Psychoanalysis On and Off the Couch

Paul Holinger, a seasoned psychiatrist and former Dean at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, shares valuable insights into emotional development and the power of curiosity in children. He recounts a touching story of a mother who transforms her child's milk spill into a learning moment. Holinger critiques the harmful effects of corporal punishment and advocates for nurturing environments that foster emotional awareness. He emphasizes the importance of understanding affects in therapy and how supportive interactions can shape a child's identity and empathy.

Mariano Horenstein, a distinguished psychoanalyst from Cordoba, Argentina, discusses the 'necessary foreignness' in psychoanalysis. He emphasizes how being an outsider enhances understanding of the unconscious, encouraging a vibrant exploration of identity. Horenstein contrasts traditional teaching with the deeper insights gained through analysis, noting the significance of asymmetry in this process. He also shares a whimsical tale of a polar bear as a metaphor for migration and examines the intersection of psychoanalysis with geography, advocating for a fresh interpretative lens in therapeutic practices.

Maxine Anderson, a training and supervising analyst from multiple psychoanalytic societies, discusses her unique experience caring for a former analysand with dementia. She shares insights into the emotional dynamics of caregiver-patient relationships, emphasizing the importance of analytic awareness in managing denial and projection. The conversation also highlights the rejuvenating impact of reconnecting with past patients, the complexities of communication in the face of memory loss, and the deep emotional undercurrents involved in navigating dementia care.

"All of this together shaped how I began to think about mind, not as something to be mastered, but as a landscape of the unspoken whether it was ghosts or griefs or desires that were hard to relinquish. I saw that the ghost was not always an 'other'. It was often intimate, tied to lost ones, sometimes to unmet desires, to unbearable longings, but in some ways possession was an attempt to keep close what was slipping away. The ghost doesn't just haunt, it feels as if it wants something, and we just have to learn to develop ears to listen to what it wants." Episode Description: We acknowledge Loewald's concept of 'ghosts becoming ancestors' and consider the similarities and differences with those who hold 'ghosts' to be literal. Shalini shares with us her journey to open herself to the uncertainty and ambiguity of these externalized entities while appreciating both their cultural and intrapsychic sources. We learn of her family's involvement with exorcisms, especially her grandmother's "fearless warmth" and "empathy that saw beyond the terror of the ghosts." She considers the many facets of mind that are represented by 'ghosts' and the essential value of approaching them as guides to the "landscape of the unspoken." Shalini describes a long term engagement that she had with an individual who "taught me to receive the inchoate and horrific...to contain the brokenness and not interpret it away.. and to appreciate the glimpses of beauty in the most grotesque parts of self." Our Guest: Shalini Masih, a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and writer, grew up in India amidst priests and healers, witnessing spirit possession and exorcism. Now based in Worcestershire, UK, she holds a Master's degree in Psychoanalytic Studies from Tavistock & Portman, London, and a PhD from the University of Delhi. Mentored by psychoanalysts Michael Eigen and Sudhir Kakar, she's an award-winning scholar of the American Psychological Association. She has taught and supervised psychoanalytic psychotherapists in Ambedkar University, Delhi and in Birkbeck, University of London. Her acclaimed paper, 'Devil! Sing me the Blues', was nominated for Gradiva Awards in 2020. Her debut book is Psychoanalytic Conversations with States of Spirit Possession: Beauty in Brokenness. Recommended Readings: Kakar, Sudhir. Shamans, mystics, and doctors: A psychological inquiry into India and its healing traditions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Kakar, Sudhir. Mad and Divine. India: Penguin Books India, 2008. Eigen, Michael. "On Demonized Aspects of the Self" In The Electrified Tightrope. Routledge. 2018. Kumar, Mansi, Dhar Anup & Mishra, Anurag. Psychoanalysis from the Indian Terroir: Emerging Themes in Culture, Family, and Childhood. New York:Lexington Books, 2018. Meltzer, Donald, and Williams, Meg H. The apprehension of beauty: The role of aesthetic conflict in development, art and violence. Karnac, London: The Harris Meltzer Trust, 2008. Obeyesekere, Gananath. Medusa's Hair: An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1981. Ogden, Thomas. This Art of Psychoanalysis—Dreaming Undreamt Dreams and Interrupted Cries. East Sussex: Routledge, 2005 Botella, Cesar, and Botella, Sara. The Work of Psychic Figurability: Mental States without Representation. Brunner-Routledge. Taylor and Francis Group: Hove and New York. 2005. Winnicott. Donald W. "Transitional objects and transitional phenomena." International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 34, (1953): 89–97

Himanshu Agrawal, an adult and child psychiatrist and associate professor, shares insights from his recent psychoanalytic training. He discusses the emotional rollercoaster candidates face, from initial terror and excitement to feelings of apathy. Agrawal highlights the importance of peer support through the International Psychoanalytical Studies Organization, emphasizing shared experiences that foster community. He reflects on how cultural backgrounds shape training and the transformative journey of becoming a psychoanalyst amid challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stefano Bolognini, a prominent psychiatrist and former IPA president, shares insights on the evolving landscape of psychoanalysis. He discusses the shift from internal conflicts to contemporary issues of self-perception driven by societal pressures. Bolognini emphasizes the importance of long-term therapeutic relationships, highlighting how transformation in a patient can emerge from deep engagement with their internal world. The conversation touches on the impact of modern family dynamics and the need for personalized care in navigating the complexities of identity.

"The original papers that were written about the analyst's unconscious being attuned to the patient's unconscious by Hyman and Racker, in both cases they talk about this phenomenon. But both of them utter a caution, which is that one always has to take into account one's own 'mishegas'. Essentially, what they're saying is, the unconscious is pretty individualistic and we have our own things, and we have to consider that possibly it's our own difficulties, our own unconscious, that is playing a bigger role in our countertransference reaction to the patient's unconscious." Episode Description: We begin by discussing the meaning of the many italics throughout the book and my sense of their being an expression of Fred's wish to be carefully understood. This is part of our conversation where we examine how internal reactions are used to comprehend another person's mind. There are a number of themes to this work, and to Fred's contributions over the years, which focus on helping individuals understand the way their mind works, as distinct from the particular contents of their mind. One of the gifts of psychoanalysis is to facilitate patient's discovery of the freedom to think which allows for a post-termination capacity for self-analysis. We discuss how self-criticism can serve as an unconscious lifeline, the importance of attending to the need for silence as distinct from what is not being said and the seductiveness of gossip, to name but a few of the topics in the book that we cover. Fred closes by describing "The wonderful thing about being a psychoanalyst is there are always things to learn and ways to grow." Our Guest: Fred Busch, Ph.D. is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. He has published eight books, and over 80 articles on psychoanalytic technique, along with many book reviews and chapters in books. His work has been translated into many languages, and he has been invited to present over 180 papers and clinical workshops nationally and internationally. His last six books are: Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind (2014); The Analyst's Reveries: Explorations in Bion's Enigmatic Concept (2019); Dear Candidate: Analyst From Around the World Offer Personal Reflections on Psychoanalytic Training, Education, and the Profession (2020); A Fresh Look at Psychoanalytic Technique (2021), Psychoanalysis at the Crossroads: An International Perspective (2023).The Ego and Id: 100 years later (2023), How Does Analysis Cure? (2024). Recommended Readings: Busch, F. (2014). Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind: A Psychoanalytic Method and Theory. London: Routledge. Busch, F. (2019). The Analyst's Reveries: Explorations in Bion's Enigmatic Concept. London: Routledge. Busch, F. (2021). A Fresh Look at Psychoanalytic Technique: Selected papers on Psychoanalysis. Routledge: London. Busch, F. (2023) The Significance of the Ego in "The Ego and the Id" and its Unfulfilled Promise. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 104:1077-1090. Busch, F. (2000). What is a deep interpretation? J. Amer. Psychoanal.Assn., 48:238-254. Busch, F. (2005). Conflict Theory/Trauma Theory. Psychoanal.Q., 74: 27-46. Busch, F. (2006). A shadow concept. Int.J.Psychoanal.,87: 1471-1485. Also appearing as Un oncerto ombra, Psycoanalisi, 11:5-26. Busch, F. (2015). Our Vital Profession*. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 96(3):553-568. Reprinted in Busch, F. (2015). La nostra professione vitale. Rivista Psicoanal., 61(2):435-456; Busch, F. (2015). Nuestra profesión vital*. Int. J. Psycho-Anal. Es., 1(3):605-627; Busch, F. (2015). Nuestra profesión vital1. Rev. Psicoanál. Asoc. Psico. Madrid, 75:131-153.

David Black, a retired fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society, dives into the intersection of psychoanalysis and religion. He discusses Freud's perspective of religion as a protective illusion against life's uncertainties. Black highlights Levinas's call for ethical recognition of the 'other,' emphasizing our interconnectedness. The conversation shifts to the dangers of dogmatism in religion versus the poetic depth of allegory, drawing parallels with Dante's works. Ultimately, he reflects on how personal trauma shapes identity and ethical responsibility.

"There are very specific fears that people have that are specifically related to their own childhood, and I'd like to give an example. A mom with twins had a kidnapping fear. She was afraid every time she saw a car drive by her house that her twins would be kidnapped. Now this mother was herself adopted when she was a newborn, but her adoption did not become final until she was one year old. Her twins were approaching one year. I was struck by the anniversary of her fear of kidnapping, and when I asked her who she thought was driving the car that drove by her house, she blurted out, 'my biological mother - adoption was never an issue for me, I have the best parents,' she said, but her fears about her babies being kidnapped were rooted in her own guilty feelings. She said, 'I get to keep my biological babies and my biological mother did not. I can have biological babies and my adoptive mother could not.' Carrie's fantasy that her biological mother was threatening to kidnap her babies represented both her fears of retaliation for her aggressive victories over both her biological mother and her adoptive mother, and the repair of her disavowed feeling of loss by a reunion with her biological mother. This meaning of the memory, this understanding of the memory, resolved her kidnapping fear. It dissolved." Episode Description: We begin with an overview of the importance of mothers' childhood memories in their experience of their own children. These memories are of the conscious sort and also the not-so conscious. They are of the loving as well as the misattuned versions. "The challenge for mothers is to understand the complexity of their own childhood memories and to help their babies and toddlers adapt to the everyday ups and downs of life, as well as to the exceptional ones." We discuss typical fears, sleep problems, 'mutually-regulated patterns', naming body parts, nakedness, weaning and screen time. Ilene ran mother-baby-toddler groups for 35 years and shares with us her relentless curiosity for what we all bring to the parenting experience. Our Guest: In 1982, Ilene Lefcourt established the Sackler Lefcourt Center for Child Development - programs for parents and their children from birth to three years. She was the Director, led the Mother-Baby-Toddler Groups, and provided Developmental Consultation to parents for over 35 years. She saw over 1,000 families and taught Child Psychiatry Residents and Parent-Infant Psychotherapy Trainees about her work. She has been a faculty member at the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center since 1995. Ms. Lefcourt is currently in private practice in New York City. She is the author of When Mothers Talk, Parenting and Childhood Memories, and Mother-Baby-Toddler Group Guide. Her forthcoming book is, Mothers and Daughters: The First Three Years. Visit Ilene's website: http://ilenelefcourt.com/. Recommended Readings: 1975, Fraiberg S. Adelson E., Shapiro V., Ghosts in the Nursery, Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 14, 387-421 1975, Mahler, M., F. and Bergman, A. The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant, Basic Books 1985, Main, M. Kaplan, N. Cassidy, J. Security in Infancy, Childhood, and Adulthood: A move to the Level of Representation. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 1991, Fonagy, P., Steele, M., Steele,H., Moran, G. S . The Capacity for Understanding Mental States. Infant Mental Health Journal, 12(3) 201-218 1992, Bretherton, I. The Origins of Attachment Theory. Developmental Psychology, 28(5) 759-775 1993, Lieberman, A ., The Emotional Life of the Toddler, Simon and Schuster 1995, Stern, D. The Motherhood Constellation, Basic Books 1998, Stern, D., Brushwweiler-Stern, N. The Birth of a Mother. Basic Books 2005, Lieberman, A., Angels in The Nursery, Infant Mental Health Journal. Vol. 26(6)

Ashis Roy, a psychoanalyst from Kolkata, specializes in Hindu-Muslim relationships and discusses his book, Intimacy in Alienation. He explores the guilt and alienation felt by those in interfaith love, delving into the harmful concept of 'malignant othering.' Roy emphasizes the need for supportive familial structures and the impact of historical trauma on identity formation in interfaith families. He argues that transcending binaries is essential for a renewed understanding of communal identities, advocating for deeper connections that foster healing.