AUTUMN 2019
Oct 12 19 26, Nov 2 9 E Harper
Week 1 Bion and Groups
The contemporary context is contrasted with the war years when Bion did his seminal work on groups. How the concepts in his early work anticipate his future theorising will be considered.
Reading. ‘Experiences in Groups’.
Week 2 Psychotic and Non-Psychotic Parts of the Personality
How psychotic anxieties manifest in a session with reference to the effects on the analyst.
Reading: ‘Second Thoughts’ (Pep-Web) Chapters 2,3,4,5
Week 3 The Superego
‘Attacks on Linking’ in ‘Second Thoughts’ (pep-web)
‘Relating to the Superego’ Edna O’Shaughnesssy IJP 1999 (pep-web)
Discussion of the papers with reference to trainee case discussions.
Week 4 A Theory of Thinking
Chapter 9, Second Thoughts
Part 4a: ‘The Epistemological Period: The Ideal Of A Scientific Psychoanalysis; ‘The Theory of Thinking’
Wilfred Bion: ‘His Life and Works 1897-1979’: Bleandonu G.
Thinking and disorders of thinking were a primary preoccupation in the work of this period. Noting it’s resemblance to philosophical theory Bion states; ‘it differs…. in that it is intended, like all psychoanalytic theories, for use’.
Week 5 Introduction to Field Theory
Bion’s ideas were a resource for later developments in psychoanalytic field theory. A key paper was ‘The Analytic Situation as a Dynamic Field’ by Baranger M and Baranger W (1961-62) (pep-web). The work of Kurt Lewin will be considered as well as Antonino Ferro’s paper ‘Some Implications of Bion’s Thought: The Waking Dream and Narrative Derivatives’ IJP 2002 (pep-web)
November 16, 23, 30, Dec 7, 14 S Gee
‘You’ve Been Framed’
Violence and The Sublime.
In these seminars we will explore some of the concepts, such as a nameless dread, transformations, O, reverie and catastrophic change in the context of some of Bion’s aesthetic and philosophical references. We will invariably bear in mind the usefulness of whatever stimulates our thinking faced with the vicissitudes of our clinical practice. Continuing some of the themes of the previous five seminars and taking our cue from an exponent of psychoanalytic field theory, the ‘framing’ of our discussions will be Chapter 1 of Giuseppe Civitarese’s recent book ‘Sublime Subjects’.The violence of our emotions, whether latent or threatening, and the inescapable contingencies of our being thrown into the world are ‘framed’ by the field of our interweaving histories and culture. Civitarese, following Bion, develops an inter-subjective theory of the sublime in psychoanalytic work which might (re)-frame us more creatively; if we dare.
There will be some close reading of Bion each week, taken mainly from ‘Elements of Psychoanalysis’, ‘Transformations’ and ‘Attention and Interpretation’. I will later suggest some further secondary reading. Having read some of the Bion and the Civitarese you may wish to suggest particular secondary texts yourselves.
SPRING 2020
Jan 11 18 25, Feb 1 8 D Gill and T Bradshaw
Triangular Space – from Freud to the Intersubjective Third
…. ‘the task of the analyst is to create a setting where the patient can play.’ D W Winnicott.
Week 1 3 – Dimensional Workshop.
Artwork to be co-constructed from the shifting enactment between two participants, inhabiting the triangular space between them and representing the intersubjective third of the moment.
Group reflection on the workshop.
Week 2 Seminar: The Psychoanalytic Third.
Powerpoint presentation: a brief overview of the psychoanalytic 3rd from Freud to contemporary Intersubjectivity.
Discussion of papers
Clinical vignettes.
Freud Ego and Id.
Winnicott, D. 1953 ‘Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena. A Study of First Not Me Possession’. International Journal of Psycho-analysis, 34.
Britton, R. 2004 ‘Subjectivity, Objectivity and Triangular Space.’ The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 73, 1.
Stolorow, R and Atwood, G. 1996. ‘The Intersubjective Perspective.’ Psychoanalytic Review, 83,2.
Week 3 Seminar: Transitional Space.
Discussion of papers.
Clinical vignettes.
Winnicott, D. 1971 ‘Playing and Reality’: Chapter 3, Playing: A Theoretical Statement. 4, Playing: In Search for the Self. 5, Creativity and its Origin
Week 4 Seminar: Intersubjectivity.
Discussion of contemporary thirds
Clinical vignettes
Ogden, T. 1994 ‘The Analytic Third: Working with Intersubjective Clinical Facts”. International Journal of Psycho-analysis, 75, 3.
Benjamin, J. 2004 “Beyond Doer and the Done To: an Intersubjective View of Thirdness.’ The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 73, 1.
Week 5 Clinical Application of Triangular Space
Clinical vignette linked to supervision
Clinical vignette linked to couple work
Clinical presentation of Studio Upstairs and Ash Eton Therapeutic Community.
Reading: To be announced.
‘You want it darker?’ – Liz Guild and Val Parks
15 February – 21 March 2020 (no seminar and clinical on 22 February)
These five seminars take forward questions raised by the case studies seminar series (Spring Term 2019) and also the translation conference in June 2019. The focus is on key moments in the history (between the 1930s and the 2000s) of the travel, exchange, or failure to arrive, of psychoanalytic ideas between France and the UK (and to a lesser degree the US). We’ll revisit this toing and froing (or not), from the roots of object relations theory and with it an emphasis on the pre-Oedipal maternal, to feminist responses to the problematics of (conservative) psychoanalytic thought and also debates and divergence across feminist thinking. Traced through these selected encounters are questions such as, where are drive and affect, the unconscious and the body in our thinking and practice? Why the hold of object relations; why the warm welcome to Laplanche, but slower arrival of Anzieu and wariness in relation to Green? Was it because of what was too dark – those ‘fangs’ (Freud), that we draw at psychoanalysis’ peril?
Week 1: Subject, object, ego – and anxiety
Melanie Klein, ‘The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego’ (1930), in Love, Guilt and Reparation. PEP: http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=ijp.011.0024a&type=hitlist&num=31&query=zone1%2Cparagraphs%7Czone2%2
Anna Freud, ‘Analytic technique and the defense against instincts and affects’, in The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence (1936), 36-9. Pdf version of full text available online: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Anna_Freud_Ego_chs_3_4_5.pdf
Jacques Lacan, ‘Discourse analysis and ego analysis’, in The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book I: Freud’s Papers on Technique (1953-4), 62-70. Available online – search ‘Lacan Seminar 1 pdf’
Week 2: Me, myself, I
Jacques Lacan, ‘Le Stade du miroir…’ (1949), trans. ‘The Mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalysis’ (1977), in Ecrits (1966/1977). Various pdf versions available
Donald Winnicott, ‘The Mirror role of mother and family in child development’ in Playing and Reality (1971), 130-8, or PEP: http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=zbk.017.0001a&type=hitlist&num=6&query=zone1%2Cparagraphs%7Czone2%2
Week 3: The maternal: ‘all thoughts are thoughts of the body’ (Anzieu)
Jacques Lacan, Seminar 8: Transference, seminar 15 (22.3.61): ‘ Oral, anal, genital’. Available online – search ‘Lacan Seminar 8 pdf’. The www.lacaninireland.com version page numbers are 204-223
Didier Anzieu, The Skin-Ego trans N. Segal (Karnac, 2016), chapter 7: ‘The Functions of the Skin-ego’, 103-122. Pdf available on scribd: https://www.scribd.com/doc/207621273/Didier-Anzieu-Skin-Ego
See also ‘Epistemological preliminaries’, The Skin-Ego 3-22, and Didier Anzieu, ‘Le Moi-peau‘, Nouvelle Revue de Psychanalyse: Le dehors et le dedans’ (1974), 195-208. Pdf version available online
Paul Verhaeghe, ‘Lacan’s answer to the classical mind/body deadlock: retracing Freud’s beyond’, in S. Barnard and B. Fink (eds), Reading Seminar XX: Lacan’s Major Work on Love, Knowledge and Feminine Sexuality (State University of New York Press, 2002), 109-140
A similar paper, ’Mind your body and Lacan’s answer to a classical deadlock’ is available online: https://paulverhaeghe.psychoanalysis.be/artikels/Mind%20your%20body.pdf
Week 4: ‘You want it darker?’: From Freud to Laplanche and Green
Jean Laplanche, ‘The Drive and its object-source: its fate in the transference’, in Seduction, Translation, Drives, eds J. Fletcher and M. Stanton (ICA, 1992), 179-196
André Green, ‘Theoretical strategies: dogmatic and genetic perspectives’ and ‘Outline’, in The Chains of Eros (2008)
Week 5: “Has sexuality anything to do with psychoanalysis?” (Green, 1995) – feminist critique, the feminine, the maternal …
Susan Gutwill, Andrea Gitter & Lisa Rubin, ‘The Women’s Therapy Centre Institute: The Personal is Political’, in Women and Therapy, 34 (2010): https://doi.org/10.1080/02703149.2011.532703
Jacques Lacan, ‘The Meaning of the Phallus’. Three English translations available, e.g. in Ecrits, and in J. Mitchell and J. Rose (eds), Feminine Sexuality: Jacques Lacan and the Ecole Freudienne (Macmillan, 1982). – see https://www.lacanianworks.net/?p=11851 for details and for further information about how to access online versions (including Mitchell and Rose’s text).
Moustafa Safouan, ‘Feminine Sexuality in Psychoanalytic Doctrine’, first published in Scilicet , 5 (1975), 91-104; translation in J. Mitchell and J. Rose (eds), Feminine Sexuality: Jacques Lacan and the Ecole Freudienne (Macmillan, 1982).
Both Rose’s and Mitchell’s introductions are warmly recommended if you want to read further.
John Fletcher, ‘Gender, Sexuality and the Theory of Seduction’, Women: A Cultural Review 11, 1-2 (2000), 95-108
SUMMER 2020
April 25, May 2 9 16 – B Watt and A Newman (no seminar 23 May)
‘Interpretation’
Why do we interpret? What do we interpret (psychical conflict? the transference and/or counter-transference? resistance? fantasy? dreams? identifications? object relations? infantile sexuality? the ‘Symbolic’? aggression? Oedipal angst…)? Are there cases where interpretation is not enough or even ‘too much’? Can there be psychoanalysis without interpretation? What about insight? And are there other ways of thinking that don’t prioritise interpretation as “a magic weapon” or as the privileged tool of analysis? What are some of the other tools that we might use, and when might we use them?
We will frame these questions broadly as a dialogue between the Freudian/Lacanian tradition on the one hand, and the Object Relations/Relational tradition on the other. Both traditions have their clinical advantages and disadvantages, having arisen through clinical work with different types of patients in different historical and intellectual contexts. Drawing on both approaches, and the techniques which flow from them, allows us access to a wider range of therapeutic tools, to listen to our patients more openly and to (as much as possible) mitigate the blind spots of each tradition.
Session 1: Freud and the birth of ‘Classical Technique’
Freud, S. 1914 ‘Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through’ in SE Volume XII (1911-1913), (2001) London: Vintage
Klein, M. (1955) ‘The Psycho-analytic Play Technique: Its History and Significance’ in New Directions in Psycho-Analysis, London: Tavistock
Sklar, J. (2011) ‘Formulation of interpretations in clinical practice’ (chapter 2) in Landscapes of the Dark: History, Trauma, Psychoanalysis, London: Karnac
Strachey, J. (1934) ‘The Nature of the Therapeutic Action of Psychoanalysis’
Secondary Reading
Freud, S. (1911) ‘The Handling of Dream-Interpretation in Psychoanalysis’ in SE Volume XII, London: Vintage
Freud, S. (1901) ‘On Dreams’ in SE Volume V, London: Vintage
Glover, E. (1931) ‘The Therapeutic Effect of Inexact Interpretation: A Contribution to the Theory of Suggestion’
Session 2: Lacanian Interpretation
Fink, B. (2007) ‘Interpreting’ (chapter 5) in Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique: A Lacanian Approach for Practitioners, New York: Norton
Lacan, J. (1958) ‘The Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of Its Power’ from Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English (2007) New York: W.W. Norton Translated by Bruce Fink
Session 3 & 4: Critique of Interpretation: Object Relations and the ‘Relational Turn’
Fairbairn, (1958) ‘On the Nature and Aims of Psycho-Analytical Treatment’ (available on Pep Web)
Guntrip, H (1975), ‘My Experience of Analysis with Fairbairn and Winnicott (How Complete a Result Does Psycho-Analytic Therapy Achieve?)’, International Review of Psycho-Analysis, (available on Pep Web)
Lomas, P. (1987), The Limits of Interpretation, London: Constable – chapters 1-4
Sontag, S. (2009) ‘Against Interpretation’ in Against Interpretation and Other Essays, London: Penguin
Suttie, I. (1935), The Origins of Love and Hate, London: Free Association Books – chapter 12
Secondary Reading
Mills, J. (2012) Conundrums, London: Routledge
Training Weekend May 30/31 P Zeal and L Meyer
Transgenerational impacts and influences in Psychoanalysis
‘Transgenerational’ refers to whatever acts across multiple generations. We will explore this phenomenon in this weekend training workshop. Parents and grandparents tend to feature in analytic work, carried forward in patients’ pre-occupations. Naturally, analysts are interested in these others, internalized relationships with whom largely constitute the outer ingredients of patients’ inner worlds. Yet these parents and grandparents were themselves subject in their turn, to parents and grandparents. What if the analyst holds open the whole transgenerational field of ancestors that are obscurely present in the room, on both sides of the dyad? How would this affect the process? In this systems-based transgenerational perspective, analysis has its place in the unfolding of both familial and cultural inheritance through decades, centuries, and millennia. Thus are emanations from recent and ancient wars, colonial and imperial (mis)adventures, sexual traumas, displacements and losses, loyalties and betrayals, loves and hates, restaged through the dynamic unconscious/unknown in the analytic dyad. In this weekend workshop we will explore these ideas with a mixture of theoretical discussion and experiential practices.
Reading list to follow.
June 6 13 20 27, July 4 P Nevins, J Mann
Subject of Seminars and Reading to be announced.