In 1930, Melanie Klein published an article presenting the case of Dick. Within the framework of the psychoanalytic technique adapted to the clinical treatment of autism, this article contributes elements to a question posed by many psychoanalysts: why did Klein's interventions affect Dick? To that end, Klein's first intervention is divided into two phases: a first naming phase, consented to by Dick; and a second interpretation phase, triggering detachment from the object, anxiety, and stereotypy. The proposal is to understand the emergence of anxiety in the relationship that the second-phase interpretation has with the first phase of naming.
The Covid pandemic has forced analysts around the world, some more than others, to work using Zoom and Skype. The technical innovation is here to stay and raises questions on a theoretical level. Is online analysis 'real' analysis or not? What is lost from the analytical experience? What, if anything, is gained? The global health emergency, on the one hand, has made these questions inescapable; on the other, it has provided a kind of huge experimental field to deal with them. Here, the author argues that when viewed from the perspective of the concepts of intercorporeity (Merleau-Ponty), un-distancing (Heidegger), and aura (Benjamin), some of the issues of 'presence' in teleanalysis become clearer.
This paper examines two major issues related to the concept of identity. The first of these concerns the place of this concept in psychoanalytic theory and practice, particularly taking note of its limited presence in the psychoanalytic literature of the British School of psychoanalysis. My argument is that the concept and phenomena of identification has been preferred to that of identity in the discourse of British Object Relations and considers why that might be the case. The second issue concerns the salience of the concept of identity in contemporary political and cultural debate, as this has come to denote differences of a socially-constructed kind such as those of race, gender, ethnicity, and religion. In this context, the idea of identity has become an important point of reference in much recent psychoanalytic thinking. The significance of this development will be considered in its relevance for psychoanalytic and wider social practices.