Exploring the Role of Conscious and Unconscious Processes in Hypnosis: A Theoretical Review

This review provided a comprehensive examination of various theories that attempt to explain hypnosis, focusing on the interplay between conscious and unconscious processes. We conducted a thorough analysis of key theories, from historical origins to recent models centered on cognition, social factors, and attributions. A central theme emerged: the critical role of the unconscious as a "gatekeeper" that modulates and guides the hypnotic experience. This notion appears in various forms across many theories, with the unconscious actively shaping and regulating the flow of information between conscious and unconscious realms during hypnosis. Understanding this dynamic interplay is crucial for comprehending the complex nature of hypnosis. The synthesized view of the unconscious as a "gatekeeper" offers a framework for integrating insights from diverse perspectives and highlights the centrality of unconscious processes in shaping hypnotic phenomena. Future research should further investigate the mechanisms of this unconscious "gatekeeper" role and its impact on hypnosis.

Freud's interpretation in "Medusa's Head" and some alternative psychoanalytic implications of Ovid's Medusa

Freud's very brief 1922 paper on the beheading of Medusa by Perseus wisely concludes with a call for a further examination of the sources of the legend. A now widespread interpretation of this legend is based (often without acknowledgement) on an addition to traditions concerning Medusa made in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is argued here that this Ovidian innovation has often been misinterpreted, and that a more careful reading of Metamorphoses supports neither a widely alleged exclusively vengeful portrayal of Medusa, nor Freud's portrayal of Medusa's decapitation as solely a pitiable and terrible symbol of castration. Instead, Ovid's complex treatments of myths involving Medusa, Minerva and Perseus present parallels with Kleinian insights into phantasy attacks on fecundity, and into imagined revivals of dead or damaged inside babies. Thus the "displacement upwards" of the fearful castrated maternal genital envisioned in Freud's "Medusa's Head" must stand beside a quite different "displacement upwards" of the life-giving maternal genital. Indeed, tradition holds that Medusa's beheading gives rise to the birth of vigorous twins. Together with allied details, this aligns Ovid's masterwork with theories that modify or displace the so-called "sexual phallic monism" that some believe taints Freud's theories of gender development.

The Most Hysterical Psychoanalyst

This paper is an investigation into the prominence of hysteria in Lacan's work and the enduring significance of the diagnosis for contemporary practice. Beginning with Lacan's theory of neurosis, the importance of language, and symbolic functions, we will begin to understand why the hysterical symptom is the symptomatic structure par excellence. Lacan lauds hysteria as the neurosis in direct dialogue with a given historical moment, teaching the psychoanalyst where we are in the unfolding struggle between neurosis and civilization. He returned to the case of Dora throughout his twenty-eight years of teaching to refine his work. He even saw psychoanalysis as the progressive "hystericization" of the patient and depicted himself as an hysteric walking around on a stage, not knowing what he was saying, while attempting to teach the psychoanalysts. Lacan's reading of Dora seems to mark important shifts in his own life, from his beginning to write as a psychoanalyst, to being thrown out of the IPA, to struggling with his own school and the ensuing political eruptions in France in 1968. By tracking his elaboration of Dora we can witness the evolution of Lacan's work and how he uniquely positions the analyst in the transference.

The Reception of Lacanian Theory and Practice by American Psychoanalytic Training Programs

This paper explores the principal reasons for the exclusion of Lacanian ideas from psychoanalytic training institutes in the United States. The history of Lacan's role in the International Psychoanalytical Association, from which essentially he was expelled, occupies a central place in this story. Significant issues arose also from his practice style and technical innovations, whose rationale remains controversial today. Another major obstacle for the reception of his work is the theoretical framework of Lacanian analysis, so different from that of other schools. Inclusion of its unfamiliar vocabulary and concepts poses practical problems for training programs. At a more fundamental level, the strong antihumanist evolution of Lacan's thought runs contrary to the increasingly relational and intersubjective orientation of American psychoanalysis. The incompatibility between the disparate languages of a scientific theory aiming at objectivity and a phenomenology of personal intentionality and meaning greatly limits the possibilities for dialogue. The tension between these perspectives cannot be resolved, but a productive exchange between them is possible if they are accepted as valid and complementary ways of speaking about human behavior.

The scientific character of psychoanalysis: Freud in the current discussion

The discussion on the scientific character of psychoanalysis is continuous and multifaceted. Nowadays the extent and variety of the implied aspects in it is even increased. In this context this article presents for its analysis and assessment a reconsideration of Freud’s line of argument regarding the scientific character of psychoanalysis. Against a quite spread view that conceives Freud’s scientific perspective as a reflex of general traits of his time such as positivism, sustained by recent research on Freud this article proposes the reconsideration of Freud’s perspective in a more exhaustive and nuanced way and holds that it is based on a composed by integrated parts, unified and consistent line of argument maintained through all his work. The reconsideration of the design of Freud’s argument allows to hold that his own formulation is still fruitful and suitable for the present, particularly as it possibilitates, justifies and requires the connection of psychoanalysis to the development of knowledge.

Radical Freud (Part Two): Freud's Bisexuality Thesis and the Negation of the Oedipus Complex

The author focuses on bisexuality in a continued analysis of Freud's radical sexual theory. A close reading of texts from Freud's work, in particular "The Ego and the Id," demonstrates how Freud puts forward a bisexuality thesis in parallel and as an alternative to his thesis of the Oedipus complex. This bisexuality thesis is premised on the mechanism of object cathexis and identification by which the ego and superego are formed. The textual excavation is extended back to earlier material by Freud and other authors (Trigant Burrow, Isidor Sadger) to reveal the foundational bedrock of the bisexuality thesis in primary identification. This line of investigation boldly confirms not only Freud's view of the fundamental centrality of bisexuality to human sexuality but also its main consequence, which Freud himself implicitly recognizes, namely, the negation of the Oedipus complex. This argument has ramifications for the theory and clinical practice of psychoanalysis.

Friendship, Creativity and Dispute in the Freud-Fliess and Ferenczi-Groddeck Letters

In this paper we examine the different transferential relationships that occurred between two sets of friends: Freud-Fliess and Ferenczi-Groddeck; consider the impact of these variables on their productivity, creativity, and friendship; and review historical literature to analyze how the nature of their bonds shaped very different personal destinies. Freud and Fliess greatly admired each other, and expressed reciprocal support, trust, and idealization but their underlying dispute over the paternity of certain ideas ultimately led to a bitter end. Essentially, their transference can be characterized as paternal-filial. The Ferenczi-Groddeck relationship, on the other hand, shared many of the same traits as the Freud-Fliess pair: a strong friendship, mutual admiration, even idealization, but their bond evolved into a more fraternal transference, which enabled their love, admiration, and respect to develop into a mutually-enriching relationship that endured for their entire lives.

Remembering, repeating and working-through as a step in Freud's ongoing struggle with the "what", "why" and "how" of analytic knowing in the curative process

In this paper the author offers a new reading of Freud's "Remembering, Repeating and Working-through", examining the complex nature of central concepts that Freud presents within it. She demonstrates the text's special role in an ongoing effort of Freud's to articulate and ground the heart of his analytic insight that knowledge cures. While the insight itself is very well-known, the fact that Freud struggled throughout his life with its articulation and grounding is not. The struggle centered on questions pertaining to how analytic knowing could, not only enlighten the patient, but actually change his unconscious dynamics, and why the patient, having already "opted" for pathology in place of knowing would come to accept it; and ultimately, what was the nature of the knowledge offered in analysis and the individual's relationship to it that allowed for such dramatic changes to occur. The author briefly presents some of her earlier work on Freud's struggle with these issues and how Melanie Klein resolved them. It is in this context that she demonstrates how in Remembering, Repeating and Working-through" Freud may be seen to be taking important steps towards developing his ideas on analytic knowing and in ways that anticipate Klein's resolutions. This points to the close tie between Klein's and Freud's thinking on the nature of the analytic process and the person's desire for self-knowledge on which it relies, brings out the richness of this thinking and grounds its value to contemporary psychoanalysis.

People solve rebuses unwittingly-Both forward and backward: Empirical evidence for the mental effectiveness of the signifier

Introduction

Freud proposed that names of clinically salient objects or situations, such as for example a beetle (Käfer) in Mr. E's panic attack, refer through their phonological word form, and not through their meaning, to etiologically important events-here, "Que faire?" which summarizes the indecisiveness of Mr. E's mother concerning her marriage with Mr. E's father. Lacan formalized these ideas, attributing full-fledged mental effectiveness to the signifier, and summarized this as "the unconscious structured as a language". We tested one aspect of this theory, namely that there is an influence of the ambiguous phonological translation of the world upon our mental processing without us being aware of this influence.

Methods

For this, we used a rebus priming paradigm, including 14 French rebuses, composed of two images depicting common objects, such as paon /pã/ "peacock" and terre /tεr/ "earth," together forming the rebus panthère /pãtεr/ "panther." These images were followed by a target word semantically related to the rebus resolution, e.g., félin "feline," upon which the participants, unaware of the rebus principle, produced 6 written associations. A total of 1,458 participants were randomly assigned either to Experiment 1 in which they were shown the rebus images in either forward or in reverse order or to Experiment 2, in which they were shown only one of both rebus images, either the first or the last.

Results and discussion

The results show that the images induced inadvertent rebus priming in naïve participants. In other words, our results show that people solve rebuses unwittingly independent of stimulus order, thereby constituting empirical evidence for the mental effectiveness of the signifier.

Lacan and Culturalism: A Chronicle of an "Untimely" Resistance to Psychoanalysis

Although neither Sigmund Freud nor Jacques Lacan ever neglected the place of culture and the social field for the subject, they always opposed "culturalist" ideas, even when such ideas no longer used this label. It is important to examine what both of these figures said about culturalism, but it is just as pertinent to return to other criticisms of this movement, which developed in the United States during the last century, because at present this movement has returned covertly within French psychoanalysis. First, "culturalism" is neither a specifically American problem nor one that belongs to the past. Second, some decisive criticisms of this movement remain both germane and original: they are able to throw light on a theoretical current that, at least in France, now characterizes a dominant orientation of psychoanalytic work. Third, although Lacan himself foresaw it, the misuse of some of his notions has unexpectedly served as a Trojan horse that has enabled culturalism to return.

Questioning the Unrepresented: The Essential and the Accidental in Psychoanalysis, Part 2

The author questions the conceptual basis of the unrepresented, a set of terms including: the unstructured unconscious, figurability, and reverie. Because this terminology proposes a profoundly different metapsychology than Freud developed, the author contextualizes the fate of Freud's metapsychology in America and how it was confused with the authority of the classical analyst. Then excerpts of texts by Howard B. Levine, one of the main proponents of the unrepresented, are analyzed to show that the decisive element in Levine's claim of creating meaning for patients is figurability. The author does a close reading and elaboration of French analyst Laurence Kahn's very thoughtful critique of figurability. Kahn's scholarship is brought to bear on Freud's metapsychology, showing how what is at stake are presentations not figures. Figuration and reverie are founded on the projection of referential and narrative coherence onto what is presented by the patient. But the unconscious does exactly the opposite, it presents to consciousness its noncoherent derivatives (presentations). Kahn illuminates Freud's mode of thinking using the critique of figurability as a springboard to show us what is essential in conceptualizing unconscious functioning.

A Metapsychology of the Unrepresented

The terms unrepresented and unrepresented states are increasingly being referred to in psychoanalytic discourse, without our having established a generally agreed upon consensus about their definition, use or meaning. While these particular designations were never used by Freud, a careful reading of his work reveals them to be qualities that characterize the initial state of both the drive and perception. This paper attempts to place these terms in a clinically useful, metapsychological perspective by reviewing their conceptual origin in Freud and examining their elaboration and clinical relevance in the work of Bion, Winnicott, and Green. These concepts should prove especially useful for understanding and addressing problems presented by non-neurotic patients and psychic organizations and will help expand the reach and efficacy of psychoanalytic understanding and technique to increasing numbers of contemporary patients.

Understanding of Self: Buddhism and Psychoanalysis

The healing of the self-or the psychological health of the self-has been an intensely studied issue in the traditions of both Buddhism and psychoanalysis. It is easy to suppose that the understanding of self in Buddhism cannot coexist with the understanding of self in psychoanalysis because the self in Buddhist tradition is mainly regarded as an illusion and needs to be deconstructed, whereas in psychoanalysis, it should be re-constructed for mental health through analysis. Because of this difference in the understanding of self, one may also suppose that these two respective paths to a balanced mind would inevitably be different.

Dora's mother: a housewife's psychosis

I examine a speculative diagnosis made by Sigmund Freud regarding his patient's mother in his landmark 1905 paper describing a hysterical illness. Freud considered the impact of Dora's mother's mental state on her daughter, wondering whether the mother might suffer from a 'housewife's psychosis'. Here was an emphasis on the social structures of the times and differences between the parents in terms of sexual freedom and societal limitations placed on women. Freud's description drew attention to Dora's anxieties in relation to her parents, in particular the state of their sexual relationship and the apparently sanctioned entry of another couple, Frau and Herr K, into the parental relationship. In particular, the role of syphilis in the aetiology of sexual disturbances was considered, affecting men and their sexual partners, specifically their wives, who faced lifelong risks of morbidity, inadequate treatment and psychic disturbances at this time in 19th century Vienna.

Psychoanalytic reflections on the conditions of possibility of human destructiveness

This paper explores the psychoanalytic contribution to the understanding of war. It takes as its frame of reference the conditions of possibility in the human subject that form the basis for the detonation of such extremes of destruction. Starting with key papers of Freud that address this malaise of our "civilization" it goes on to consider the contributions from the Kleinian school (particularly Money-Kyrle and Segal). The argument is situated within a frame of reference which views the psychoanalytic contribution as part of what the author terms an interdisciplinary conversation. The paper concludes with some more general considerations regarding the horrors of our contemporary world.

The Freud-Ferenczi dialogue after the formulation of the Second Topic

The author proposes to examine the scientific dialogue established by Freud and Ferenczi between 1920 and 1933 after Freud's formulation of the Second Topic, the Pleasure Principle. It is very informative to explore the closeness of some formulations of Freud with the more important clinical and metapsychological intuitions of Ferenczi. The role of repetition, the value of affects, the second theory of anxiety, the elasticity of the psychoanalytical technique and the problem of traumatism are some of aspects developed in this paper.

Psychological Counseling during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Clinical Thoughts and Implications Arisen from an Experience in Italian Schools

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I worked as a psychologist in two schools: a comprehensive school (an institution including three school levels: kindergarten, primary school, and secondary school of first grade) and a Provincial Center for the Education of Adults (CPIA). This paper provides some clinical considerations that arose from this personal experience, focusing on practical implications for school psychological counseling. Among the main points, I noticed that students were eager to disclose information about themselves in a professional space, were not afraid of being ridiculed by classmates for attending the service, and spontaneously used artistic media. Using English (a non-native language for both the Italian psychologist and the CPIA student) emerged as an added value for immigrant students who were not fluent in Italian. This allowed them to attend the psychology service and share their thoughts and feelings despite their difficulties with Italian. In conclusion, psychological counseling services should be implemented in all schools and across all school levels worldwide to favor psychological well-being and spread a culture prone to asking for psychological help. Moreover, using a non-native language might be helpful when working with international students. Finally, sandplay therapy (and art) might be an additional option to verbal counseling in school settings.

Friston's free energy principle: new life for psychoanalysis?

The free energy principle (FEP) is a new paradigm that has gain widespread interest in the neuroscience community. Although its principal architect, Karl Friston, is a psychiatrist, it has thus far had little impact within psychiatry. This article introduces readers to the FEP, points out its consilience with Freud's neuroscientific ideas and with psychodynamic practice, and suggests ways in which the FEP can help explain the mechanisms of action of the psychotherapies.

Writings and Readings of the Pandemic: The Shadows Left Behind

A pandemic's reach is broad, deep, layered-both as an infectious agent and as the psychological force that will be explored by the author in this paper. The disorder it creates and the sorrow it leaves in its wake can be found in traces of its existence that remain in written works generated in the time after the pandemic is thought to be over. The author draws from creative texts by imaginative writers and Freud written in the period after the 1918-1920 pandemic. This paper is intended to create an experience in reading that introduces ways in which we can look for the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic in our own writing.

Analytic Work: The Essential and the Accidental in Psychoanalysis

This article explores what is essential to analytic work by drawing not only on Freud, but also on two additional sources: Friedman's (2019) notion of the psychoanalytic phenomenon as described in Freud's book on technique; and Weber's (1991, 2000) understanding of Freud's metapsychology as a creation of terms that are necessary in order to work with a non-observable object, the unconscious. Using Freud's emphasis on the importance of dreams as a form of thinking, the author links the work of Friedman and Weber and extends it in doing a close reading of a specific passage by Freud, showing that the precarious nature of metapsychology is understandable as a form of paradigmatic logic. A dream of the author's gives a certain counterpoint to the paper.

False Memory Researchers Misunderstand Repression, Dissociation and Freud

Various authors have argued that dissociative amnesia is a synonym for repressed memories, recovered memories are almost always false memories, and dissociative amnesia and dissociative identity disorder are not valid disorders. These authors commit numerous errors of logic and scholarship; they misunderstand Freud's thinking about childhood sexual abuse, dissociation and repression and blame both Freudian repression theory and Freudian therapists for an epidemic of false memories. In fact, however, Freudian repression theory is based on the assumption that the childhood sexual abuse never happened. Extreme skeptics about dissociative amnesia do not understand they are actually in agreement with Freudian repression theory. These errors and other failures of logic and scholarship are analyzed and critiqued in the present paper.

Viral Law: Life, Death, Difference, and Indifference from the Spanish Flu to Covid-19

What is viral law? In order to being my discussion, I note that the last two years have been extremely difficult to understand and that we, meaning those who have lived through the pandemic, have struggled to make sense. Thus, I make the argument that the virus has impacted upon not only the individual's ability to make sense in a world where every day routines have been upended, but also social and political structures that similarly rely on repetition to continue to function. According to this thesis, Covid-19 is more than simply a biological organism, but also a cultural virus that undermines the organisation of social, political, and economic systems and requires new ways of thinking about how we might move forward into a post-Covid world. In the name of beginning this project of making sense of Covid-19, I track back in history to the comparable reference point of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1920 and, in particular, a reading of Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle, which the founder of psychoanalysis wrote in the shadow of the virus. In reading Freud's attempt to write a psychology of death in the context of this funereal period of history, I argue that he set out first, a mythological theory of viral law concerned with the death drive, before turning to second, a techno-scientific, biological theory of the same (viral) law characterised by microbial immortality. Beyond this exploration of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, in the third part of the article I turn to a reading of Lacan's interpretation of Freud's work, where viral law becomes a story of cybernetics and nihilistic mechanisation. Here, perfect mechanisation, and the endless oscillation between message and noise, looks a lot like living death. Finally, I take up Derrida's critique of Jacob's molecular biology and, by extension, Freud's theory of microbial immorality, that he thinks privileges an idea of repetitive sameness and opens up a space for cultural politics concerned with immunity against otherness. Derrida's key point here is that this biological fantasy ignores the reality of viral sex that enables evolution to happen. What this means is that the other, even in its microbial form, is ever present, and that we must recognise the importance of difference to the possibility of social, political, and economic change.

Psychodynamic Psychiatry in Argentina at a Crossroads

The authors provide an overview of the history of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychiatry in Argentina. They describe the evolving practice patterns of psychodynamic psychiatrists in this vibrant South American country, highlighting socio-political influences and challenges.

Notes on Free-Associative Listening: "I Am Also a Stranger Here"

The unique conditions and characteristics of listening in psychoanalysis are introduced in relation to an effort to define how psychoanalysis proceeds "beyond psychotherapy." Using an example from Freud's self-analysis, the author explores the tenet that every psychoanalytic session is to be treated like a dream. Freud's prescriptions for the method of listening psychoanalytically are critically discussed and the idea of "listening-to-listen" is introduced, as contrasted with listening in order to hear, listening-to-understand or in order to interpret. It is argued that free-associative listening is distinctive as a processive momentum that deconstructively interrogates the practitioner's own mechanisms of suppression and repression. This process fosters an awareness of that which is otherwise than representation, that which cannot be captured within the purview of reflective consciousness. In this sense, healing is not only transformative, but also transmutative, and the psychoanalyst is one for whom nothing is alien and everything is strange.

Freud's B'nai B'rith Dream: Having Lost His Way, His "Brethren … Were Unkind and Scornful …"

On Tuesday, April 24, 1900, three days after Passover, Freud gave a talk at his B'nai B'rith lodge on Emile Zola's utopian novel penned in self-exile in London, Fécondité (1899). The next day Freud wrote Wilhelm Fliess that the night before the talk he had a dream in which "[t]he brethren … were unkind and scornful of me." In the dream his brethren's contempt signifies that Freud is making his impious move to destroy their Tree of Life: no Law, no Judaism, no Christianity, no miserable anti-Semitism. In Freud's utopia, an enlightened socially just world grounded in reason, which mirrors the brotherly atheistic utopia envisioned in Fécondité, the seed of Abraham at long last can move across frontiers freely, develop their talents, and satisfy their needs.

Freud, Griesinger and Foville: the influence of the nineteenth-century psychiatric tradition in the Freudian concept of delusion as an 'attempt at recovery'

This article aims to situate the Freudian concept of delusion in psychosis as an 'attempt at recovery', within the context of the classical psychiatric theories prevalent in the nineteenth century. Freud's theoretical thinking on the psychopathology of psychosis presents elements of continuity with, and divergence from, the psychiatric theories of his time. We will thus demonstrate the singularity of Freud's own theory. We will discuss the possible influence that the theory proposed by Griesinger, with its description of a temporal evolution in the psychotic process, may have had on Freud's thinking, and consider the theory of 'deductive logic' prevalent in nineteenth-century French psychiatry. Finally, we will discuss the vehement critique Freud made of both these theories.

The traumatic and the work of the après-coup in Freud's opus

This text explores the evolution of the notion of trauma in Freud's work and of its decisive import for the organization of psychic functioning through a two-stage process called the après-coup. By following the three steps of Freud's theory of the drives, the author shows that the conception of the traumatic is gradually internalized to become a basic quality of all drives as a tendency to return to an earlier state, and ultimately an organic, inanimate state. An open question remains in Freud about this tendency's relation to Eros, and therefore to the links between Eros and the traumatic state. This question has remained latent within the psychoanalytic community. The author proposes to conceive of Eros as an infinitely extensible tendency that needs containing in order for it to contribute to evolving inscriptions. Thus is outlined one traumatic state as a return to the inorganic and another traumatic state as an infinite extensibility, both being transformed by the superego and its imperatives in order to generate all life forms.

Interoception Disorder and Insular Cortex Abnormalities in Schizophrenia: A New Perspective Between Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience

The existence of disturbances in the perception of somatic states and in the representation of the body with the presence of cœnesthetic hallucinations, of delusional hypochondriac ideas or of dysmorphophobias is a recognized fact in the psychopathology of schizophrenia. Freudian psychoanalytic theory had accorded a privileged place to the alteration of the perception of the body in schizophrenia. Freud had attributed to these phenomena a primary and prodromal role in the psychopathology of psychosis. We propose to look at this theory in a new way, starting from the perspective of recent studies about the role of the insula in the perception and representation of somatic states, since this structure has been identified as underpinning the sense of interoception. The data in the neurobiological literature about abnormalities in the insular cortex in schizophrenia has shown that insula dysfunction could constitute one of the biological substrates of disorders of body perception in schizophrenia, and could be a source of the alteration of the sense of self that is characteristic of this psychiatric pathology. Moreover, this alteration could thus be involved in the positive symptomatology of schizophrenia.

The infantile: Which meaning?

The "in-fans", who cannot speak, needs a narrator, especially a psychoanalyst in the transference in order to be able to hear again the "silent" language that is expressed in the time of the "Jetztzeit". Through a reflection on Freud's work on aphasias and his exchange of letters with Fliess, it is possible to identify important previews which constitute a sort of pre-semiotics, as well as a theory on memory. In addition, history, sociology, semiotics and the neurosciences are all necessary interlocutors for developing the issue of The Infantile in psychoanalysis.

The "Oceanic Feeling" and Confrontation with Death

Freud's explanation of Rolland's "oceanic feeling" is reconsidered in the light of similar phenomena that occur in the face of impending death, such as the experiences described by Socrates in Plato's Phaedo, and the aesthetic and transformational experiences described by Christopher Bollas. These phenomena are included in what Karl Jaspers calls "ciphers." Other examples are presented to indicate the need to consider such phenomena in human psychology, phenomena that have been neglected in psychoanalysis due to the profound but arbitrary influence of Freud's analysis of the "oceanic feeling," an analysis based on the outmoded rigid assumptions of classical nineteenth-century science.

Transience and hope: A return to Freud in a time of pandemic

This essay is about what it is like to read Freud again in the time of the coronavirus pandemic. It offers a close reading of Freud's essay "On Transience" and it brings to light how it might be read differently with the thoughts of world-catastrophe on our minds.

Black Rage: The Psychic Adaptation to the Trauma of Oppression

Integrating the story of a young Freud's racial trauma with a novel application of the concept of moral injury has led to a realization and conceptual formulation during the pandemic uprisings of the mental construct of Black Rage as an adaptation to oppression trauma. As formulated here, Black Rage exists in a specific dynamic equilibrium as a compromise formation that is a functional adaptation for oppressed people of color who suffer racial trauma and racial degradation, an adaptation that can be mobilized for the purpose of defense or psychic growth. Black Rage operates as a mental construct in a way analogous to the structural model [corrected], in which mental agencies carry psychic functions. The concept of Black Rage is crucial to constructing a theoretical framework for a psychology of oppression and transgenerational transmission of trauma. Additionally, in the psychoanalytic theory on oppression suggested here, a developmental line is formulated for the adaptive function of Black Rage in promoting resilience in the face of oppression trauma for marginalized people.

Is the Influence of Freud Declining in Psychology and Psychiatry? A Bibliometric Analysis

Sigmund Freud is occasionally perceived as outdated and his work no longer relevant to academia. The citing papers (CPs) that cited Freud works were collected from Web of Science and analyzed. The 10 most common research areas of the CPs were noted, and the overall volume of the respective bodies of literature were retrieved. I computed the annual percentage of the respective bodies of literature that cited Freud. On a separate note, I computed the annual percentage of citations coming from psychology and psychiatry. Results based on 42,571 CPs found that psychology accounted for over half of the citations to Freud. The percentage of psychology papers citing Freud declined gradually from around 3% in the late 1950s to around 1% in the 2010s, in an extent of −0.02% per year over the entire survey period spanning across 65 years from 1956 till 2020 (P < 0.001). In psychiatry, a similar decline was observed, from around 4–4.5% in the late 1950s to just below 0.5% in the 2010s, in an extent of −0.1% per year (P < 0.001). However, a reverse trend was observed for psychoanalysis literature, which generally increased from 10–20% before the 1980s to 25–30% since the 2000s, in an extent of +0.2% per year (P < 0.001). Meanwhile, the annual percentage of CPs coming from psychology and psychiatry was decreasing by 0.4% per year (P < 0.001). Bibliometric data supported the notion that Freud's influence was on a decline in psychology and psychiatry fields.

We other narcissists: self-love in Freud and culture

I examine the paradoxical place of narcissism in contemporary culture, and within the work of Freud. Paying close attention to the repeated moments of equivocation and contradiction within Freud's descriptions of primary and secondary narcissism, I draw on the work of Jean Laplanche, who suggests that the ambiguities in Freud's texts often mirror ambiguities within the constitution of the ego. I argue that we should read Freud's inability to rigorously distinguish self from other in his explications of self-love not - or not only - as a failure on his part, but also as a trace of an alterity at the heart of identity. It is the very 'failure' of Freud's concept of narcissism that leaves it open to the other and makes it remain a vital concept today, when the word narcissism has been reduced to an impoverished notion of self-obsession. In closing I suggest that, with his knotted and never fully coherent concept of narcissism, Freud provides us with a way of thinking about human relationships outside of the binaries of selfless v selfish love that so commonly constrain our popular and theoretical ideas about love.

Impossible Ethics

The proper practice of psychoanalysis repudiates a rule-based code of ethical conduct. A conflict exists, however, between Freud's rejection of the Biblical commandment to love one's neighbor as oneself and his development of psychoanalytic techniques that demand something very much of this ilk. Other essential conflicts in analytic practice include the impossibility of removing the analyst's desire from the analytic relationship, the unruly nature of unconscious processes in both analyst and analysand, and the après-coup nature of ethical recognition. A discourse of ethics is recommended in which analysts are called on to consider the ethical demands of each clinical moment. Ethical demands on the analysand, as well as the analyst, bring to light the way in which analysis rests on the foundational ethical situation into which humankind is born.

Reconsidering Leonardo Da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood

Previous considerations of Freud's 1910 pathography of Leonardo da Vinci have grappled mainly with errors of fact (among them a mistranslation in the study's signature childhood memory, widely known since the 1950s). Here a more consequential flaw is examined: Freud's fatefully pathogenic framing of Leonardo's homosexuality. While few present-day analysts share that perspective in its entirety, Freud's complex and plausible reconstruction drew wide support in the literature for more than a century and has to date never been subjected to rigorous critique. A close reading of the study, exploring Freud's perspective and that of later psychoanalysts and historians, seeks to account for the biography's tenacious grip on the psychoanalytic imagination. In the end, it is argued, the pathography is a failed effort to grapple with an unsettling transformation unfolding around and within Freud: the emergence of the category that eventually would be called the "healthy homosexual."

Apocalypse Now!: From Freud, Through Lacan, to Stiegler's Psychoanalytic 'Survival Project

The objective of this article is to explore the value of psychoanalysis in the early twenty-first century through reference to Freud, Lacan, and Stiegler's work on computational madness. In the first section of the article I consider the original objectives of psychoanalysis through reference to what I call Freud's 'normalisation project', before exploring the critique of this discourse concerned with the defence of oedipal law through a discussion of the post-modern 'individualisation project' set out by Deleuze and Guattari and others. Tracking the development of 'the individualisation project' in history, I consider its connections with the cybernetic theories of Wiener and Shannon in the psycho-cyber-utopianism of the 1990s, before moving on to consider the other side of the psychoanalytic-cybernetic interaction through a discussion of Jacques Lacan's rereading of Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle in the second section of the article. In reading Lacan's seminar on Freudian drive in terms of the cybernetic repression of death, I set up the conclusion to the article which involves a discussion of Bernard Stiegler's 'survival project' that relies on a recognition of the limit of death in order to produce human significance and oppose the madness of our contemporary computational reality.

On the logic of the unconscious

Freud argues that the laws of classical logic do not hold true with regard to the unconscious. The aim of this paper is to provide an alternative logic that is consistent with Freud's conception of the unconscious. This aim is achieved in two steps. First, I argue that most Freudian features of the unconscious are consequences of the fact that unconscious thoughts in the Freudian sense are negationless. Then I suggest a formal logical system that lacks the negation symbol, and is known as negationless-logic, with which to formulate the logic of the unconscious. I demonstrate that this suggestion provides a better understanding of various psychological phenomena, such as projection, reaction-formation, delusion and the misconstrual of the empty set in childhood. Finally, I argue that negationless-logic provides solutions to certain shortcomings in Matte-Blanco's formulation of the logic of the unconscious.

The Cannibal's Gaze: A Reflection on the Ethics of Care Starting from Salvador Dalí's Oeuvre

Starting from two paintings by Salvador Dalì (The Enigma of William Tell and Autumnal Cannibalism), the article explores Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung's idea of erotic cannibalism. The fear of being eaten is an archetype of the collective unconscious, as fairy tales clearly reveal. Following Jacques Derrida's reflections, the author suggests that the fear of being eaten is not limited to anthropophagic cultures, because there is a sort of symbolic cannibalism which has to do with the capacity for annihilation. The petrifying gaze of Medusa, described by Jean Paul Sartre, is a good example of this symbolic cannibalism. On the opposite side of the spectrum, compared to the petrifying gaze, we find the recognizing look of a mother toward her child. For the child, the mother embodies the good subject, which is reassuring and nonthreatening (the fairy who stands in contrast to the devouring ogre in fairy tales). Sara Ruddick explicitly refers to this motherhood model in her book Maternal Thinking, where she lays out the methodology for the ethics of care. The maternal, or recognizing gaze, as the opposite of Medusa's gaze portrayed by Sartre, is well described in a compelling text by the Italian novelist Luigi Pirandello. At the same time, it plays an important role in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's The Phenomenology of the Spirit. Finally, the article returns to Salvador Dalì, showing how in his life, the artist experienced the Other's gaze in both forms: the objectifying one, represented by the artist's father (portrayed in The Enigma of William Tell), and the recognizing one, embodied by his partner Gala (portrayed in Autumnal Cannibalism).

Eyes Wide Shut: Primary Process Opens Up

Freud was the first to invite his patients to lie down on a couch, facilitating the closing of the eyes. If the mere fact of closing the eyes favors access to unconscious materials, it should also favor primary process mentation. Primary process is an associative mode of thought based on superficial similarities including phonology, while secondary process mentation in language is primarily concerned with meaning. Fifty-two participants were given French Word Lists with phonological choices (P) corresponding to primary processes, while semantic choices (S) represent secondary processes when they are in mutual competition (PS). For example, participants were given a first word, such as, e.g. cale (to hold), and then had to choose between lac (P; lake) and fixe (S; fix), which alternative was most similar to the first word, cale. Two control lists, SN and PN, where the other choice is unrelated (N for nothing), verify that the subjects are equally capable of recognizing the phonological and semantics similarity. Results show an (near 10% increase in P choices in PS when participants close their eyes, while results on PN and SN were unchanged. The mere fact of closing the eyes induces a modest increase in primary process mentation. Based on the literature, the eyes closed (EC) condition is linked to increased alpha synchronization, which is thought to induce an inward mental shift. This research contributes to validating the psychoanalytic technique consisting on inviting patients to lie down on a couch and invite them to close their eyes.

From the Principle of Inertia to the Death Drive: The Influence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics on the Freudian Theory of the Psychical Apparatus

In the Freudian theory of the psychical apparatus, the introduction from the 1920s onward of the second drive dualism appears as a major turning point. The idea of a "death drive," first expressed in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Freud, 1920), is generally considered to be a new concept, one that represents a break with Freud's previous thinking. It has often surprised the scholars because it seemed, at first sight, difficult to reconcile with the idea of the singularity of living organisms within which the psychical functions form an integral part. Our research aims to demonstrate that the theory of the death drive does not represent a complete change in direction for Freud. It is present, in essence, in his earliest work, to the extent that the "principle of inertia" described in 1895 in A Project for a Scientific Psychology (Freud, 1895) can be seen as a precursor to the death drive. Based on a reading of Freud's early formulations of his ideas, we aim to bring to light how certain aporias that seem inherent to the concept of the death drive can be overcome if we consider them in the context of an epistemological model that draws on the paradigms of physics which were conveyed by the Helmholtz School. Namely, we can consider the idea of death drive in reference to the principle of entropy and the laws of thermodynamics.

The Will to Truth, the Death Drive and the Will to Power

This paper claims that Freud's idea of the death drive is analogous to the will to truth in traditional philosophy and can be better understood as a truth drive. The argument is based upon Nietzsche's interpretation of the will to truth as a concealed will to death. This interpretation emphasizes the opposition between truth and life; truth is a concept of constancy while life is a concept of change. Freud's recognition of the conservative nature of the drives brings him to the paradoxical conclusion of the existence of a death drive. It is paradoxical, for Freud, since it considers death as a fundamental principle of life and as its aim. The paper suggests that by replacing the concept of death by the concept of truth and using Nietzsche's idea of "the will to power" this paradox can be resolved without losing Freud's insight of the dialectic nature of psychological life.

Considering Life and Death in Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalytic therapy is not supposed to cure man from death, nor to help him forget about it. It is supposed to deal with the soul, and it is up to the soul to deal with death. Death is actually not an issue for psychoanalytic therapy-its only problem can be the soul. On the other hand, only for the soul is death an authentic problem. Only the soul can authentically bring death into question. Psychoanalysis has indebted humanity by finding the strength and critical prudence in a crucial moment for civilization to remove the veil of prohibition and shame from sexuality, which had been repressed for centuries. Today, sexuality is no longer repressed (it may be even too present in the media for some)-but death became repressed. This paper considers death as an essential topic for psychoanalysis.

Freud's Legacy and Modern Theories of Ineffable Trauma

Notions of ineffability, what cannot be put into words, vary depending on the historical and cultural context and, in particular, on shifting linguistic ideologies about the capabilities and limits of language. In recent decades psychoanalysts have embraced a modern notion of ineffability centered around traumatic bodily experiences that are thought to be inexpressible. However, these ideas break with Freudian ideas about language and, most importantly, with his understanding of the processes of interpretation that give meaning to both psychic pain and attempts to heal it. Contra Freud, current theories of ineffable trauma re-inscribe a dominance of the body over the psyche and over-simplify Freud's ideas about the retro-determination of trauma.

Publish and be fair? "I am myself strongly in favour of doing it": James Strachey as the candid wartime editor of The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 1939-1945

This article is an examination of the history of Strachey's work as the editor of the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, work that was shaped by the internal strife within British psychoanalysis and the great international conflict of the Second World War. From the primary sources it has been possible to give an account of how he came to be in charge of the Journal, why he was suited to the role, and also to provide an example of what he was like as an editor dealing with colleague-contributors. It is argued that due to his long-held belief in free speech and candour, and because he was committed to resisting to the utmost a split within the British Psycho-Analytical Society, James Strachey wanted to make both the papers and the ensuing discussions of the Controversies public through the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis. As described here, that did not happen in a simple way but he succeeded in publishing papers directly related to the debate by fostering investigation into the subject of internal objects. He also gave space in the Journal to new writers and a plurality of theories, including the nascent object relations theories of D.W. Winnicott and John Bowlby.

Freud's Clinical Theories Then and Now

In Freud's day, his case studies, coupled with the findings of others (e.g., Breuer, Charcot), provided evidence that the Oedipus complex and his dynamic theory of repression (i.e., the unconscious interactions between id, ego, and superego) as causal agents in neurotic symptoms was suspect. With the aid of over 75 years of research since Freud's death, today's psychodynamic-orientated clinicians have discarded many of Freud's tenets related to the Oedipus complex. Modern psychoanalysts have focused their attention instead on a patient's personal relationships in their early life, their current life, and in their interactions with their therapist (transference).

DOUBLINGS BETWEEN BEWILDERMENT AND ENLIGHTENMENT: READING FREUD WITH HEINE ON THE TROUBLED IDENTITY OF HIRSCH-HYACINTH

The present paper examines Freud's collapse of Heine's poignantly observed multi-cultural narratives in discerning the joke's mechanism of doubling as it progresses from initial bewilderment to momentary enlightenment. In so doing, Freud opens the door to examination of the complex Jewish cultural identity he and Heine share, as represented by the fictional character, "Hirsch-Hyacinth". Hirsch-Hyacinth is a caricature of the "marginal man" in his doubled orientation between and within conflicting aspects of self, a condition reflecting oscillation between idealization, derogation, awareness and dissociation, conditioned by internalization of societal prejudice and traumatization. Freud's tightly focused demonstration of psychoanalytic method upon the Heine joke sample proceeds toward two forms of revelation. The first illustrates the universal applicability of psychoanalytic method. The second signals the individual's ongoing reckoning with the particularities of subjective psychological experience as embedded in identification with large group assumptions of social reality.

The importance of not being Ernest: An archaeology of child's play in Freud's writings (and some implications for psychoanalytic theory and practice)

In psychoanalysis, the question of child's play owes its fame to child psychoanalysts. Before the emergence of child psychoanalysis, however, Sigmund Freud had evoked the question of child's play in his works many times. Surprisingly, his views on play remain generally underestimated - with the notable exception of the famous "fort-da" game that, by irresistibly attracting innumerable comments to itself, has come to overshadow, in the author's view, the whole Freudian conception of play. This paper therefore aims at archeologically re-examining this notion in the Freudian corpus. It intends to show that, far from being limited to an object of study as "interpreted," play is also called upon for what it offers heuristically as "interpreting," especially when Freud is faced with metapsychological obstacles. Two main strands of this theoretical conception of play are identified (a "deficit" and a "surplus" conception). The paper then highlights how the Freudian conception of play is intimately linked to his melancholy theory of the psyche and of culture. Finally, the paper changes tack in order to briefly suggest that this reconsideration of play might have psychoanalytic implications on two issues, namely the status of child's play in analysis and the more general question of interpretation.