by Jane S. Hall
Measuring each other is, more often than not, a fruitless exercise and breeds strife where there should be encouragement, ill will where there should be generativity, falsification of material due to perceived requirements, and mistrust where there should be trust.
If we can agree that the practice of psychoanalysis includes intensive work with patients who suffer from both pre oedipal and oedipal conflicts, object hunger, developmental lags, mood disorders, character problems, anxiety inappropriate to the occasion, using the psychoanalytic techniques that include recognizing and using transference, counter transference, and projective identification to inform; action and enactment to explain; awareness and modification of resistance to proceed; and listening for fantasy that clouds wished for functioning; in a safe and consistent atmosphere, we should be able to know and explain just exactly what psychoanalytic work is. Continue reading Thoughts On Measurement
The following editorial on the crisis in pediatric psychiatry (e.g., there has been at least a 40 fold increase in diagnosing pediatric bipolar disorder in this country, unlike other countries such as Puerto Rico) was published in a recent issue of Nature Neuroscience (a basic science journal relevant for anyone interested in what neuroscience has to offer psychoanalysts). Fairly recently, the Hastings Center (a bioethics think tank) held a conference on child psychiatry and psychopharmacology with Steve Hyman (former NIMH Director and Provost at Harvard) as one of the speakers. Hyman, a representative of what became known as the molecular biological approach to psychiatric neuroscience, gave an excellent review of the problems in the field. Parenthetically, Hyman underscores a nonreductionistic approach which includes the value of psychotherapy in mental illness. The Hastings Center’s website has interesting information on children and psychopharmacology.
Brian Koehler
Click Here To Read: Credibility crisis in pediatric psychiatry, an editorial from Nature Neuroscience 11, 983 (2008).
The Well is Running Dry
by Jane S. Hall
Barrier busting is a business term recently used by Amory Lovins, an energy wizard and CEO of the Rocky Mt. Institute. He was referring to the need for all those concerned with oil consumption and alternative energy to work together towards finding solutions. Psychoanalysis needs to bust barriers too.
Since my essay on Barrier Busting (link) www.internationalpsychoanalysis.net I have been thinking about an equally and related serious problem that must involve all post-graduate psychoanalytic institutes: universities and colleges are no longer teaching psychodynamic theory. Medical schools, psychology departments, and social work schools (both masters level and doctoral level) have turned almost completely away from Freud’s ideas to the point that a recent graduate might not have read one paper by him or by anyone interested in the human psyche in terms of the unconscious. It looks like a generation will have been skipped and that the next one will be mesmerized and inspired to study the brain and genetics, completely ignorant of psychoanalytic theory, let alone psychoanalysis.
It is as though we psychoanalytic thinkers and clinicians have broken off the polar ice cap and are both drifting and melting away. Continue reading The Well is Running Dry
I think this short opinion piece in the New York Times has relevance for all psychoanalysts, in our consulting rooms, in our societies, and in the world in general. We are trained to listen and there is so much that we don’t hear for one reason or another. (click here to read Two Silences)
Jane S. Hall
op-ed editor
The IP Blog is pleased to bring to your attention an important article on fighting cancer, a problem that touches us all. Click here to read David Servan-Schreiber’s opinion piece, “We can stop the cancer epidemic” published in the Herald Tribune, September 19, 2008. Thank you, David, for letting us know about it.
Jane S. Hall
op-ed editor
In this lastest op ed piece, Jurgen Reeder, author of Hate and Love in Psychoanalytic Institututions the dilemma of the profession, gives us his thoughts about the three models of training sanctioned by the IPA and makes a good argument for less rigidity and more flexibility. Psychoanalytic education is not thriving, as we all know, and I am grateful that Dr. Reeder is keeping this important topic in the forefront of our minds.
–Jane S. Hall, Website OpEd Editor
Click Here to Read: The Potenial Repressive Power of Defining Models of Education, An Op-Ed Piece by Jurgen Reeder.
Barrier busting is a business term recently used by Amory Lovins*, an energy wizard and CEO of the Rocky Mt. Institute. He is referring to the need for all those concerned with oil consumption and alternative energy to work together towards a solution. I applaud this concept as it relates to psychoanalysis as well. Psychoanalysis needs to bust barriers too.
The richness of this profession is due to the mix of psychoanalysts, some with doctorates and many without. Exclusionary practices are damaging this profession. Case in point: Today I received an invitation to a meeting
NEW PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVES ON PREJUDICE
Making a Difference in Society
A Conference for the Application of Psychoanalysis to Problems in Society
Co Sponsored by the Harry Stack Sullivan Society,
William Alanson White Psychoanalytic Society, and
Contemporary Psychoanalysis
A conference on prejudice that clearly excludes clinical social workers on its program and on its planning committee – people who have earned the right to practice psychoanalysis, and who have made major contributions to this profession – is misguided and divisive.
My hope, in this short essay, is first of all to educate those who are prejudiced against masters level social work psychoanalysts and lay analysts, and secondly, along the same lines, to make a plea that we respect and listen to diverse points of view from different disciplines.
Anyone who embraces psychoanalytic work knows how difficult and rewarding it can be. Putting energy into turf wars is draining and takes away the chance to learn from each other. Discrimination persists now because of status issues, as the world of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy becomes increasingly stratified under economic pressure. But now is a time to join together as we have much to share. Continue reading Barrier Busting
