Berry address these daunting questions. They explain how parental disappointments during childhood can set one up for a life of compulsive caregiving at the expense of true human connection, which they call “irrelationship.” They address a growing epidemic by which, in later adulthood, partners use those well-honed caregiving skills to hide from one another rather than become closer. Drawing from cutting-edge neuroscience, psychoanalytic theory, and clinical experience, the authors address how these habitual patterns take shape in the brain and in the soul, and how partners can find their way out of them. The book is full of relatable anecdotes and practical suggestions that any reader who has ever struggled with love and intimacy will find illuminating and helpful. I spoke with two of the authors, Mark Borg and Grant Brenner, about how they arrived at the idea of “irrelationship” and how their skill-based approach has improved the lives of their patients and readers. I hope you enjoy the interview. Eugenio Duarte, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. He treats individuals and couples, with specialties in LGBTQ issues, eating andbody image problems, and working with cultural minorities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

16 Jul 20161h

The rediscovery of trauma in the analytic field coupled with the the development of the concept of dissociation is the focus of a new book edited by two preeminent clinicians, Sheldon Itzkowitz and Elizabeth Howell— The Dissociative Mind in Psychoanalysis: Understanding and Working with Trauma (Routledge, 2016). In this interview, we discuss how this edited book was undertaken and current and historic views of the role of trauma. The authors contend that the concept of trauma itself has been dissociated in the profession, essentially since the disavowal by Freud of infant sexuality. It is only since the relational turn in psychoanalysis that trauma has once again moved to the forefront of clinical work. Here we discuss some of the historic implications as well as several of the twenty two authors’ chapters in this well edited and concise book. Christopher Bandini, LCSW, is in private practice in New York City. Twitter: @cebandini. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

30 Jun 201647min