Autumn Term 2023
Laura Chernaik
5, 12, 19 October
Field Theory
These three seminars will focus on the Latin American relationalist psychoanalytical theory and practice, Field Theory. This approach to psychoanalysis moves from the intrapsychic, ie, what is ‘within’ the mind, to the interpsychic, that is, what is between two (or more) subjects. History and culture thus become central. Each seminar is based around two central readings: one Field Theory and one history.
In Seminar 1 we look at the Field Theorists’ approach to ‘transference and countertransference’ and what they call the ‘bastion’, a way of understanding ‘impasse’ and psychic change (‘The Analytic Situation’). Our history text for this seminar focuses on the clinic—Elisabeth Danto’s essay on the Schloss Tegel. (Simmel’s essays about work with patients in this clinic are on PepWeb). Seminar 2 continues our focus on the transferential field and the bastion, looking at how the Barangers and Mom draw on and critique Freud, Klein, Heimann and Issacs, Rosenfeld, and Lacan (‘Process and non-process’). For history, we look at Laurence Kahn’s essay on Hartmann, a key figure in the move, in the Americas, to so-called ‘Classical’ Freudianism and also towards Ego Psychology. Towards the end of ‘Process and non-process’, the Barangers and Mom return to Strachey and his idea of the ‘mutative interpretation’. Seminar 3 (‘The mind of the analyst’) focuses on listening and interpretation, focusing on ‘the point of urgency’, of ‘emergence’. For history, we look at Marie Langer’s article about her work in Nicaragua.
Also, in the background, there is a key text, Heinrich Racker’s 1968 Transference and Countertransference (on PepWeb). Marie Langer’s introduction to Racker’s book discusses the historical context: the Shoah and migration to the Americas.
Field Theory is influenced by Kleinian, Lacanian, and post-Lacanian approaches to psychoanalysis. The so-called ‘Classical Freudians’ argued that there was a linear development culminating in an Oedipal phase (the ‘genetic approach’, see the 1945 essay by Hartmann and Kris). Lacan, Green and Laplanche argued that we should return to Freud’s non-linear conception of psychic time, ‘nachtraglichkeit’. Laplanche argues that we should translate this into French as ‘apres-coup’ or, in English, ‘afterwardsness’, since Strachey’s English rendering, ‘deferred-action’, is misleadingly linear.
Seminar 1: Required reading:
Field Theory:
Madeleine and Willy Baranger, (2008), The Analytic Situation as a Dynamic Field, Int. J. Psychoanal. 89: 795-826 PepWeb
And, on history and culture:
Elizabeth Danto, (2009). ‘Perfect in its Principles’: Psychoanalytic Praxis at Ernst Simmel’s Schloss Tegel, Psychoanal. Cult. Soc., (14)(4):337-349 PepWeb
Recommended reading, Seminar 1:
Leon Grinberg, Marie Langer, David Liberman, and Genevieve De Rodrigué (1967). The Psycho-Analytic Process Int. J. Psychoanal., (48):496-503 PepWeb
Elizabeth Danto, (2007), Freud’s Free Clinics, Columbia UP
Aída Golcman, (2012). The Experiment of the Therapeutic Communities in Argentina: The Case of the Hospital Estévez, Psychoanal. Hist., 14 (2):269-283 PepWeb
Further reading:
Racker, H (1968) Transference and Countertransference Pep-Web
Seminar 2: Required reading:
Madeleine Baranger, Willy Baranger, and Jorge Mario Mom, (1964). Process and non-process in analytic work,Int. J. Psychoanal. 64: 1-15 PepWeb
Laurence Kahn, (2023). Hartmann: Logos against bios, Chapter 7 in What Nazism Did to Psychoanalysis, Routledge
Seminar 2, Recommended reading:
Hartmann, H and Kris, E. (1945), The genetic approach in psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytical Study of the Child, 1: 11-30. PepWeb
Laurence Kahn, (2023). What Nazism Did to Psychoanalysis, Routledge
Russel Jacoby, (1983), The Repression of Psychoanalysis, Otto Fenichel and the Political Freudians. Chicago UP.
Adrienne Harris, ed. (2023). The Emigre Analysts and American Psychoanalysis. Routledge.
Seminar 3:
Madeleine Baranger, (1993), The mind of the analyst: from listening to interpretation, Int. J. Psychoanal., 74: 15-24 PepWeb
Marie Langer (1989). Psychoanalysis without the couch, Free Associations, (1)(15):60-66 PepWeb
Seminar 3, Recommended reading:
Giuseppe Civitarese, and Antonino Ferro, (2013). The Meaning and Use of Metaphor in Analytic Field Theory, Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 33(3):190-209 PepWeb
Hayden White, (1999), Freud’s tropology of dreaming, in Figural Realism, Johns Hopkins
Further reading:
About Madeleine and Willy Baranger and the River Plate approach to psychoanalysis:
Online:
(On Willy Baranger)
(Article on Madeleine Baranger)
PepWeb:
Beceiro, A. M. (2005) Identifying marks of Latin American psychoanalysis: Towards the definition of a River Plate model. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 86:1559-1572
Maldonado, J. L. (2022) Madeleine and Willy Baranger’s Contribution to Psychoanalysis. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 103:872-889
(Embargoed as it’s so recent but we could get a copy)
Cassorla, R. M. (2005) From bastion to enactment: The ‘non-dream’ in the theatre of analysis. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 86:699-719
Vinocur-Fischbein, S. (2005) Oneiric activity and the analytical process: A semiotic perspective on Willy Baranger’s theory of dreams. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 86:1329-1352
Ricardo Bernardi and Beatriz De León De Bernardi, (2012), The Concepts of Vínculo and Dialectical Spiral: A Bridge between Intra- and Intersubjectivity, Psychoanal. Q., (81)(3):531-564
De Leon de Bernardi, B, (2000). The Countertransference: A Latin American View. Int. J. Psychoanal. 81: 331-351
‘The genetic approach vs afterwardsness’:
Hartmann, H and Kris, E. (1945), The genetic approach in psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytical Study of the Child, 1: 11-30. PepWeb
André Green, (2004). Thirdness and Psychoanalytic Concepts Psychoanal. Q., (73)(1):99-135 PepWeb
Jean Laplanche, (1999). Notes on apres-coup, in Between Seduction and Inspiration: Man. IiT
Jean Laplanche, (2017). Apres-coup, Problematiques VI, UiT
This critique/return to Freud influenced the reception of Klein outside of the UK:
Stonebridge and Phillips, (1998), Reading Melanie Klein, Routledge.
Phillis Grosskurth, (1986). Melanie Klein: Her World and Her Work, Aronson.
Thomas Ogden, (1990, 1986). The Matrix of the Mind: Object Relations and the Psychoanalytical Dialogue. Karnac Books.
Some key writings about transference and countertransference:
Sigmund Freud, (1911-1915), Papers on Technique, SE 12 PepWeb
Melanie Klein, (1930). The importance of symbol formation in the analysis of the ego. PepWeb
Melanie Klein, (1935). A contribution to the psychogenesis of manic-depressive states. PepWeb
Melanie Klein, (1949). Mourning and its relation to manic-depressive states PepWeb
Melanie Klein, (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms PepWeb
Melanie Klein, (1952).The origins of transference PepWeb
Melanie Klein, (1956). A Study of Envy and Gratitude (not on PepWeb but in
The Selected Melanie Klein, ed Juliet Mitchell, (1986). Free Press)
Heimann, P. (1961). On Counter-transference. International Journal of Psycho-analysis, 31:81-84 (1961-1962). PepWeb
Issacs, S (1948). The Nature and Function of Phantasy, Int. J. Psychoanal. 29:73-97 (1950). PepWeb
Strachey, J (1934). The nature of the therapeutic action of psycho-analysis. Int. J. Psychoanal. 15:127-59. PepWeb
Eizirik C.L. (2007). On the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 76:1463-1478. PepWeb
Kris, E., (1956). On some vicissitudes of insight in psychoanalysis. Int. J. Psychoanal.37 (6): 445-455 PepWeb
Lacan, J. (1953) The function and field of speech and language in psychoanalysis, in Ecrits, Tavistock 1977.
Lacan, J (1955) Variations on the standard treatment, in Ecrits, Tavistock 1977.
Lacan, J (1958) The direction of the treatment, in Ecrits, Tavistock 1977.
Meltzer, D, (1967), The Psycho-analytical process Pep-Web
Ogden, T, (1994) The analytical third, Int. J. Psychoanal. 75:3-19 PepWeb
Racker, H (1968) Transference and Countertransference Pep-Web
Rosenfeld, H (1987) Impasse and Interpretation PepWeb
Barbara Cawdron
26 October, 2 & 9 November
Psychoanalysis in Practice
In these three weeks the aim is to put the focus of our attention onto the context in which we are practicing psychoanalysis. The seminars are an invitation to share our experiences and to think together about what the impact of where we practice is on how we practice. This would include thinking about how the unconscious operates within organisational frameworks and institutional settings, and how that may vary according to the stated task of that organisation. We can also think about some of the differences between working in an organisation and working in private practice. Please bring your own experiences and observations of the settings in which you practice psychoanalysis to enrich and enliven our discussion. The structure of the seminars and any reading will be given nearer the time.
Training Weekend
18 & 19 November
James O’Neill
Against Self-Criticism: a Buddhist reading of Adam Phillip’s seminal paper
“…how has it come about that we are so bewitched by our self-hatred, so impressed and credulous in the face of our self-criticism, as unimaginative as it usually is? And why is it so akin to a judgement without a jury.” AGAINST SELF-CRITISCISM”, Adam Phillips, 2015
Failing to have what the Buddhist’s call Maitri, that is the inability to hold one’s own aliveness with kindness, respect and joyfulness, is a common source of great suffering. Most of us, even so called seasoned therapists and analysts, are only intermittently able to hold this view of themselves. We punish ourselves in anxiety and depression, self-harm and generally self-criticise, often finding refuge in the face of this onslaught only in over-indulging, playing the victim, and/or blaming. We can be caught up in this misery for a whole lifetime. This taught course is a chance to challenge habitually negative self-views by reconnecting with our own inherent sanity, an embodied sense of trust and self-worth.
The weekend is a chance to engage with Phillip’s paper, to practice meditation, to move, to enjoy meals together and to connect in experiential dyads.
Venue: The London Shambhala Meditation Centre in Clapham.
James O’Neill, is a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, Buddhist teacher and author of Undressing.
Jonathan Lewis, is a health coach specializing in movement and breathing practices for health, wellbeing and resilience. Jonathan is from Roots Movement and a Director at Balance Performance Physiotherapy in Clapham.
Julien Diaz, is a dancer, teacher and graduate of Ballet Rambert. He has spent over 20 years, helping people to develop a more sustainable, intelligent and nourishing relationship with their own bodies. Using movement and dance, to navigate emotional and physical blocks, and gain a healthy and more joyful relationship with the body.
Andie Newman
23, 30 November, 7 December
Psychoanalysis: Limits & Liberation
Once you start looking for them, ideas around limits/restrictions/lines/delineations are everywhere to be found within psychoanalysis. During these three seminars, we will reflect on how limits operate within – and are essential to – the psychoanalytic approach. We will think about the frame, boundaries and ‘the rules’, but will also open up the theme to a broader exploration of the concept of limits within psychoanalysis and some of the consequences of limits/restrictions in opening up – or liberating – the space for the work of psychoanalysis to unfold.
We will look at some of Freud’s key papers on technique, where he outlines his recommendations on the necessary conditions for a psychoanalytic treatment, based crucially on his discovery of unconscious processes including, of course, transference.
SEMINAR 1
Required reading:
Freud, S. Vol. XII ‘Remembering, Repeating & Working Through’ (1912)
Suggested reading:
Freud, S. Vol. XII ‘Recommendations to Physicians Practising Psychoanalysis’ (1912)
Freud, S. Vol. XII ‘On Beginning the Treatment’ (1913) (pdf attached)
SEMINAR 2
Required reading:
Freud, S. Vol. XII ‘Observations on Transference Love’ (1915)
Suggested reading:
Freud, S. Vol. XVI Lecture XXVII ‘Transference’ in Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (Part III) (1916-1917)
SEMINAR 3
Required reading:
Langs, R. (2007) ‘The Limit Situation’ (pdf attached)
Young, Robert M. 1998 ‘The Analytic Frame, Abstinence & Acting Out’ (attached)
Suggested reading:
Lomas, P. 1987 The Limits of Interpretation
Spring Term 2024
Anastasios Gaitanidis
11, 18, 25 January, 1, 8 February
Death and Temporality in Lacan, Kristeva and Laplanche
The aim of these seminars is to critically engage with Lacan’s, Kristeva’s and Laplanche’s attempts to reformulate the relations between the death drive, the timelessness of the unconscious, and the movement of temporalisation involve a psychoanalytic reworking of the Hegelian criticism of Heidegger’s account of death and temporality. However, in turning to Hegel’s dialectic of recognition as a counter to the individualism of the analytic of Dasein, they do not intend to replace the latter with the former. Rather, they hope that each problematic will work on the other, contributing to a broader rethinking of both their terms. Thus, by arresting the master-slave dialectic at the moment of misrecognition, they are able to conclude that if (according to Heidegger) temporality is tied existentially to the anticipation of death, and (according to Hegel) death comes from the other, so too must time: it is (mis)recognition which temporalises time out of the fear of death.
Seminar 1
Heidegger – Death and Time
In this seminar we will critically evaluate Heidegger’s philosophical attempt to uncover the ‘meaning of being’ through the horizon of time, and how the horizon of time in turn is that of Dasein’s Zeitlichkeit, the structure of which is ‘care’, and which is most clearly illuminated in ‘anticipatory resoluteness’, or ‘freedom for death’.6 Death is my authentic possibility, and so reveals what possibility essentially is, thus illuminating the nature of time as that which makes possible any particular possibility.7 Authentic death, then, as disclosed in anticipatory resoluteness as my essential and singular possibility, both has a meaning and is a source of meaning: the meaning of time and being.
Reading
Heidegger, M. (1927). Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. Translated as Being and Time. Trans. J. McQuarrie and E. Robinson. New York: Harper and Row, 1962.
Gaitanidis, A. (1999). “A Critical Examination of Heidegger’s ExistentialOntological Account of Death.” In Rob Weatherill (ed.) The Death Drive: New Life for a Dead Subject? London: Rebus Press, 1999, pp. 193206.
Seminar 2
Hegel – The Dialectic of Recognition: Trial by Death
In this seminar we will examine how Hegel’s dialectic of recognition can be used to illustrate that as a self-interpreting, self-conscious being, Dasein’s individuality cannot be derived from its anticipation of death independently of its relations to others. Rather, Dasein must first, or simultaneously, be constituted as a self-conscious being through its relations with others, in a dialectic of recognition, in order that it may become the kind of being which is capable of anticipating its death as the end towards which it is thrown, and hence of constituting itself existentially as a Being-towards-death.
Reading
Hegel, G. W. F. (1807). The Phenomenology of Spirit. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Kojève, A. (1933-1939). Introduction á la Lecture de Hegel. Gallimard, Paris. Translated as Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. J. H. Nichols. New York: Basic Books, 1969.
Seminar 3
Lacan – Afterwardness and the Death Drive
In this seminar, we will consider how Lacan’s work on the mirror phase and the death drive seems to offer a psychoanalytic mediation of Heidegger’s and Hegel’s accounts of death and temporality. Thus, Lacan uses the idea of the death drive to provide the ontological ground for a death which is always symbolic, exploiting the structure of afterwardsness (Nachtraglichkeit) to explain the ‘lag’ between its role in the specular dialectic of the mirror phase as the source of the child’s fear of bodily damage, and the emergence of existential temporality for the child within the realm of the symbolic. The temporalisation of time for the child by the death drive, he argues, happens ‘afterwards’.
Reading
Lacan, J. (1948). ‘Aggressivity in Psychoanalysis’. In Écrits: A Selection. Trans. A. Sheridan. London: Tavistock, 1977, pp. 829.
Lacan, J. (1949). ‘The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the ‘I’ as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience.’ In Écrits: A Selection. Trans. A. Sheridan. London: Tavistock, 1977, pp. 17.
Lacan, J. (1953). ‘Function and Field of Speech in Psychoanalysis’. In Écrits: A Selection. Trans. A. Sheridan. London: Tavistock, 1977, pp. 30113.
Lacan, J. (195354). Seminar I: Freud’s Papers on Technique. Trans. J. Forrester. New York: Norton, 1988.
Lacan, J. (1964). The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. [Seminar XI]. Trans. A. Sheridan. London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-analysis, 1977, & Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.
Seminar 4
Kristeva – Death, the Mother and the Imaginary Father
In this seminar, we will examine how Kristeva attempts to trace back the signification of death by an Imaginary Other (father) to the independence of the (m)other. It is the freedom of the (m)other, she argues, in the form of the possibility of the refusal of recognition, which brings death (and hence time) into the world of the child.
Reading
Kristeva, J. (1977). Desire in Language. A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. Trans. T. S. Gora, A. Jardin, & L. S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.
Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Trans. L. S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kristeva, J. (1983). Tales of Love. Trans. L. S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987.
Seminar 5
Laplanche – Timelessness, Death and the Unconscious
In this final seminar, we will discuss Laplanche’s assertions that the death drive and temporality are inextricably linked with the constant process of translating, de-translating, and re-translating of the (often unconscious) messages inherent in all human relations. On this model, primary repression is nothing other than an active expulsion of something from this constant process of unification, theorisation and temporalisation which is at work first in relation to messages from the outside, and subsequently in relation to what derives from the internal ‘other’. It is precisely such an expulsion which accounts for the timelessness of the unconscious. In this sense, the death drive is in effect that ‘pure culture’ of otherness that we detect in the deepest layers of the unconscious.
Reading
Laplanche, J. & Pontalis, J. B. (1967). The Language of Psychoanalysis. Trans. D. NicholsonSmith. London: Karnac Books, 1988.
Laplanche, J. (1976). Life and Death in Psychoanalysis. Trans. J. Mehlman. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Laplanche, J. (1989). New Foundations for Psychoanalysis. Trans. D. Macey. Oxford: Blackwell.
Laplanche, J. (1997). ‘The So-Called ‘Death Drive’: A Sexual Drive’. In R. Weatherill (ed.). The Death Drive: New Life for a Dead Subject? London: Rebus Press, 2000.
Laplanche, J. (1999). Essays on Otherness. Edited by J. Fletcher. London: Routledge.
Peter Nevins
15, 22, 29 February, 7, 14 March
Details to follow
Training Weekend
20 & 21 April
Details to follow
Summer Term 2024
Eric Harper
25 April, 2, 9, 16, 23 May
Details to follow
Barry Watt
6, 13, 20, 27 June
Details to follow