Using Analytic Space: A Challenge to Contemporary Psychoanalysis

As psychoanalysts, we have to be constantly aware of the impact of external reality upon the analytic process, whether this comes from the world outside the consulting room or from within it. In particular, I am concerned with the disturbing influence that may come from the analyst’s devotion to new theoretical positions and ways of working. Also we cannot prescribe ‘good experience’ for any patient. We can only follow the process, and this may require of us that we survive being used by the patient to represent all that has been worst in the patient’s life. We should never deflect that.     

Getting There,Being There,Staying and Belonging: A Case Study of Two Indigenous Australian Children's Transition to School

Indigenous Australians are among the most unhealthy populations in the world and yet they reside in a country where the non‐Indigenous population enjoys high standards of well‐being. Education has been identified as the key mechanism for closing this equity gap. At school commencement many Indigenous children are already at risk of disengagement. This four‐year longitudinal study of two Indigenous boys from a socially marginalised community examined key factors affecting transitional trajectories into school. While child characteristics affected level of achievement the critical factors in sustaining positive educational engagement were social support, school practices, inclusion of family and positive expectation.     

Animals as the Symptom of Psychoanalysis Or,The Potential for Interspecies Co-emergence in Psychoanalysis

Harold Searles urged psychoanalysis to incorporate animals and the nonhuman environment within the clinical space, claiming we ignore the nonhuman at our peril. But as Searles outlined, our relationships with these nonhuman entities is fraught with ambivalence. This paper details some of the ambivalences within Searles’ writings, including the ways he both described and seemed to enact defenses around human exceptionalism on the one hand and our chaotic merging with the world on the other. Searles described this conflict as occurring not only within the family romance but also shaping our relationships with the nonhuman objects and animals in our environment. In this light, polluting the Earth, according to Searles, is an unconscious act designed to foreclose the future for our progeny whom we unconsciously hate and envy. Integrating Searles’ conflicting ideas with current work on the nonhuman in cultural studies, this presentation explores the ambivalent dependence of the human on the nonhuman, the co-emergence of these categories and subjectivities, and ways to consciously link these areas of experiencing in our clinical and theoretical work.     

Here and Now,There and Then: Nostalgia as a Time and Space Phenomenon

This paper provides an overview of nostalgia focusing on the ways in which the nexus of time and space has been theorized. The meta‐analysis presented here highlights the complex, recursive, and nuanced features of the nostalgic experience, suggesting that nostalgia is not only directed toward the past, but also the future.     

The Founding of the Clinical Sociology Association: A Personal Narrative

This paper discusses the rediscovery of clinical sociology in the 1970s and the founding of the Clinical Sociology Association in 1978. The author recounts his role in these events and traces their origin in his personal life.     

The Making of Multiple Personality Disorder: A Social Constructionist View

This article explores the social construction of multiple personality disorder by analyzing professional agreements about the nature of the diagnosis, while locating these within their historical and cultural context. First, a historical review of the disorder traces various overlapping streams of discourse that have shaped the construction of the diagnosis. This is followed by a cross-cultural comparison of MPD and dissociative phenomena in several non-Western societies. The article concludes with some reflections on the cultural meanings of MPD in contemporary America.     

The Prosecution of Political Corruption: France,Italy and the USA - A Comparative View

The 1948 Italian Constitution provides for the independence of judges and magistrates. As a result of the tragic outcome of the war, of efforts to prevent dictatorships, war and the violation of human rights, the Italian framers have created an institutional system which can resist political interference in the cases in which elected officials and cabinet ministers are involved. A comparative analysis of France and the USA highlights that in those countries magistrates do not enjoy the same constitutional protection. The state, therefore, and the community, is not adequately protected by a system where power-holders can stop and divert investigations on political corruption.     

Power,justice, and trust: A moderated mediation analysis of tax compliance among Ethiopian business owners

We explored the moderating roles of legitimate and coercive power held by the tax authority in the relationship between procedural justice, trust in the tax authority, and voluntary tax compliance. Drawing from fairness heuristic theory and the slippery slope framework of tax compliance, we predicted that procedural justice fosters voluntary tax compliance, particularly when legitimate power of the tax authority is low and when coercive power of the authority is high. Moreover, we predicted that these interactive effects are mediated by (cognition-based) trust. Finally, we predicted that coercive power of the tax authority is positively related with enforced tax compliance. The results of a field study among Ethiopian business owners supported most predictions. This research is among the first to integrate social–psychological and deterrence-related factors to understand tax compliance behavior in a developing country.     

The Relationship Between Social Work and Psychoanalysis: The Future Impact of Social Workers

Because social workers are likely to have a more expanded role within organized psychoanalysis than previously, it seems timely to consider the numerous challenges and opportunities ahead with respect to social workers’ impact on the practice of psychoanalysis. For those who become social work psychoanalysts, in particular, a pivotal issue is the degree to which they retain their core identity as clinical social workers. It is important for them to integrate and balance the diverse aspects of their dual identity, to participate in our social work organizations, to contribute to developing psychoanalysis, and to work to keep the teaching of contemporary psychoanalytic theories alive in social work education.

Getting Ready to Talk: The Treatment of a Mildly Retarded, Selectively Mute Adult

Selective mutism implies hidden motivation for selecting this behavior. In this case study, the manifest presentation of selective mutism was not interpreted as a pathological behavior but as a functional control system which serves a self-protective function for the client. The intervention described avoids the technical potential of getting trapped in a client's control system, which can occur, by not accepting the client's nonverbal behavior. Instead, therapy is directed beyond that system, focusing on the client's strengths that established and maintained that system. The case demonstrates highlighting these strengths so that they may then be used as a major force toward therapeutic change.     

The Family Movement,Bowen Theory,and Theoretical Medicine: A View from the 21st Century

Important changes have occurred in the family movement in the United States since it emerged in the mid‐1950s. Psychiatry supported the movement in its early years, but that changed as psychiatry abandoned the biopsychosocial model and adopted the biological paradigm through the 1970s. This development pushed family and other therapies to the periphery of the discipline. Medicine is dominated by the biological paradigm and cause‐and‐effect thinking. The roots of the medical model go back to Pasteur. In contrast, psychiatry in the United States had been dominated through the 20^th century by psychoanalytic thinking, which rendered the discipline a step‐child to medicine. This and other factors pushed psychiatry to get biological. The change generated a ‘failure of nerve’ in the family movement, abandoning the role of the family in schizophrenia in the face of psychiatry's assertion that all serious mental illnesses had nothing to do with the family. Other important changes separating the family movement from psychiatry occurred as well. Bowen theory is anchored in biology and evolution, but it is not a biological paradigm. Maintaining solid connections to the scientific disciplines are important for keeping the theory an open system. The recent emergence of systems biology and systems medicine could challenge psychiatry's allegiance to the biological paradigm and bring family systems theory centre stage in the discipline. These new disciplines may also arrive at a systems theory of the individual that can be integrated with family theory, powering a paradigm shift in medicine as a whole.     

Getting my stories straight: A narrativist in quest of congruence

Drawing on his work in the area of narrative gerontology, the author reflects on the measure of congruence that exists between the theories he has been developing about the storied complexity of adult development and his lived experience as an aging individual himself. His reflections include a discussion of his former career as a parish minister and his ongoing passion for “the writing life”. He concludes with some speculation on the possibility of combining his interests in narrative and aging with his continuing interest in theological themes.     

Internal Communication,Information Satisfaction,and Sense of Community: The Effect of Personal Influence

This study examined how employees of a multi-campus university view information flow from top administrators in positions of personal influence, employees' communication preferences (amount, channels, types of information), their sense of community within the organization, and the relationship between those perceptions and their willingness to advocate for the university. Open-ended interviews with 147 employees found the personal influence of the chancellor and top administrators has an effect on information satisfaction. Employees who have a relationship with the chancellor are more satisfied with the information they receive and feel a greater responsibility to advocate for the organization. Even the perception of a relationship with top administrators leads to satisfaction. The direction dimension of internal communication, as well as the channel dimension is important. Although e-mail is efficient for information exchange, the preference for communication among all groups of employees is face-to-face, interpersonal, dialogic interactions. Meetings, despite being acknowledged as time-consuming, were valued as a channel for feedback and providing face time with top managers. Electronic channels, if used thoughtfully, can flatten the traditional, hierarchical structure of internal communication and give employees at all levels of the organization the sense of hearing things first-hand, from the top.     

The Effects of Suicide on the Private Practitioner: A Professional and Personal Perspective

A patient's suicide has a profound effect on the therapist and psychotherapy with a chronically suicidal patient is particularly troubling. Guilt over one's failure to recognize the warning signs, fear of one's incompetence or irresponsibility, shame that one has failed, and fear of being blamed by the patient's loved ones and by colleagues are feelings that frequently surface and that can result in isolating a practitioner from the very sources of peer support that are necessary in order to resolve the trauma. This article explores the effects of suicide on the private practitioner. It discusses how burnout and vicarious traumatization impact upon the therapist who treats the chronically suicidal patient. Two clinical examples illustrate the impact of working with imminent suicide and the aftermath of a patient's death from a personal perspective. Recommendations are made to help private practitioners maintain equilibrium when working with these overwhelming case situations.     

Theory: The Plague of the Subject: Psychoanalysis and Judith Butler's Psychic Life of Power

In her book The Psychic Life of Power, Judith Butler explores the relation between power and subjectivity. The Psychic Life of Power presents a political account of the formation of the subject. For Butler, psychoanalysis is a crucial theoretical tool for providing such an account of the subject. This essay considers Butler's Foucauldian rereading of psychoanalytic theory through an analysis of her theory of the formation of the subject. In particular, the essay examines Butler's appropriation of psychoanalysis for her theory of subjectivity. The author argues that while Butler's theorising of the psychic life of power represents an important linking of Foucauldian and psychoanalytic theories, nevertheless, her use of psychoanalysis does not fully engage with the complexity of its theory of the subject nor with the implications of that theory for her political project.     

Silence, Its Use and Abuse: A View from Self Psychology

This article seeks to explore the use and abuse of silence in the therapeutic process. A review of its many meanings will be illustrated by brief excerpts from case material, demonstrating that silence is a fertile mode in which the self may be enriched and strengthened. Silence can be understood as the source of quiet growth in which distortions of the self can be reflected upon and then transformed through greater recognition of opportunity and choice. It is the intention of this note to stimulate discussion of silence from the view point of other theories, as well.