Pub Date : 2025-12-01DOI: 10.1521/prev.2025.112.4.425
Jeffrey Helmreich
Many suffer intense guilt feelings when they harm others, even when they did so blamelessly and they know it. For these faultless injurers, therapy and other treatments face a distinct challenge: the subjects experience their guilt feelings as fitting, something they should not even try to overcome, despite being fully aware that they are above criticism. Some theorists have sought to explain this resistance to treatment or consolation-what I call the normative meta-phenomenology of faultless guilt-by showing why faultless guilt can sometimes be reasonable or justified. Here I argue, to the contrary, that it cannot be justified. Instead, I try to account for faultless guilt as the way moral agents naturally experience the tension between what they have done and what they are deeply invested in not doing. On this understanding, faultless injurers are bound to feel guilty, on pain of abandoning their basic moral commitments.
{"title":"Guilt Without Fault.","authors":"Jeffrey Helmreich","doi":"10.1521/prev.2025.112.4.425","DOIUrl":"10.1521/prev.2025.112.4.425","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Many suffer intense guilt feelings when they harm others, even when they did so blamelessly and they know it. For these faultless injurers, therapy and other treatments face a distinct challenge: the subjects experience their guilt feelings as fitting, something they should not even try to overcome, despite being fully aware that they are above criticism. Some theorists have sought to explain this resistance to treatment or consolation-what I call the normative meta-phenomenology of faultless guilt-by showing why faultless guilt can sometimes be reasonable or justified. Here I argue, to the contrary, that it cannot be justified. Instead, I try to account for faultless guilt as the way moral agents naturally experience the tension between what they have done and what they are deeply invested in not doing. On this understanding, faultless injurers are bound to feel guilty, on pain of abandoning their basic moral commitments.</p>","PeriodicalId":39855,"journal":{"name":"Psychoanalytic Review","volume":"112 4","pages":"425-442"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145811681","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-01DOI: 10.1521/prev.2025.112.4.381
Suzan Sherman
The premise of Colette Dowling's The Cinderella Complex was a scalding one when it was first published in 1981, but the book struck a deep chord and became an instant bestseller. Nowadays the "Cinderella Complex" might seem like a dated concept, but it remains strikingly relevant for two of my patients. Both hold deeply entrenched Cinderella fantasies that arose from having served as narcissistic extensions. Through exploring and reconsidering various versions of the fairytale that parallel my patients' own histories, I attempt to work through their deep sense of emotional impoverishment, from which they might only be rescued by a more powerful other.
{"title":"If the Shoe Fits, Wear It? Working Through the Cinderella Complex.","authors":"Suzan Sherman","doi":"10.1521/prev.2025.112.4.381","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1521/prev.2025.112.4.381","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The premise of Colette Dowling's <i>The Cinderella Complex</i> was a scalding one when it was first published in 1981, but the book struck a deep chord and became an instant bestseller. Nowadays the \"Cinderella Complex\" might seem like a dated concept, but it remains strikingly relevant for two of my patients. Both hold deeply entrenched Cinderella fantasies that arose from having served as narcissistic extensions. Through exploring and reconsidering various versions of the fairytale that parallel my patients' own histories, I attempt to work through their deep sense of emotional impoverishment, from which they might only be rescued by a more powerful other.</p>","PeriodicalId":39855,"journal":{"name":"Psychoanalytic Review","volume":"112 4","pages":"381-402"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145811606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-01DOI: 10.1521/prev.2025.112.4.457
Arnold Breitbart
{"title":"The Mind and Soul of Bruce Springsteen.","authors":"Arnold Breitbart","doi":"10.1521/prev.2025.112.4.457","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1521/prev.2025.112.4.457","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":39855,"journal":{"name":"Psychoanalytic Review","volume":"112 4","pages":"457-470"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145811693","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-01DOI: 10.1521/prev.2025.112.4.443
John R Muñiz González
In this article, I explore the psychological and social consequences of Puerto Rico's colonial status through the lens of psychoanalysis and those of liberation theology, such as Gustavo Gutierrez and James Cone. Drawing on the foundational work of Sigmund Freud and then others such as Frantz Fanon, Homi Bhabha, Ranjana Khanna, and Ignacio Martín-Baró, I examine how racial stratification, colonial violence, and national repression manifest in the unconscious defenses of Puerto Rican subjectivity. I give special attention to the 1950 Jayuya Uprising and the U.S. bombing of the town, which serve as emblematic events of colonial trauma and historical erasure. I conclude with recommendations for decolonial psychological practices and educational reforms to heal (therapeuo) collective trauma in Puerto Rico and other postcolonial societies. Furthermore, I document how I plan to bring psychoanalytic ideas to help people on the island of Puerto Rico and the motivation for this enterprise.
{"title":"Colonial Echoes in the Psyche: Collective Trauma in Puerto Rico's Postcolonial Condition.","authors":"John R Muñiz González","doi":"10.1521/prev.2025.112.4.443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1521/prev.2025.112.4.443","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In this article, I explore the psychological and social consequences of Puerto Rico's colonial status through the lens of psychoanalysis and those of liberation theology, such as Gustavo Gutierrez and James Cone. Drawing on the foundational work of Sigmund Freud and then others such as Frantz Fanon, Homi Bhabha, Ranjana Khanna, and Ignacio Martín-Baró, I examine how racial stratification, colonial violence, and national repression manifest in the unconscious defenses of Puerto Rican subjectivity. I give special attention to the 1950 Jayuya Uprising and the U.S. bombing of the town, which serve as emblematic events of colonial trauma and historical erasure. I conclude with recommendations for decolonial psychological practices and educational reforms to heal (<i>therapeuo</i>) collective trauma in Puerto Rico and other postcolonial societies. Furthermore, I document how I plan to bring psychoanalytic ideas to help people on the island of Puerto Rico and the motivation for this enterprise.</p>","PeriodicalId":39855,"journal":{"name":"Psychoanalytic Review","volume":"112 4","pages":"443-456"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145811597","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-01DOI: 10.1521/prev.2025.112.4.403
Samuel Pauker
Since Freud's rejection of religion and spirituality as a collective neurosis, psychoanalysts have come to appreciate new perspectives on these ethereal matters. This article focuses on five psychoanalytic approaches to matters of religion and spirituality. Psychoanalytic work is not merely intended to analyze the linear and logical. We are dedicated to acknowledging the prelinguistic, unconscious, and oceanic sensations that are intangible but very real to our patients. Enhancing clinical awareness of the ways religion and spirituality influence our patients is especially significant today because our patients' spiritual sensibilities may not fit into traditional definitions.
{"title":"Five Approaches to Religion and Spirituality in the Psychoanalytic Setting.","authors":"Samuel Pauker","doi":"10.1521/prev.2025.112.4.403","DOIUrl":"10.1521/prev.2025.112.4.403","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Since Freud's rejection of religion and spirituality as a collective neurosis, psychoanalysts have come to appreciate new perspectives on these ethereal matters. This article focuses on five psychoanalytic approaches to matters of religion and spirituality. Psychoanalytic work is not merely intended to analyze the linear and logical. We are dedicated to acknowledging the prelinguistic, unconscious, and oceanic sensations that are intangible but very real to our patients. Enhancing clinical awareness of the ways religion and spirituality influence our patients is especially significant today because our patients' spiritual sensibilities may not fit into traditional definitions.</p>","PeriodicalId":39855,"journal":{"name":"Psychoanalytic Review","volume":"112 4","pages":"403-424"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145811613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-01DOI: 10.1521/prev.2025.112.3.327
João Gama-Marques, Elias Barreto, Filipe Arantes-Gonçalves, Guilherme Rui Canta, Joana Henriques-Calado
In this evocative response to a recent article published in The Psychoanalytic Review, the authors revisit the theme of wandering among the homeless. Attentive to the myths and syndromes named after them, to the psychoanalytic tradition and to the field of neuropsychiatry, they focus on the nameless psychotic patients living and dying homeless in the fourth world, and on the approach termed marontology, utilized by António Bento.
{"title":"Wandering Among People Experiencing Homelessness: An Argument for Marontology.","authors":"João Gama-Marques, Elias Barreto, Filipe Arantes-Gonçalves, Guilherme Rui Canta, Joana Henriques-Calado","doi":"10.1521/prev.2025.112.3.327","DOIUrl":"10.1521/prev.2025.112.3.327","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In this evocative response to a recent article published in <i>The Psychoanalytic Review,</i> the authors revisit the theme of wandering among the homeless. Attentive to the myths and syndromes named after them, to the psychoanalytic tradition and to the field of neuropsychiatry, they focus on the nameless psychotic patients living and dying homeless in the fourth world, and on the approach termed marontology, utilized by António Bento.</p>","PeriodicalId":39855,"journal":{"name":"Psychoanalytic Review","volume":"112 3","pages":"327-338"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145092694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-01DOI: 10.1521/prev.2025.112.3.277
Janet Lee Bachant
This contribution, aided by clinical material, highlights the impact of early trauma on the structuring of the mental organization that patients bring to the therapeutic situation. Its focus is on how trauma organizes the mind/brain in childhood. Understanding the centrality of this process, often referred to as complex developmental trauma, relational trauma, or developmental trauma disorder, requires an appreciation of how early psychological development systematizes and organizes patients' patterns of relating to self and others. Changing how we think about the nature of complex developmental trauma enables both patients and therapists to better work through its enduring psychological imprint, a framework that creates significant challenges to growth and change.
{"title":"Clinical and Theoretical Reflections on Complex Developmental Trauma.","authors":"Janet Lee Bachant","doi":"10.1521/prev.2025.112.3.277","DOIUrl":"10.1521/prev.2025.112.3.277","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This contribution, aided by clinical material, highlights the impact of early trauma on the structuring of the mental organization that patients bring to the therapeutic situation. Its focus is on how trauma organizes the mind/brain in childhood. Understanding the centrality of this process, often referred to as <i>complex developmental trauma, relational trauma,</i> or <i>developmental trauma disorder,</i> requires an appreciation of how early psychological development systematizes and organizes patients' patterns of relating to self and others. Changing how we think about the nature of complex developmental trauma enables both patients and therapists to better work through its enduring psychological imprint, a framework that creates significant challenges to growth and change.</p>","PeriodicalId":39855,"journal":{"name":"Psychoanalytic Review","volume":"112 3","pages":"277-302"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145092615","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}