AMERICAN IMAGO最新文献

Abstract:

This essay engages with the hitherto embargoed letters, drawings and case notes of Stella Coomber ("Susan"), the subject of Marion Milner's case history The Hands of the Living God. Using these documents as a starting point, I decode the identities of medical staff, institutions, and contacts whose names are disguised in Milner's book, and reconstruct some of Stella's life behind the scenes of, and after, Hands. The letters disclose her project of writing an autobiographical companion volume to Milner's, a project which was never realized. In later letters Stella is increasingly despondent about her failure to write this book, feeling that her life has been wasted, for she has not produced "anything of note." The essay suggests that there is a way of reading her "notes" as themselves both autobiography and counter case-history. I approach Stella's correspondence as a piece of life writing: not a traditional narrative, but one whose fragmentary form gives expression to her complex and exemplary experience.

Abstract:

Sartre's character Roquentin seeing his hand as a crab is analogous in some ways to Nietzsche dreaming a toad on his transparent hand. Examining both of these envisioned animals as metaphors reveals that each represents some sort of physical or psychological disease or pestilence, that each profoundly disturbs the status quo, and that each point in a different way toward suicide, but at the same time that each signifies or symbolizes a deepening of self-knowledge. Both Nietzsche and Roquentin rejected suicide, but for different reasons: the former because he wished to remain in control of his life by consciously accepting his fate, no matter how repulsive it might be; the latter because he was too apathetic and despondent to care whether he lived or died. The purpose of this article is to suggest why depressed, suicidal people might reject suicide.

Abstract:

This paper explores the correspondence between Freud and his patient Marie Bonaparte over the course of 14 years and illuminates their complex personal and professional relationship. The letters expose Freud's therapeutic challenges in balancing the theoretical concept of transference and its actual management in Freud's work in the late 1920s and 1930s.

Abstract:

This article delves into the exploration of negative myths, examining their prevalence in both ancient and modern times. I focus on the psychoanalytic understanding of collective and group narratives, particularly within the context of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. Drawing from Levine's two-track model of psychoanalysis, this study investigates how negative myths function as containers for processing unrepresented unconscious content. Through case vignettes, the characteristics of negative myths are illuminated, revealing them as distorted and dysfunctional containers of psychic material. I argue that negative myths emerge in response to dread and fear, serving as reflections of societal anxieties.

Abstract:

The enigma of Nabokov's lifelong enmity with Freud perpetually attracts research attention. In this article, the author analyzes the Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabokov's demonization of Freud by surveying previous explanations of this phenomenon and proposing an alternative explanation of Nabokov perceiving Freud not as a "father figure" or a "precursor," but as a dangerous and influential rival within the field of psychology as opposed to literature. The author asserts that Nabokov's feud with Freud is centered on the question of the soul. In particular, Nabokov strives to position himself within the realm of "soul interpretation" or "soul fiction" as a "subject supposed to know" and to establish himself as a superior hermeneutical authority. Finally, the author draws a parallel between Nabokov's attitude to Freud and Freud's approach to Nietzsche.

Abstract:

This article discusses the early fate and subsequent revival of interest in Freud’s 1891 book, On Aphasia, and Sabina Spielrein’s 1912 Destruction paper. Early on, these authors shared a similar fate: a failure of recognition of the aforementioned works at the time of their initial publication. In Freud’s case, the number of books sold was minimal and the rest were shredded; it remained mostly unread and overlooked in discussions of neurological problems, although regarded as a classical contribution to the field of neurology. As for Spielrein, her paper, following its initial appearance in German, was not published until 80 years later in English! Although Spielrein had a profound impact throughout her mature career as a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and developmental child psychologist, she remained unacknowledged during her lifetime and was virtually forgotten after her death. This article demonstrates that, although the importance of their seminal works was overlooked, recent developments in neuroscience have revived interest in On Aphasia and, in Spielrein’s case, her contributions to psychoanalysis and developmental psychology have become classics in these fields.

Abstract:

While numerous Men and Masculinities scholars discuss how men “perform” or seek to “prove” their masculinity to other men, a psychoanalytic investigation into the structural relations of this dynamic—especially with regard to young American high school- and college-age men—is needed. Using Peggy Orenstein’s Boys and Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity (2020) as a source text, I draw on the Lacanian concept of “the subject who is supposed to know” to elucidate the homosocial nature of masculinity. A Lacanian reading of Boys and Sex suggests that American high school and college men’s desires are incited by the ostensible enjoyment, or jouissance, they witness other men experiencing when engaging in “masculine” behaviors. Orenstein’s adolescent and young-adult interviewees demonstrate how “what one wants” is inextricably bound with what one sees (or interprets) other men wanting. While Men and Masculinities scholars argue that performances of masculinity are enacted to avoid ostracism and humiliation, a Lacanian account centers on the psychic pursuit of (illusory) wholeness. Lastly, Lacan’s notion of “traversing the fantasy” offers a path toward reclaiming agency despite the sway of cultural ideals and the gaze of Others.