How does the analyst know if a patient is repeating patterns because of projective identification vs because they are particularly good substrate for others to put a specific projection onto them?

In general, how does one untangle the patient's projections onto others that subconsciously influence their behavior, from the projections of others due to their unconscious feelings?

Hi,

A.does anyone knows something about this program, and is ready to share his thoughts (even in private)

B. Is there any other programs like that around the worls?

For context, I’m a therapist with 10 years experience and most of my work is with various types and levels of trauma. I have somatic training and am very attachment oriented. I want to expand and deepen further into the work so I am trying to follow threads that have sparked excitement and creative energy previously and one of those is psychoanalytic theory. Ultimately, I want to have additional ways of understanding my clients and their struggles and more ways of conceptualizing all the many things that make us who and how we are. I know there are many different types of podcasts available so wondering if anyone has recommendations based on some of this info. Thank you!

I have recently been accepted into a 4 year training institute. Contemporary Relational focus. Non-IPA affiliated. I have a masters and am already working as a psychotherapist. I completed a 1 year course at this same institution and was absolutely hooked by the concepts and approach

However, as I now look at the financial outlay for a 4 year pursuit, I find myself balking at it when seen as an investment in my career. I think it absolutely aligns with the sort of clinician I am/want to be and would give me immense skills. I guess I just worry it’s a poor business choice. But perhaps it’s not about that. It is a calling to me as well. I’m feeling stuck and was wondering how other trainees might have approached their decision

Any thoughts and experiences would be much appreciated!

I love the psychoanalysis community I’m a part of but struggle with the basic topics and understanding their connection because I find the writing too dense. Can someone recommend a “psychoanalysis for dummies” (lol) type book please? Then I feel I can go deeper into the theory. Thank you!

Does anyone have any feedback, insight on, or experience with the training institute Contemporary Freudian Society in Brooklyn, NY? I’m personally not looking into psychoanalytic training but very interested in seeing a practitioner myself. I have some acquaintances that have studied at the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic studies (something along these lines) but hadn’t heard of this institute yet. Would love to hear any experiences either as a student, teacher, etc.

https://contemporaryfreudiansociety.org

In The Heart of Man and The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, Erich Fromm defines "necrophilia" not just as a sexual perversion, but as a broader character orientation, the preference for the static, predictable, mechanical, and controlled over the living, spontaneous, and uncertain. He suggests that to achieve total certainty, one must essentially reduce life to something dead and rigid.
This idea of "controlling life to eliminate uncertainty" made me wonder about its intersection with clinical psychology, specifically OCD, which is often characterized by an extreme intolerance of uncertainty.

Did Fromm ever explicitly connect his concept of the necrophilous character to clinical OCD or obsessive personality structures of his era?

How do critical theorists or psychoanalysts view the distinction between Fromm’s socio-philosophical concept of necrophilia and clinical anxiety disorders driven by a search for certainty?

Would love to hear thoughts from anyone familiar with Fromm’s psychoanalytic work or character typology.

I was reading Janet Malcolm's book and she discusses a couple cases, eg one where the therapist is sleepy and realizes that the patient is inducing sleepiness to avoid her sexual feelings, and another where the patient does not speak for months and induces in the therapist the feelings that the patient felt from his mother's silence/withdrawal.

In the first case she describes how the therapist gradually helped by pointing out when the sexual fear arose,

But in the second case I am not sure. She describes "Khan's reconstruction through countertransference of the boy's early experiences" but I would like to understand what that actually means, how it would have played out? Evidently it worked but I am not sure how.

I am a layperson and just trying to understand better what the techniques are to address such induced feelings in the therapist that are disowned in the patient.

The 19 episodes of the International Psychoanalytical Association's Journal Club are available for online viewing on YouTube

Salman Akhtar, Tony Bass, Beatrice Beebe, Deborah Cabaniss, Nancy Chodorow, Diana Diamond, Ann D'Ercole, Jay Greenberg, Dorothy Holmes, Danielle Knafo, Emily Kuriloff, Vittorio Lingiardi, Nancy McWilliams, Dionne Powell, Austin Ratner, Jonathan Shedler, Donnel Stern, Beverly Stoute and Frank Yeomens are among some of the psychoanalytic luminaries discussing their publications

Have a look and please feel free to share with colleagues
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhxiwE76e0Qay6FMxNTmmxFABgBXsFr-F

[Someone at the Reddit for Social Psychology thinks this group would be a better fit for my query. I don't know why that would be, but maybe things have changed in academia in ways I didn't understand 40 years later? Anyway...]

This is just in case there's anyone out there who's interested in these works. I'm not a Social Psychologist, but am influenced by the seminal texts. In the late 1980s I had a very stimulating semester in college reading Festinger, Zimbardo, Milgram, etc.

Recently I've read two criticisms of When Prophecy Fails: one, Timothy Jenkins's 2013 Of Social Scientists and Flying Saucers, and 2025's "Debunking 'When Prophecy Fails'", a 15 pager from the Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences, found here in a PDF.

As an outsider, I understand the critique of methods, especially any duplicity. That said, I wonder if anyone else here has read either one or both of these critiques of Festinger?

Are there any key signifiers ? Thanks

In "Fear of Breakdown," Winnicott writes:

It must be asked here: why does the patient go on being worried by this that belongs to the past? The answer must be that the original experience of primitive agony cannot get into the past tense unless the ego can first gather it into its own present time experience and into omnipotent control now (assuming the auxiliary ego-supporting function of the mother (analyst)).

Why does the ego need to gather it into omnipotent control?

As a child, perhaps this is comprehensible -- the ego simply isn't developed enough to accept that something is coming from outside the child. It hasn't developed the "not me" yet. So to be digested, the experience has to be felt as caused by the child.

But what exactly qualifies an experience for being able to be gathered into that area? For example, let's suppose we have a good enough mother who neglects her child for a small portion of time. The child does experience, let's say, some pain on account of hunger. Is this gathered into its area of omnipotence and therefore experienced? Let's assume it's not such an extreme neglect that it is super traumatic, or the mother is gone for a certain portion of time, but not so long that the infant is, again, super traumatized. But that portion of time the mother was gone, is that or is that not experienced by the small child? Is that gathered into the child's sense of omnipotence? And if so, what would that even mean? The child would feel that he/she caused the mother's absence? Or that the child caused its own hunger?

And even if all of this makes sense for a child, why does the adult need the experiences to be gathered in to the area of omnipotence in order to be experienced, and what would that mean exactly? Winnicott says that the adult experiences the agonies in the context of the transference -- via the therapist's mistakes/misattunements (mistakes as felt by the patient). But what would it mean for a patient to gather those mistakes into the area of their omnipotence? Would they feel that they caused the therapist's failures?

They both base their therapy on acceptance but differ in the execution part. Not a big fan of psychotherapy but I can’t rule it out. Any opinions on either?  

As I said in my post a few weeks ago, I have read a fair deal of Freud, but I have recently come up on some questions concerning repression, thoughts and feelings, and what the unconscious actually consists of.

As far as I’m aware, Freud seemed to think that much of repression primarily concerned memory, and a lot of the unconscious was a reservoir for repressed memories, namely, of childhood trauma and infantile sexuality. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, however, Freud seems to find that trauma neuroses are primarily characterized by repetition compulsion (with the death drive as its possible origin), meaning that trauma is often revisited and repeated, all in an attempt to master the hypercathect trauma and the anxiety that often accompanies it (but can just reinforce it). Since repression is an anti-cathexis of sorts, and repetition compulsion is a hyper-cathexis (although a bounded one), it makes sense that these would clash when it comes to memory. Either way, in The Ego and the Id, Freud speaks of memory traces (as opposed to “unconscious memories,” which Freud regarded as paradoxical although I forget why), being either auditory images or visual ones with the auditory being more heavily emphasized. If memories are understood as properly not being able to be unconscious, then what are memories traces, and how do “unconscious memories” exist in the unconscious?

This also brings up another question. Repressed memories are heavily contested in contemporary psychology. Memory researchers seem to deny their existence entirely while some clinicians still believe that repressed memories can be recovered, and that this recovery is not merely the implantation of a false memory. A lot of memory researchers seem to point to the fact that traumatic memories are more heavily encoded than normal ones, meaning repression should not occur (although perhaps the difference lies in when the trauma occurs as the adult case seems to track with what Freud says about trauma neuroses while experiences in childhood seem to be clouded by infantile amnesia.) I don’t feel strongly about this one way or the other. In my own experience, I find that what is repressed and what can be uncovered from the unconscious is not memories but certain thoughts, emotions, and feelings. Freud does talk about them too like in The Ego and the Id and doesn’t ignore them. I just wonder what connects memories, thoughts, and feelings and if these are stored in some “common form” in the unconscious. What does the unconscious actually consist of? What is its structure as it pertains to psychic material? Since the ego is a body ego, I have heard that unconscious material relates to affects, sensations, or even excitations (since we experience those sorts of things directly), but I have only read this in secondary sources.

Answers to these concerns and any reading material recommendation would be greatly appreciated.

Pretty much what the title says.

I know people mention contrarians in an intellectual conversation, but what about ‘friends’ who are contrarians just about any chance they get?
I always theorized and observed that the people who do this to me have been insecure generally and honestly just rude, so I always thought it was a way for them to feel superior… but I don’t know. Obviously things aren’t black and white.
My examples.
She texts me a story and ends with “it made me panic” and I say “omgggg that’s kinda scary lol” and she goes “no it’s not scary it’s just not the vibe”.
Or a rant about somebody being rude/mean and I say “wow that is awful he is so negative” and she goes “it’s not even awful he’s just nasty” like yes that’s exactly what I’m trying to get at? When it happens constantly it becomes hard to want to even respond because you feel like every response is the wrong one. with these people (I can’t always avoid them) I just don’t give my two cents. I acknowledge the story but don’t give any empathy because I know how that’ll go. lol

Hi all, apologies if this question doesn't quite fit this sub's purpose, as it is more about technique than theory.

In my own analysis today, my analyst asked me a question, which I was having a difficult time answering and having a hard time putting any words to, despite having a very sharp averse reaction to it. He mentioned that sometimes experiences can be hard to describe or wrap our heads around because they occurred at a time in our development that predates language. I said that feels troubling because I can't imagine how I would possibly get in touch with it in order to address it / encounter it therapeutically.

I'm still very early in my own training as an analyst. I'm wondering if anyone can provide any references or insights into accessing these kinds of very early experiences which predate language. I'm guessing the main answer is just "keep doing analysis," aka keep working through stream of conscious in a relaxed state and ideally it will eventually find a way forth from the unconscious either within analysis or a dream, etc.

How would psychoanalysis treat someone who has spiritual beliefs? I basically believe that the domain of the psyche is not restricted to “inside” the physical body, and that reality is composed of subtler realms of energy and consciousness than our outer senses perceive.

Is psychoanalysis able to co-exist with these beliefs, or is does it default interpret these spiritual things as “coming from below” so to speak. Particularly I’m interested in how psychoanalysis would relate to experiences of spirits and such. I believe that there are realms of spiritual beings that can interact with human energy and human minds. Would this be able to be contextualized in some way by the psychoanalyst or would experiences of such be interpreted as purely emerging from the psyche of the subject as delusions or representations of some kind?

Any other thoughts on this matter?

Hi everyone,

I’m 34, based in London, and considering a career change to psychodynamic counselling. I currently work full-time in a corporate job (9ish–5ish, Monday to Friday) and want to know if it’s realistic to study a BACP-accredited Diploma in Psychodynamic Counselling alongside work.

The course I’m looking at runs for two years and includes evening classes (lessons, seminars, experiential groups), placement, supervision, personal therapy, essays and independent study. I’ve recently reduced my living costs, so I could afford it financially if I keep working.

My main concern is the workload. Has anyone done this while working full-time?

- Was it manageable (practically and emotionally)?

- Did you still have time for life outside work and study?

- How hard was it to fit placement and supervision around a 9–5?

- Did you feel overwhelmed or burn out?

- Would you do it the same way again?

I’m happy to make sacrifices for a couple of years if it leads to a career I’d enjoy, but I’d really appreciate some honest experiences before I commit.

Thanks in advance!

Hi all, I am re-reading Nancy McWilliam's Psychoanalytic Diagnosis and find her chapter on hysterical personality very helpful specifically for heterosexual female patients. It seems like the majority of this personality formulation across literature is based on heterosexual female patients. A large portion of the personality style seems to incorporate the blending of sexual desirability with struggles for power, which can be strictly encoded across gender lines.

I am interested in learning more about how this organization shows up in non-heterosexual patients. I get the sense I have a few persons on my caseload prone to hysterical enactment due to a feeling of performative emotionality which feels neither narcissistic nor masochistic, but it can be hard to diagnose it precisely from McWilliam's perspective alone because they are not opposite-sex attracted people.

Thank you for any references, anecdotes, or other information anyone can provide.

What would be some good readings on the area where psychoanalysis intersects with Family Systems theory, ie. where collective repression within families inevitably gets triangulated onto one person via scapegoating, othering, etc.? For context, I come from such a family dynamic, and am currently pretty deep into studying the Lacanian model, but would be very interested in anyone who has written on this.

I want to read more psychoanalytic literature that theorizes about addiction in general - drug addiction, alcohol addiction, and porn addiction.

Does anyone know of any papers or theorists who specialize in this area?

I’ve read some articles that talk about addiction and attachment, but I’m looking for more. Any leads would be helpful.

I see it attributed to him but I can't find it. Thank you.

Hi there, I am looking for any works for the conditions of existence for psychoanalysis to appear, historically, the ideas and events happening, thinking in like a genealogy of it, but it could be any line of work, thanks!

Does Matt Damon’s character meet criteria for any particular personality disorder? Despite the representation of therapy being over the top, which is fair with Hollywood and all, I do find the general personality and defenses to be really believable and meaningfully presented. Wondering what would be a fair psychoanalytic assessment of him and any diagnoses he clearly shows.