American Journal of Psychoanalysis最新文献

Blackman (2025) provided an instructive developmental stage perspective on the psychoanalytic supervision process. But other highly instructive developmental supervision perspectives-created outside the borders of psychoanalytic ideology-have largely been ignored within the psychoanalytic supervision literature. In this complementary comment, I introduce and consider some of those often-unconsidered pan-theoretical developmental supervision models and their additive value for psychoanalytic supervision, with special emphasis being placed on the beginner/novice phase supervisee.

W. R. D. Fairbairn developed a unique metapsychology that began as controversial but eventually transformed the trajectory of psychoanalytic ideas by emphasizing the innate need for real relationships. His conception of the unconscious differs from Freud's and provides the foundation upon which he elaborated a new model of the mind. Fairbairn describes the first object relations theory by linking a part of the self to unconscious bad objects. While many clinicians have been hesitant to accept his proposition that good objects do not become part of the dynamic unconscious, it is argued that this is a clinically useful and valid model of human psychology. For Fairbairn, the good object is a preconscious internalization and available for engagement with the external world without distortion. His model of the mind, focusing on the unconscious, helps clinicians conceptualize how early relational experiences limit satisfying contemporary life.

Psychoanalysis has been grounded in Freud's discovery of the profound impact of unconscious processes on human being and meaning. And yet, his theories and technique pushed towards the more rational realms of meaning-making. He recognized the extent to which female development remained a "dark" and unexplored "continent" but seemed to turn a deaf ear to those women, such as Karen Horney, who had a seat at the table as psychoanalysis was forming. One hundred years later, Horney's theorizing about what impedes our ability to recognize more fully the capacities and vulnerabilities inherent in the feminine remains relevant. In this paper, I explore some of the forgotten, or under-valued threads from women who have made significant contributions to our field. I hope to invite greater integration of those capacities disparately marked male or female, qualities which are essential to our development as embodied, rational beings.

Over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries the Freudian intrapsychic and drive-based view of development of the human mind has been replaced by work done in several interdisciplinary fields which prove that the human mind is from its very inception a social mind, which best develops in connection with other minds and bodies, in interpersonal realms. It thrives through attunement, attachment, care and synchrony with numerous other minds and personalities. Moreover, research has also shown that higher order faculties in the human subject develop when there is the constant care and sensitivity of another human based on right-brain functions for a lengthy period of time, regardless of the biological sex of the caregiver. These developments of psychoanalytic theory have a strong impact on all aspects of psychotherapy, particularly with regards to the psychotherapy with survivors of what I have called second and third levels of trauma (Mucci, 2013, 2018, 2022), where an interpersonal focus on testimony and bearing witness thorough mind-brain and body are called for, what I term "embodied witnessing" (Mucci, 2018, 2022, 2023a), which could also be applied to personality disorders of traumatic origin, and facilitate healing in trauma survivors.

In this paper, the author defines the cornerstones of good hospitality, based on his experience at a Centre for Refugees and Asylum Seekers. Good hospitality is defined by its capacity to foster migrants' emotional investment in building a meaningful life in the host country. Traumatic breakups inherited from their previous life experiences can be difficult or impossible to elaborate and integrate. This undermines the continuity of their sense of self. Such critical experiences, loaded with overwhelming suffering, need to be contacted to enable their representability. This is only possible in an environment perceived as fully supportive, where helping relationships can engage with dissociated experiences, fostering their narration. The author also explores the role of authenticity in helping relationships, as a key factor in preventing the migrant-or the patient in the analytic setting-from adapting compliantly to what they perceive as the expectations or desires of the other.

In this paper, I delve into the conscious and unconscious repercussions of the risk associated with residing in a contaminated site due to industrial pollution. Specifically, I focus on the experience of the population of Casale Monferrato, deeply traumatized by both the significant number of deaths resulting from occupational and environmental exposure to asbestos, and by decades of sustenance from the Eternit factory, which ultimately brought pollution and death. My work in Casale Monferrato since 2006 has allowed me to highlight how the psychoanalytic approach enables exploration of the relationship between psychological well-being and the quality of the living environment, while addressing both individual and collective dimensions of the socio-environmental catastrophe. Over the years, I have also designed and implemented psychoanalytic clinical interventions in the field aimed at patients affected by asbestos-related diseases, their families, and the entire Casale Monferrato population exposed to contamination risk.

This paper describes my experience reading Horney's (1942) Self-Analysis which when published more than 80 years ago, was innovative in introducing a path of self-help that has largely remained unexplored. Even today, it might still be considered controversial among the various psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic perspectives. After presenting some background on Horney I describe her principal ideas on self-analysis as expressed in her book, how it was reviewed, and its relevance to current psychotherapeutic practice. I will end with a clinical vignette and a personal reflection.