Psychoanalysis On and Off the Couch

“The basic principle in defense analysis is that one approaches what is going on right now -  it's an experience-near technique. You don't make conjectures about what would be called experience-distant phenomenon until you have a lot of material, a lot of knowledge about the patient. As the treatment goes on you really stick with what the patient is doing right now.”   Episode Description: Leon shares with us what he sees as the fundamental method of analytic treatment, which "regardless of the manifest theoretical orientation of the therapist ... are effectively utilizing the technique of interpreting defenses against unwelcome affects." He emphasizes the importance of being interested in the patient's defenses and less so the warded-off content. We consider the term 'protection' in place of 'defense'; how these interventions are an amalgam of clarification and interpretation; and the source of the bad reputation that attaches to the concept of 'defense interpretation’. He shares with us how this approach links with the neurosciences and the concept of implicit emotion regulation. We discuss the work of Berta Bornstein, who introduced the importance of defending against unpleasant affects. He discusses two cases of disruptive children and their use of aggression in an effort to avoid sadness and loneliness. We close with his sharing his view of our field and his conclusion that "analysis will survive - it's too powerful a tool."   Our Guest:  Leon Hoffman, MD, is a psychiatrist and child and adolescent psychiatrist. He is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. He is the Co-Director of the Pacella Research Center of NYSI. Among many publications, he is co-author with Timothy Rice and Tracy Prout of Regulation Focused Psychotherapy for Children (RFP-C): A Psychodynamic Approach and with Timothy Rice Defense Mechanisms and Implicit Emotion Regulation: A Comparison of a Psychodynamic Construct with One from Contemporary Neuroscience. In 2022, he presented the Norbert and Charlotte Rieger Psychodynamic Psychotherapy lecture at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry on “Helping Parents Spare the Rod: Addressing Their Unbearable Emotions” based on a paper he authored with Tracy Prout. He presented the Paulina Kernberg Memorial Lecture at Weill Cornell Medicine Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Grand Rounds. On Regulation Focused Psychotherapy: An evidence-based psychodynamic treatment for children with disruptive behaviors. And The Bruce A. Gibbard Lectureship in Psychiatry, University of Vermont, Department of Psychiatry.   Linked Episode:   Episode 38: A Psychoanalyst Studies ‘Why is it easier to get mad than it is to feel sad?’ with Leon Hoffman   Recommended Readings: 1.      Hoffman, L. (2007) Do Children Get Better When We Interpret Their Defenses Against  Painful Feelings? Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 62:291-313.   2.      Hoffman, L. (2014).  Berta Bornstein’s Frankie: The Contemporary Relevance of a Classic to the Treatment of Children with Disruptive Symptoms. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 68:152-176   3.      Rice, T. R., & Hoffman, L. (2014). Defense mechanisms and implicit emotion regulation: a comparison of a psychodynamic construct with one from contemporary neuroscience. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 62(4), 693-708.    4.      Prout, T. A., Rice, T., Chung, H., Gorokhovsky, Y., Murphy, S., & Hoffman, L. (2021) Randomized controlled trial of Regulation Focused Psychotherapy for Children: A manualized psychodynamic treatment for externalizing behaviors. Psychotherapy Research, 32(5), 555-570.    5.      Hoffman, L. (2020). How can I help you? Dimensional versus categorical distinctions in the assessment for child analysis and child psychotherapy. Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 19(1), 1-15.   6.      Leon Hoffman, Tracy A. Prout, Timothy Rice & Margo Bernstein (2023): Addressing Emotion Regulation with Children: Play, Verbalization of Feelings, and Reappraisal, Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, DOI: 10.1080/15289168.2023.2165874   7.      Prout, T. A., Malone, A., Rice, T., & Hoffman, L. (2019). Resilience, defenses, and implicit emotion regulation in psychodynamic child psychotherapy. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 49(4). 235-244.    8.      Hoffman, L., & Prout, T. A. (2020). Helping parents spare the rod: Addressing their unbearable emotions. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 73(1), 46-61. 

"He [Bernays] proposed to his uncle that he’d do a translation of this book that had been given to him and Freud, perhaps without thinking too much about it,  approved the idea.  Bernays went about hiring a translator who was a psychology Ph.D. student that he found at Columbia University and he got Stanley Hall to write an introduction for what was published in 1920 as ‘A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis’. Now, shortly after this happened,  Freud had second thoughts about authorizing Bernays to translate his lectures, particularly as he had been working with his trusted colleague Ernest Jones on translations.  But by the time Freud wired Bernays to try to stop this publication, Bernays said that it was already too late and that the advertisements had already been placed and the publication was proceeding. Bernays assured Freud that it would be all right and he also assured him that he would get fame and glory and also substantial recompense for the publication. Freud was not too happy about this, nor was Ernest Jones, and when they finally  received the translation that Bernays had done they were particularly upset."    Episode Description: We begin by describing the complicated bloodline between Freud and Edward Bernays - Bernays' mother was Freud's sister, and his father was the brother of Freud's wife. We then consider Bernays' role as the founder of the field of public relations. This has led many to inaccurately see him as a manipulator of the masses through the use of his uncle's theories. In fact, Bernays served as the pro-bono literary agent for Freud's books in the US which contributed to his popularization and to providing vital financial support during the years of Austria’s hyperinflation. We also discuss Bernays' role in the American pro-democracy movement, which was designed to counter the influence of Nazi propaganda in the years before WWII. We close with Joseph's describing his interest in this subject and his wish to "set the record straight" about Edward Bernays.   Our Guest: Joseph Malherek is a historian who holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He was the Junior Botstiber Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University, and he has been a Fulbright Visiting Professor of Austrian-American Studies at the University of Vienna. He has published widely on the topics of transatlantic migration, twentieth-century intellectual history, and the history of capitalism and consumer culture. His book, Free-Market Socialists: European Émigrés Who Made Capitalist Culture in America, 1918–1968, was recently published by Central European University Press.   Linked Paper: https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/pah.2023.0452?journalCode=pah   Recommended Readings: Freud’s American Nephew: Edward Bernays and the Selling of Psychoanalysis.  Psychoanalysis and History 25, no. 1 (2023): 59–78.   Bernays, Edward L. (1923) Crystallizing Public Opinion. New York: Boni and Liveright.   Bernays, Edward L. (1965) Biography of an Idea: Memoirs of Public Relations Counsel Edward L. Bernays. New York: Simon and Schuster.   Freud, Sigmund. (1920) A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis. New York: Horace Liveright.   Gay, Peter. (1988) Freud: A Life for Our Time. New York: W.W. Norton.   Lippmann, Walter. (1922) Public Opinion. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.   Roudinesco, Élisabeth. (2016) Freud: In His Time and Ours. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press  

"Analytic candidates in training struggle with the fact that you tend to get thrown into the deep water before you really know what you're doing. Then, the anxious candidate will typically struggle to find something to hang on to - and it's much easier to hang on to a theory than it is to hang on to the subtle and irreproducible nuances of clinical work. Candidates tend to latch on to theory and displace their anxiety about what they don't know to the theory, which is at least in principle knowable in order to calm down  their anxiety about the actual interpersonal event that is the therapy.”   Episode Description: We begin with explaining that our title Technique is Character Rationalized recognizes that we refer to colleagues based on our sense of their character not based on their theoretical orientations. We discuss the use and misuse of theory to offer analysts distancing structures when faced with the uncertainty of intensive treatment. Lee distinguishes between neurotic and perverse mental processes and considers the differing clinical challenges faced with each. We take up sado-masochism as object-preserving, the use of aggression to defend against tenderness, and how privileging psychic reality may for some result in confusing fantasy with reality. We close with Lee sharing with us his personal analytic journey and his reflections on our field now that he is retired.   Our Guest: Lee Grossman, MD trained at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis where he was a training and supervising analyst for 40 years. He served on the editorial board of The Psychoanalytic Quarterly for fifteen years, and currently serves on the board of JAPA. He is also an exhibiting photographer whose work can be seen at www.leegrossman.net. He and his wife, Jan Baeuerlen, have both just retired from clinical work. They live in Oakland, CA with an English bulldog named Frank.   Recommended Readings:   Bateson, Gregory (2002) Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences. Hampton Press. Erikson, Erik H. (1963). Childhood and Society, 2nd edition. NY: W.W. Norton. Friedman, Lawrence (1988). The Anatomy of Psychotherapy. Hillsdale NJ: The Analytic Press Greenberg, J.R. (1981). Prescription or description: the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis. Contemp. Psychoanal. 17: 235-57.   Hoffman, I.Z. (1983). The patient as interpreter of the analyst’s experience. Contemp. Psychoanal. 19:389-422.   Levenson, E.A. (1988). Real frogs in imaginary gardens. Facts and fantasies in psychoanalysis. Psa. Inquiry 8:552-67.   Loewald, H.W. (1952). The problem of defense and the neurotic interpretation of reality. Int. J. Psa 33:444-449.   Reed, G. S. (1987) Rules of Clinical Understanding in Classical Psychoanalysis and in Self Psychology: A Comparison. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 35:421-446   Upcoming Episode: Freud's Nephew and the Creation of 'Buzz' for Psychoanalysis with Joseph Malherek, Ph.D. (Raleigh, NC)  

"When you're with a patient you take all that you know in your head, all the theory, and you throw it away. You have to listen to the patient and then maybe afterward something becomes clear - you use that ‘in-between’ as a way maybe in the next session. But if you were sitting there and thinking: ‘Now the patient is in the paranoid/schizoid position…’ that would be disastrous. You have to listen with your guts, your emotions, your intellect, and your body, in order to understand what is going on in a particular moment, in a particular session. Then later on you might be able to make sense of it through theory and through supervision."    Episode Description: We begin with considering the cultural and linguistic contributions to intrapsychic processes and the analytic encounter. Jeanne shares with us her life story involving her 'temporary' visit to California, which became a 37-year stay that included her becoming a psychoanalyst. We discuss the meaning to her and to her analysands of her being German and how she worked with that clinically. She moved to Vienna and began teaching and practicing analysis there, enabling her to compare the two psychoanalytic cultures and methods of practice. We also take up the importance of the German language as the vehicle through which Freud discovered the unconscious. Jeanne concludes by sharing with us her ongoing sense of feeling like an immigrant, a state of mind inherent in the analytic engagement.    Linked Episode: Episode 121: Polish Psychoanalysis, Ukraine and Intergenerational Trauma with Edyta Biernacka (Krakow) – IPA Off the Couch   Our Guest: Jeanne Wolff-Bernstein is a psychoanalyst living and working in Vienna, Austria. She is a member and training analyst at the Wiener Arbietskreis für Psychoanalyse, where she is a member on the Board. She is also the head of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Vienna Sigmund Freud Museum, where she had also been the Fulbright Freud Visiting Scholar in Psychoanalysis in 2008. Prior to moving to Vienna, Jeanne Wolff Bernstein was the past president and supervising and personal analyst at PINC (Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California). She is still on the faculty at PINC and at the NYU Postdoctoral Program, New York, and teaches at the Wiener Arbeitskreis für Psychoanalyse (WAP) She has published numerous articles on the interfaces between psychoanalysis, the visual arts, and film. Her most recent publications include, Beyond the Bedrock in Good Enough Endings, (2010) ed. by Jill Salberg, The Space of Transition between Winnicott and Lacan in Between Winnicott and Lacan (2011) ed. by Lewis Kirshner, and the section on Jacques Lacan in The Textbook of Psychoanalysis as well as Living between two languages: A Bi-focal Perspective, in Immigration in Psychoanalysis, (2016) Dora, the unending and unraveling story, in Dora, Hysteria & Gender: Reconsidering Freud’s Case Study, 2018 and Unexpected antecedents to the concept of the death drive: a return to the beginnings, in Contemporary Perspectives on the Freudian Death Drive, in Theory, Clinical Practice and Culture. 2019, 55-68.   Her last publication, resulting from the 2022 EPF congress on the subject of Ideals, is entitled From Narcissus to Echo: The Imaginary Working under the Mask of the Symbolic.   Her book on Edouard Manet, Framing the Past and the Gaze, is forthcoming. Recommended Readings:   Lots of Freud, over and over again.   Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu   Winnicott, several key essays, over and over again   Philip Sands, East / West Street and The Ratline   Francoise Davoine, History Beyond Trauma, Shandean Psychoanalysis  

"I've long had concerns about the practice of psychoanalysis and that the theory underlying it has become a veritable Tower of Babel. We have these multiple views where everything is accepted as ‘psychoanalysis,’ but they really can't be because they're very different models and they call for very different things. I also feel that our field in general is drifting into sociology so that our national and international meetings feel like there is very little room for clinical discussions, and there are just so many clinical discussions that we need to have." Episode Description: Fred's edited book Psychoanalysis at the Crossroads represents a 'state of the union' for our field. He has brought together contributions representing multiple points of view on a wide range of analytic topics, including those that are considered contentious. After he shares his purpose in compiling this work, we each read a paragraph which serves as a jumping-off point for a wide-ranging discussion. We cover definitions of analysis, the history of narcissistic defenses, the depth of analysis in contrast to more superficial approaches, the role of theory, listening to the impact of one's interventions, curriculum design and the intergenerational struggles around it, and the place of defense analysis. We conclude with Fred sharing with us his concerns for our future and his eagerness to continue to contribute to a depth understanding that can often offer profound relief of suffering to our patients.   Our Guest:   Fred Busch, Ph.D., is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and has been invited to teach at many Institutes. He has published over 80 articles on psychoanalytic techniques and six 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 five 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. The Ego and Id: 100 years Later, will appear later this year.   Linked Episode: Wisdom and Enthusiasm for Today's Candidates   Recommended Readings:   Bolognini, S. (1997) Empathy And ‘Empathism.’ International Journal of Psychoanalysis 78:279-293   Busch, F. (2013). Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind: Psychoanalytic Method and Theory. London: Routledge.   Busch, F. (2019). The Analyst’s Reveries: Explorations in Bion’s Enigmatic Concept. London: Routledge.   Da Rocha Barros, E. M. (1995) The Problem Of Originality And Imitation In Psychoanalytic Thought: International Journal of Psychoanalysis 76:835-843.   Diana Diamond, Frank E. Yeomans, Barry L. Stern, and Otto F. Kernberg. (2022). Treating Pathological Narcissism with Transference-Focused Psychotherapy. New York: Guilford Press.   Gray, P. (1982) "Developmental Lag" in the Evolution of Technique for Psychoanalysis of Neurotic Conflict. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 30:621-655.   Joseph, B. (1985) Transference: The Total Situation. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 66:447-454   Kris, A. (1982). Free Association. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.   Paniagua, C. (2001) The Attraction of Topographical Technique. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 82:671-684  

"They interviewed more than 6,000 American parents and their children from ages eight to thirteen. They wanted to identify what the perception and realities were of the parents' use of technology. It is important to know that about one-third of the children said that their parents spent equal or less time with them than in using their devices. Over half of the children felt that their parents check their devices too often and complained that their parents allow themselves to be distracted by the devices during conversation, something that made a third of them feel unimportant. Many parents too, when asked about their device usage, agreed that it was too frequent and many parents also worried about how this looked to the younger generation. Almost a third concluded that they did not set a good example for their children with their internet devices."    Episode Description: We begin by distinguishing adult addiction to pornography from the situation of childhood overstimulation. Central to the child's experience of being able to psychically metabolize pornographic images is the presence of an adult who is able to recognize "the importance of his presence for the child, the value of their mutual contact so that they can together confront difficult questions and dilemmas." Indeed, Franco and Andrea define the traumatic aspect of pornography for children to be the lack of contact with an object, "a lack that renders impossible the working through of the [pornographic] solicitations." We discuss the three models that characterize parents' rule setting for their children - digital orphans, exiles and heirs - and we also address the meaning to the children of their parents' own dissociative over-involvement in screen watching. They end on an optimistic note finding that "we can view technological experiences as an opportunity to elaborate and construct shared meanings."   Our Guests:   Franco D’Alberton, Ph.D. is a psychologist and child and adolescent psychoanalyst, full member and training analyst of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society (SPI/IPA). He worked in NHS services first as a psychologist in the field of child mental health then as consultant in Psychology at the Pediatric Department of S.Orsola University Hospital in Bologna (Italy). Initially focused on adults training in clinical psychology and psychotherapy, he has increasingly turned to children and adolescents and to family problems. He is currently working in private practice.   Andrea Scardovi MD, PHD, is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and full member of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society (SPI/IPA). He worked in NHS services and at Bologna University, where for many years taught courses on communicative elements of psychotherapy. He developed a training method to improve interview skills of General Practitioners, which was adopted in various Italian regions. He has been a member of the editorial board of the Italian Journal of Psychoanalysis. He is currently working in private practice.   Linked Episode: Episode 103: Addictive Pornography: Psychoanalytic Considerations with Claudia Spadazzi, MD and Jose Zusman, MD – IPA Off the Couch   Recommended Readings:   Balint, M. (1969) Trauma and Object Relationship. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 50:429-435   Benjamin, J., Atlas, G. (2015). The “Too Muchness” of Excitement: Sexuality in Light of Excess, Attachment, and Affect Regulation. Int. J. Psychoanal, 96(1):39-63.   Freud, S. (1895). Project for a Scientific Psychology. S. E., 1:281-391.   Freud, S. (1908). On the Sexual Theories of Children. S. E., 9:205-226.   Freud, S. (1924). The economic problem of masochism. In S. E., Vol. XIX, 155–70. London: Hogarth Press.   Dodes L. (2019) A general psychoanalytic theory of addiction. In: Savelle-Rocklin, Salman Akhtar, ed., Beyond the Primal Addiction. Food, Sex, Gambling, Internet, Shopping, and Work. Routledge, London.   Gilmore, K. (2017). Development in digital age. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 70(1):82-90.   Green, A. (2000) Time and Psychoanalysis: Some Contradictory Aspects. London: Free Association Books, 2002, 95-96.   Lemma A., Caparrotta L. (2014). Psychoanalysis in the Technoculture Era. London: Routledge.   Marzi, A. (2013). Introduction. In Marzi, A. (ed.), Psychoanalysis, Identity, and the Internet: Explorations into Cyberspace. London: Karnac, 2016,XXXIII-L.   Tylim, I. (2017). Revisiting adolescents’ narcissism in the age of cyberspace. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 70(1):130-134.   Zusman J.A. (2021) Between Dependency and Addiction. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 74(1): 280-293.  

In this fascinating discussion, Julie Jaffee Nagel, a psychologist, psychoanalyst, and musician, blends her expertise from The Juilliard School and the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute. She explores the emotional resonance of Mozart’s music, drawing parallels between musical themes and psychoanalytic conflicts. Julie shares how music facilitates healing in therapy, her personal journey from musician to analyst, and recounts how her experiences with loss and grief are reflected in both music and psychoanalysis, embodying the therapeutic symbiosis of art and emotion.

“A child [patient] makes a mistake, upsets things - one doesn't console or complain, but just reflects whatever the patient's affect was at that moment, such as, ‘that seems to bother you’ or ‘it's hard to put those two pieces together’- to just observe it, to not have an affective response of disgust or irritation. The same thing is true if a patient comes in bragging or talking about something that made them very proud - to acknowledge their being proud but to not get all excited. The kind of things that often these children who have a lot of difficulty due to parents’ narcissistic investment in them, and we're all narcissistically invested in our kids - they have a lot of trouble knowing what they really feel and what they really want. I think my non-judgmental, either positively judgmental or negatively judgmental attitude, allows them to begin to experience that what they're doing is what they are doing for themselves for some reason, not what they're doing for me or for the witness, that's an enormously important part.”      Episode Description: We begin with Judy sharing her professional journey that led her to child analysis. She is active as a psychoanalytic clinician, supervisor, teacher, consultant, writer, and editor. We discuss four key papers of hers that study neutrality, enactments, informative experiences, and the role of attachment. Central to her writing and thinking is her curiosity about the inner lives of her patients, especially as action and interaction provide clues to that latent life. We discuss the analyst’s experience of ‘wearing the attributes’ that patients need to project onto us and tolerating the often deep discomfort in doing so. We consider how her model of therapeutic action, entailing surprise and changes in perceptual frame, does and doesn’t have some similarities to psychedelic-assisted therapy. We close with her sharing her analytic experiences with gender-conflicted boys and her hope for the future of our field.     Our Guest: Judith Fingert Chused, MD, is an Emeritus Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the Denver, Cleveland, and Seattle Institutes.  She is also a Clinical Professor of Behavioral Sciences and of Pediatrics at the George Washington School of Medicine. She is married for 57 years to a former nursery school and medical school classmate and has seven delightful, mischievous grandchildren.      Recommended Readings:  Chused, J. F. (2016) An Analyst's Uncertainty and Fear. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 85:835-850     Chused, J. F. (2000) Discussion: A Clinician's View of Attachment Theory. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 48:1175-1187     Chused, J. F. (1999) Male Gender Identity and Sexual Behaviour. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 80:1105-1117     Chused, J. F. (1996) The Patient's Perception of the Analyst's Countertransference. Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis 4:231-253     Chused, J. F. (1996) The Therapeutic Action of Psychoanalysis: Abstinence and Informative Experiences. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 44:1047-1071    Chused, J. F. (1991) The Evocative Power of Enactments. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 39:615-639    Chused, J. F. (1992) The Patient's Perception of the Analyst: The Hidden Transference. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 61:161-184     Chused, J. F. (1990) Neutrality in the Analysis of Action-Prone Adolescents. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 38:679-704     Chused, J. F. (1987) Idealization of the Analyst by the Young Adult. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 35:839-859     Chused, J. F. (1982) The Role of Analytic Neutrality in the Use of the Child Analyst as a New Object. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 30:3-28 

“This is the first time that I really felt what is meant by cell relations. You have object relations and you have part-object relations and anxieties that are depressive and schizophrenic. But when I deal with primitive anxieties, I really felt cell relations. What I felt is that my cells were going beyond my skin and I felt that she felt that my cells were going beyond her skin. You have this diffuse transference and when you have this sort of transference it took me to prenatal life and biological life.  Also, I had all those theoretical people like Tustin, Meltzer, and Bion - they were all talking about that.”      Episode Description: Shiri shares with us her journey from immunology to psychology to psychoanalysis. She brings her knowledge of immunologic processes to better grasp the internal mechanisms of the dynamic mind. She sees a relationship between the embryo's capacity to transform the mother's Natural Killer cells into a receptive matrix with later capacities for psychological maturation. We consider how this informed her work with a traumatized 4-year-old girl in a tumultuous analysis that demanded a great deal from each of them. We close with her sharing her vision for the future of psychoanalysis which hopefully will include ongoing collaboration with scientists from many disciplines.    Our Guest: Shiri Ben Bassat is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst with the Israel Psychoanalytic Society. She supervises at Franz Brill Mental Health Center (Ramat Chen, Tel Aviv) and teaches in various programs in the Studying Center of The Israel Psychoanalytic Institute. Shiri previously studied biology and holds an MA degree in immunology. She is the recipient of the 24th Frances Tustin Memorial Prize (2021).    Recommended Readings:  EPIGENETICS  Martin, S. (2014) R. Yehuda, N.P. Daskalakis, A. Lehrner, F. Desarnaud, H.N. Bader, I. Makotkine, J.D. Flory, L.M. Bierer, & M.J. Meaney (2014). Influences of maternal and paternal PTSD on epigenetic regulation of the glucocorticoid receptor gene in Holocaust survivor offspring. American Journal of Psychiatry 171:872-880.    Karla Ramirez , Rosa Fernández , Sarah Collet , Meltem Kiyar Enrique Delgado-Zayas , Esther Gómez-Gil , Tibbert Van Den Eynde , Guy T'Sjoen , Antonio Guillamon , Sven C Mueller , Eduardo Pásaro (2021) Epigenetics Is Implicated in the Basis of Gender Incongruence: An Epigenome-Wide Association Analysis. Front Neurosci Aug 19; 15:701017  PRIMITIVE ANXIETIES  Durban, J. (2019) "“Making a person”: Clinical considerations regarding the interpretation of anxieties in the analyses of children on the autisto-psychotic spectrum" The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 100:5, 921-939.  PRENATAL AND POSTNATAL  Meltzer, D. & Williams, M. H. (1988) 2. Aesthetic Conflict: It’s Place in the Developmental Process. The Apprehension of Beauty: The Role of Aesthetic Conflict in Development, Art, and Violence 146:7-33  Bion, W. R. (1976) "On a quotation from Freud." In Clinical Seminars and Four Papers, Ed. F. Bion. Abingdon: Fleetwood Press, 1987.  Joanna Wilheim (2004) The trauma of conception. Presented at a Meeting of the Brazilian Society of Psychoanalysis of São Paulo (SBPSP) on October 7, 2004.  Trnsformation of the mother's immune system. Mandelboim, O. et al’ (2006). Decidual NK cells regulate key developmental processes at the human fetal-maternal interface. Nature Medicine 12: 1065 – 1074. 

"[in the play Freud's Last Session]... with the sound of the bombers both men react as they did the first time - with fear. But this time instead of disguising it they admit to it. That admittance was the bond between them. Freud also was shaken by the whole experience. At the very end of the play, and repeatedly through the play, there were reports on the BBC about the war. The BBC at that point had a live orchestra, and when the news was finished the orchestra would jump in and play music until the next news bulletin. Every time the news was over, Freud immediately turned it off, so he didn’t have to listen to music. Lewis catches on to that at some point and he equates it with Freud's wall that he puts up to shield his emotions because he feels they are being manipulated. But at the very end of the play, after Lewis leaves, Freud listens to the radio and for the first time he doesn't turn off the music. The last image of the play is him just looking at the radio as if trying to really understand music and his own aversion to it.”        Episode Description:  The similarity is noted between the clinical encounter and the structure of Mark's play where there are two men in a room intensely engaging with each other. We discuss how the trajectory of the play, like in the consulting room, allows for the emergence of latent meanings to be revealed between Freud and Lewis. Mark shares with us what drew him to these two thinkers and how he created a storyline that would demonstrate the underlying emotional struggles of each, individually and together. It is set at the beginning of World War II, three weeks before Freud's death. The play touches on Freud's childhood, his intense relationship with his daughter Anna and his planned euthanasia. We listen to a reading of a piece of the play that entails a powerful encounter between the characters. Mark has adapted this play for the screen, starring Anthony Hopkins as Freud, that is currently being filmed. We close with his mentioning his fiction writing and an upcoming theatrical release The World's Happiest Man.    Our Guest:  Mark St. Germain writes for the stage, television, and film. He is a recipient of the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, and the Off-Broadway Alliance Award. Mark has written the plays Freud’s Last Session (Best Play Award from the Off-Broadway Alliance), Camping with Henry and Tom, Forgiving Typhoid Mary (Time Magazine’s “Year’s Ten Best”), and Becoming Dr. Ruth, the story of Dr. Ruth Westheimer. A sampling of his other plays includes Best of Enemies, Ears on a Beatle, Scott and Hem, Dancing Lessons, and Eleanor. His play, The Happiest Man on Earth premieres in the summer of 2023 at the Barrington Stage Company. He has written a memoir, Walking Evil, and a thriller, The Mirror Man. His screen adaptation of his play Freud’s Last Session has begun filming.      Recommended Reading:    Gay, Peter: Freud: A Life for Our Time      Jones, Ernest: The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud      Green, Roger Lancelyn and Hooper, Walter: C. S. Lewis: A Biography      Sayer, George: Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis        St. Germain, Mark: The Mirror Man: A Thriller    St. Germain, Mark: Walking Evil: How Man's Best Friend Became My Worst Enemy    St. Germain, Mark: Becoming Dr. Ruth    St. Germain, Mark: The God Committee