The manner in which play changes us is examined, with particular attention to the role of paradox. Sustaining paradox and illusory experiencing are held as key to the framework of psychoanalysis for patient and analyst alike. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which the analyst becomes a potential object of change through playing. The transitive hospitality of playing is examined in the treatment

Attachment to the bad object has remained a durable, undertheorized clinical problem. With an extended clinical example, the experience of limit, in both patient and analyst, is examined as part of a dense undercurrent in the relationship, including transference, that gives rise to shifts in understanding the attachment to an unsatisfying internal object. Importantly, the patient’s and the analyst’s

Comparative approaches to psychoanalytic theory are a major source of exposure to different theoretical orientations and clinical technique. However, it is not always clear what the analyst actually does when translating theory into practice. As an attempt at clarification, descriptions are provided of two listening stances or attentional sets that are associated with different modes of analytic listening

In this issue of JAPA Review of Books, we are pleased to join guest editors Phillip Blumberg and Adrienne Harris in presenting the eighth review in our series on The Collected Works of D. W. Winnicott. In “The Place Where We Live: Inside, Outside, Playing and Using in Perpetuity,” Steven Cooper offers his reading of Volume 8. Cooper notes Winnicott’s “major theoretical revision of Freud’s and Klein’s

The role of a psychoanalytic journal is at least twofold: to reflect the state of the field and to contribute to leading the field in new directions. The former is the familiar project, both necessary and reassuring, and one that JAPA takes seriously. The latter is far less clear, because publishing work in areas that some find only tangentially related to psychoanalysis calls into question the boundaries

Theoretical ideas about “narrative coherence” and “autobiographical competence” remain prevalent in contemporary therapeutic culture, and are frequently deployed in the service of the patient’s producing a narrative “I” that can tell its own story. A preference for novelistic accounts of the self is countered here by proposing the short story form as an alternative model for the telling of a self within

This contemporary Kleinian memoir explores the possible existence of an intrapsychic, adoption-specific preoedipal triad including child, birth mother, and adoptive mother that can shape the emerging mind. As an intrapsychic construct, the adoption triad comes to exist in the infantile mind, requiring that adoptees contend with four additional part-object maternal representations: a villain (bad birth

In Part I contemporary psychoanalytic concepts about suicide were synthesized with other theories and empirical research findings. Here the focus is on applying those principles and describing an integrative psychodynamic approach to treatment, one emphasizing the therapeutic alliance, unconscious and implicit processes, exploration of fantasy, and use of the therapeutic relationship as an implicitly

Kristeva’s profound and comprehensive understanding of maternal eroticism allows us to examine the ways in which a negative maternal transference, structured through the work of the abject, can be viewed as a maternal erotic transference in its devitalizing form. Through the use of a clinical case, the revitalizing experiences of maternal eroticism within analytic process facilitate the emergence of

Psychodynamic psychotherapy has an important role in suicide prevention. The psychoanalytic study of suicide has taught us a great deal about the human experience and the process of suicidality. There is also much to be learned from other fields of study and from empirical research that can be integrated into psychoanalytic therapies. Central to the psychoanalytic approach to suicide has been understanding

Several deep revisions of Freud’s theory of the drives are proposed: (1) Drives are conscious and are in fact the source of all consciousness. (2) Drive energy is equated with variational free energy and is therefore quantifiable in principle. (3) There are not two drives but many, seven of which may be described as “emotional” as opposed to “bodily” drives. (4) All drives are self-preservative or

More than a hundred years into our field’s development, examining Freud’s place in psychoanalytic education is timely. What authority does he hold for psychoanalysts in 2021? Is he still the architect, or overseer, of psychoanalysis? Freud has been a metonym for psychoanalysis, yet the history of Freud’s identification with the totality of psychoanalysis has had important unfortunate consequences.

Authority and freedom are connected, and both have external and internal forms. External authority, political or institutional, can impinge on internal freedom in ways that matter to psychoanalysts. Internal freedom requires an internal authority that can be trusted. The superego is an external authority masquerading as an internal one. The ego, with its compliance toward the id, the superego, and

Amid the swirling issues of the day, we can too easily lose track of what—in the lengthening history of psychoanalysis—remains vital over time. As our ongoing series of reviews of Winnicott’s Collected Works shows,1 analysts writing decades ago can seem prescient; we may, in our zeal to build toward the future, overlook the groundwork they have laid. Like a well-loved novel, a psychoanalytic text yields

Freud is often negatively contrasted with object relations and relational theorists for holding to a metapsychology in which drives are understood as innate and predetermined in their development, are thought to follow the pleasure principle in a “hydraulic” manner, and are not seen as influenced by real objects. While that theory is certainly one dimension of Freud’s thinking, it is paralleled by

Beginning Analysis presents a robust and original attempt at using qualitative research methods to investigate the processes and core dynamics underlying initial interviews in psychoanalysis. This book begins by providing a detailed foundation of a research project conducted as part of the European Psychoanalytical Federation’s Ten-Year European Scientific Initiative, in which the Working Party on

Most people don’t understand the loneliness of the analyst. After all, we are never alone. Every forty-five (or fifty) minutes the bell rings and, like good Pavlovian subjects, we respond. Whatever just transpired, be it inspiring, unexceptional, or tragic (among many other possibilities), we ready our minds for the next occupant. We are rented by the hour, a circumstance that links us to the oldest

Answering a question with a question (Aron and Henik 2009), as my Jewish colleagues teach me to do, can challenge the most devoted hermeneut or phenomenologist. When asked to comment on Giuseppe Civitarese’s paper, I faced the question whether and how to respond to this scholarly, dense, and intriguing text. Temptations abounded: from listing my many points of agreement to commenting on the sneaky

I enjoyed reading Giuseppe Civitarese’s eloquent and conceptually rich paper. His remarkably clear presentation of Husserl and of his own perspective on intersubjectivity makes a powerful argument about the central issues facing contemporary psychoanalysis: what does intersubjectivity mean in practice and how best to conceive of it? My discussion has three parts. First I take up the paper itself, its

Intersubjectivity is the central concept of the relational paradigm, the most widely employed in contemporary psychoanalysis. Yet we do not have a clear definition of it. Usually it is synonymous with “the interpersonal” and thus indicates the interaction that takes place between two already constituted subjects. In this sense it has little to do with the radical social theory of subjectivation suggested

I would like to begin by thanking the anonymous readers of my article and the editors of JAPA for helping me improve it in the evaluation process, and the latter for asking me if I would allow colleagues to comment on it and for me to then respond. I also thank Donna Orange and Lewis Kirshner for their comments. I am honored that such well-known and respected authors have accepted the invitation of

Fred Pine is a clinical psychologist with over sixty years in the practice of psychoanalysis. In this memoir, Fred attempts to bring the many facets of a well-lived life together to inform the trajectory of his work—to identify the shaping influences and their impact. Fred’s account of his deep and abiding engagement with analytic theory and practice is inspirational, and I would argue that Fred himself

Myriad themes are featured in Volume 7 of The Collected Works of D. W. Winnicott. In her thoughtful introduction to the volume, Anna Ferruta notes that the period it covers overlapped with his second term as president of the British Psychoanalytical Society. During the Controversial Discussions of 1942–1944, Winnicott was determined to avoid being assimilated by any of the three designated groups.

The Winnicott whom Glen Gabbard encounters in this volume is at the height of his creative and clinical powers yet also in significant distress and conflict. He has, as Gabbard astutely points out, become one of the few psychoanalytically informed public intellectuals consulting to an entire generation of British baby boomers through his frequent pamphlets, radio broadcasts, and public lectures. Simultaneously

Sandra Buechler’s Psychoanalytic Approaches to Problems in Living is more than just another book one might read about, purchase, skim, and then shelve. This is a volume to be kept near at hand, one to revisit when needing to clarify, at the deepest level, what the nature of our clinical work is and why we do it. An experienced clinician, as well as a wise and generous person, Buechler continues what

This is a rich and diverse collection of papers on trauma and trauma theory, written from a variety of perspectives, including psychoanalysis, philosophy, cultural studies, and religious studies. For the book’s editors, it is also an attempt to grapple with some central challenges of trauma theory. To appreciate the nature of these challenges, it is necessary to understand what is meant by “trauma

Margot Waddell’s On Adolescence: Inside Stories offers a fascinating examination of the internal life of the adolescent. By weaving together psychoanalytic theory, clinical vignettes, and works of literature, Waddell demonstrates how fictional characters and the images of poetry vivify the wildly fluctuating self states of adolescents. Her many citations from young adult fiction uniquely elaborate

In the article “Black Rage: The Psychic Adaptation to the Trauma of Oppression,” by Beverly J. Stoute (Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Vol. 69, No. 2, pp. 259–290, DOI: 10.1177/000306512 11014207) an error appears in line 9 of the Abstract (p. 259) and is repeated on p. 276, line 11. In both instances the phrase “topographical model” should read “structural model.”

Jeremy Elkins, Associate Professor of Political Science, Bryn Mawr College; advanced clinical candidate, Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia.

In the book review of Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, by Ebony Dennis and Constance E. Dunlap (Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Vol. 69, No. 2, pp. 407–411, DOI: 10.1177/00030651211006743), there are two errors on p. 411. On lines 6, 9, 14, 16, and 19 the word “miscaste” and, on line 19, “miscaste-ing” should read “miscast” (on line 19 “miscasting”). On

I chose to review these three books together, as all explore relationships over time. All are informed by psychoanalytic ideas, yet are written for a general audience. My perspective is that of a psychoanalyst who treats children, adolescents, adults, and couples, but also that of a general reader who consumes novels, poetry, biographies, art history, self-help books, blogs, memes, and maps.

In this issue of JAPA Review of Books, we offer the seventh installment in a series on The Collected Works of D. W. Winnicott, curated by guest editors Phillip Blumberg and Adrienne Harris. In a review essay on Volume 7 (1964–1966), titled “Winnicott at Work,” Glen Gabbard brings us a Winnicott who, despite feeling wounded and at times overlooked or misunderstood by his colleagues, nonetheless worked

For Enid Balint, the practice of analysis can be compared with the process of learning a language. "The analyst who can do this, " she says, "will continue to learn with every patient who comes to him throughout his professional life." Enid Balint has been a training analyst of the British Psycho-Analytical Society since the 1960s. She founded the Institute of Marital Studies at the Tavistock Clinic