Neil Altman, “The Analyst in the Inner City: Race, Class, and Culture Through an Analytic Lens” (Routledge, 2009)

There is an academic cottage industry on the "Jewish Freud," aiming to detect Jewish influences on Freud, his own feelings about being Jewish, and suppressed traces of Jewishness in his thought.  In Translating the Jewish Freud: Psychoanalysis in Hebrew and Yiddish (Stanford University Press, 2024), Naomi Seidman takes a different approach, turning her gaze not on Freud but rather on those who seek out his concealed Jewishness. What is it that propels the scholarly aim to show Freud in a Jewish light? Naomi Seidman explores attempts to "touch" Freud (and other famous Jews) through Jewish languages, seeking out his Hebrew name or evidence that he knew some Yiddish. Tracing a history of this drive to bring Freud into Jewish range, Seidman also charts Freud's responses to (and jokes about) this desire. More specifically, she reads the reception and translation of Freud in Hebrew and Yiddish as instances of the desire to touch, feel, "rescue," and connect with the famous Professor from Vienna. Interviewee: Naomi Seidman is the Chancellor Jackman Professor of the Arts at the University of Toronto, a National Jewish Book Award winner, and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow. Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

2 Okt 20241h 11min

In his new book Masculinity and its Discontents: The Male Psyche and the Inherent Tensions of Maturing Manhood (Routledge, 2021), Michael J. Diamond develops an original psychoanalytic theory of male development through the prephallic, phallic and genital positions. He critically acknowledges and complicates oedipal and disidentification theories as the predominant paradigms in psychoanalytic theorizing about masculinity and helps us to shift our focus to primordial male vulnerability and its vicissitudes. This book is part of the emergent third wave of psychoanalytic theorizing about male development and takes conflict, fluidity and complex gendered identifications as hallmarks of the livelong struggle for a secure enough sense of masculinity. The book's specific strength lies in its rich clinical illustrations that show the analyst working with his own and his patients´ ever-evolving feelings about manhood. In the interview, Diamond presents his ideas, and we take a deep dive in the psychodynamics of the male psyche, looking at questions of contemporary masculinity, fatherhood and clinical technique. Sebastian Thrul is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in training in Germany and Switzerland. He can be reached at sebastian.thrul@gmx.de. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

24 Sep 20241h 3min

An award-winning childhood grief expert shares clinically-informed advice for supporting kids and teens through difficult times--from family deaths and lost pets to unexpected moves, and beyond. A necessary and impactful guide to understanding children's grief from the inside and to guiding children through loss, from the death of a parent and other family members, to the loss of friends, pets, and even the family home. Dr. Masur, an award-winning clinical psychologist specializing in grief and mourning, describes how to understand, help, and guide children at each age and stage of development and uses her own childhood experience with loss through empathetic yet clinically informed advice. When Dr. Masur was fourteen years old, her father died. Like most children and teens facing loss, Masur didn't know how to handle her grief, and she was never encouraged to acknowledge or share what she was feeling with her family, teachers, or friends. Her experience of shock and emotional paralysis around her loss is what led her to become an expert in childhood grief in order to help grieving children and to help others to support the children in their lives who have experienced loss. As a psychologist and child psychoanalyst, Dr. Masur has helped many children recognize and express their feelings after loss. In How Children Grieve: What Adults Miss, and What They Can Do to Help (Alcove Press, 2024), Masur shares her expertise with caregivers of all kinds, giving them the tools they need to help a child or teenager mourn, move forward, and make meaning of terrible loss. Prior to a high school teaching career, Judith Tanen worked in the visual arts field. Still, her educational pursuits have been driven by a passion for language in its varied forms, specifically, communication, intersubjectivity and the hidden worlds inside our minds. These interests prompted this current pursuit: travelling into the psyche and gaining insight into the complicated, inexplicable and always enlightening ways of living and making sense of experience -- indeed, life itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

16 Sep 202448min

Psychotherapists and psychoanalysts enter an emotional relationship when they treat a patient; no matter how experienced they may be, their personalities inform but also limit their ability to recognize and give thought to what happens in the consulting room.  The Psychoanalyst’s Superegos, Ego Ideals and Blind Spots: The Emotional Development of the Clinician (Routledge, 2019) investigates the nature of these constrictions on the clinician’s sensitivity. Vic Sedlak examines clinicians’ fear of a superego which threatens to become censorious of themselves or their patient and their need to aspire to standards demanded by their ego ideals. These dynamic forces are considered in relation to treatments which fail, to supervision and to recent innovations in psychoanalytic technique. The difficulty of giving thought to hostility is particularly stressed. Richly illustrated with clinical material, this book will enable practitioners to recognize the unconscious forces which militate against their clinical effectiveness. Vic Sedlak is a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society in private practice in the North of England. Christopher Russell is a Psychoanalyst in Chelsea, Manhattan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

9 Sep 202457min

From Skepticism to Competence: How American Psychiatrists Learn Psychotherapy (U Chicago Press, 2024) offers an examination of how novice psychiatrists come to understand the workings of the mind - and the nature of medical expertise - as they are trained in psychotherapy. While many medical professionals can physically examine the body to identify and understand its troubles - a cardiologist can take a scan of the heart, an endocrinologist can measure hormone levels, an oncologist can locate a tumor - psychiatrists have a much harder time unlocking the inner workings of the brain or its metaphysical counterpart, the mind. In From Skepticism to Competence, sociologist Mariana Craciun delves into the radical uncertainty of psychiatric work by following medical residents in the field as they learn about psychotherapeutic methods. Most are skeptical at the start. While they are well equipped to treat brain diseases through prescription drugs, they must set their expectations aside and learn how to navigate their patients’ minds. Their instructors, experienced psychotherapists, help the budding psychiatrists navigate this new professional terrain by revealing the inner workings of talk and behavioral interventions and stressing their utility in a world dominated by pharmaceutical treatments. In the process, the residents examine their own doctoring assumptions and develop new competencies in psychotherapy. Exploring the world of contemporary psychiatric training, Craciun illustrates novice physicians’ struggles to understand the nature and meaning of mental illness and, with it, their own growing medical expertise. Mariana Craciun is Associate Professor in Sociology at Tulane University. As a cultural sociologist, she is interested in the issues of expertise, professions, science, and technology. Her writings on psychotherapeutic expertise and authority and was published in top peer reviewed journals, including the American Journal of Sociology, Theory and Society, Qualitative Sociology, and the Sociology of Health and Illness. Yadong Li is a PhD student in anthropology at Tulane University. His research interests lie at the intersection of environmental anthropology, the anthropology of time, hope studies, and post-structuralist philosophy. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

8 Sep 20241h 46min

The third podcast in this series focuses on an article written by Dr. Dionne Powell who participated in the 2014 documentary, “Black Psychoanalysts Speak,” which was an excellent film created by Basia Winograd. Dr. Powell’s JAPA article written in 2018 was entitled, “Race, African Americans, and Psychoanalysis: Collective Silence in the Therapeutic Situation.” This is a an important illustration of racism in America and ties in nicely with our topic about psychoanalytic mechanisms of defense. Dr. Karyne E. Messina is a psychologist and child, adolescent and adult psychoanalyst. In addition to maintaining a full-time private practice in Chevy Chase, Maryland, she is on the medical staff of Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland which is part of Johns Hopkins Medicine. She is a podcast host for the New Books Network and chair of the Department of Psychoanalytic Education’s (DPE) Scholarship and Writing section which is part of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsA). She is a member of the AI Council of APsA (CAI). She has also written and edited six books. Her topics focus on applying psychoanalytic ideas to real-world issues we all face in our complex world. Dr. Felecia Powell-Williams is a child and adolescent supervising psychoanalyst at the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies in Houston, Texas, where she also holds the position of President of Board of Directors. Dr. Felecia Powell-Williams is also a faculty member in the Child and Adult Training Programs. In addition, she provides clinical supervision for the State of Texas licensing board, as well as supervision as a Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor with the Association for Play Therapy. She is also the chair of the Department of Psychoanalytic Education’s (DPE) Diversity section which is part of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsA). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

3 Sep 202443min

In Beyond Psychotherapy: On Becoming a (Radical) Psychoanalyst (Routledge, 2019), Barnaby Barratt illuminates a new perspective on the radicality of genuinely psychoanalytic discourse as the unique science of healing. Starting with an incisive critique of the ideological conformism of psychotherapy, Barratt defines the method of psychoanalysis against the conventional definition, which emphasizes the practice of arriving at useful interpretations about our personal existence. Instead, he shows how a negatively dialectical and deconstructive praxis successfully ‘attacks’ the self-enclosures of interpretation, allowing the speaking-listening subject to become existentially and spiritually open to hidden dimensions of our lived-experience. He also demonstrates how the erotic deathfulness of our being-in-the-world is the ultimate source of all the many resistances to genuinely psychoanalytic praxis, and the reason Freud’s discipline has so frequently been reduced to various models of psychotherapeutic treatment. Focusing on the free-associative dimension of psychoanalysis, Barratt both explores what psychoanalytic processes can achieve that the psychotherapeutic one cannot, and consider the sociopolitical implications of the radical psychoanalytic ‘take’ on the human condition. The book also offers a detailed and compassionate pointer for those wanting to train as psychoanalysts, guiding them away from what Barratt calls the ‘trade-school mentality pervading most training institutes today. Philip Lance, Ph.D. is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice in Los Angeles. He is candidate at The Psychoanalytic Center of California. He can be reached at PhilipJLance@gmail.com and his website address is https://www.psychologytoday.com/profile/228002 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

25 Aug 202450min

What does Donald Moss have against common sense, Captain Obvious, sincerity, and everything duh!? At War with the Obvious: Disruptive Thinking in Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2018) turns to culture and the clinic to reach beneath semblance, the lure of affect, and the comforts of doxa, and to discuss “erotic thought,” rupture, and conceptual transgression. Moss is interested in how flashes of profound epistemological disorientation and isolation are transmuted into potentiality and theory: from fragmenting “zones of uncertainty” and the suffocating flood of experience we might — as analysts, artists, writers, and political actors — manage our way back to sociality and thinking, safely ashore and reconstituted but not the same. As in his previous books, Moss writes courageously, revealing his own periodic struggles with smugness and easy solutions – moments when he, unable to analyze or gather himself – lashed out, fled, and recovered with great difficulty. In a particularly compelling chapter, Moss describes his experience of terror, shame, and rage when a violent patient threatens to hit him in the face and leaves the consulting room shouting “faggot!” The epithet later erupts in Moss as he waits on a subway platform next to an effeminate man and resounds in the reader as Moss parses his identifications and disidentifications, both with the ostensibly gay stranger and with physical and psychic vulnerability. In the chapter, “On thinking and not being able to think,” Moss reflects on what happens when he observes objects, specifically performance art and documentary photographs, and endures an unexpected collapse of the frame, a sudden loss of legibility. Moss recounts such a disintegration while viewing photos of Abu Ghraib, and attributes it not to the photos’ disturbing subject matter but to their uncanny registering of his look: when the spectator’s gaze appears within the framed spectacle his subjectivity is obliterated. Captured by the photograph, losing his privileged perspective and link to other audience members, Moss is momentarily rendered an object. Without a stable “I” he is unable to interpret. He concludes that the capacity to create a new frame and thereby regain distance depends on the re-establishment of a transferential “we” — a refinding of one’s place among an expanded and transformed community of viewers and readers. The book’s most original and moving chapter, “I and You,” is the result of a yearlong collection of patients’ utterances. Moss wrote down one sentence from every session, collated each day’s lines, and published them in abridged form in At War With the Obvious (all 154 days are presented in a separate book). Together they constitute a dirge, a mournful cry made no less searing by its unstable and acousmatic authorship. Anna Fishzon, PhD is Senior Research Associate at the University of Bristol, UK. She is a candidate at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) and author of Fandom, Authenticity, and Opera: Mad Acts and Letter Scenes in Fin-de-siecle Russia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). Her articles have appeared in Slavic Review, The Candidate Journal, Russian Literature Journal, Slavic and East European Journal, Laboratorium, and other academic publications. She can be reached at afishzon@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

20 Aug 202449min