American Journal of Psychoanalysis最新文献

This paper focuses on a convergence of late Bion's (1970) and late Winnicott's (1969a, b) discovery and technique. Both authors describe a special state of mind which adds formlessness, un-differentiation to regression as a major mechanism of psychic change. Bion describes this state mainly in the analyst, while Winnicott focuses on this state of mind in the patient. The combination of both approaches brings us in contact with an essential phenomenon of psychoanalysis which seems difficult to reach and contain without the psychoanalytic frame and in which both analyst and patient play a complementary role.

After the death of Freud, a major thrust of the expansion of psychoanalytic theory involved the increasing recognition that the actuality of the emotional functioning of the object,-the primary objects in the infant's development, the analyst as object in the treatment process-were crucial determinants of developmental and therapeutic outcome. This recognition has been the driving force behind the evolution of various iterations of the role of interaction, inter-affectivity and intersubjectivity in two-person theories of psychic development and therapeutic action. This paper attempts to briefly trace in the work of Bion, Winnicott, Green and the Paris Psychosomatic School not only the effects of traumatic occurrences, but of their negative-i.e., the consequence of the absence of what should have been provided at crucial moments in development but was not.

In 2023, THE A-SANTAMARIA PSICOANALISIS MEXICO ASSOCIATION planned the Online Conversations of W. Bion to generate dialogues with outstanding colleagues about the divergences and convergences of Bion with the work of André Green, Jean Laplanche, Ignacio Matte Blanco and D.W. Winnicott. The need to share thoughts about these authors' works and their links with others, facilitated widespread international dialogues about these authors and placed them all in a field of exchange, debate and challenge. The Online Conversations underlined the new dimensions in which Bion and Winnicott placed psychoanalytic theory and technique. Five outstanding presentations illustrate their understanding and grasping of these dimensions, each followed by an author exchange. These authors provide an in-depth inquiry into a wide range of topics: Angela Joyce looks at object constancy and absence through the lens of Winnicott's (1977) The Piggle; Dominque Scarfone examines the concept of contact barriers among Freud, Bion and Winnicott; Howard B. Levine discusses absence, failure and the negative in the work of Bion, Winnicott and Green; Lesley Caldwell links the works of Bion and Winnicott in addressing being alone and with others, and communicating and not communicating; finally, Rudi Vermote shows how Bion's and Winnicott's views on regression and formlessness complement each other.

From the perspective of a poet and first-year psychoanalytic training candidate, this paper develops Jeremy Safran's ideas about the dialectic between psychoanalysis and Buddhism by drawing an analogy between their processes and those of a poetry practice to define an alternative to pathological dissociation under capitalist systems of value. The paper details the writer's experience of working a day job in an office and the pathological dissociation which she subsequently attempts to overcome and critique through writing poetry. Various poems written at work are shared and analyzed as evidence. Drawing from Safran's edited volume, Psychoanalysis and Buddhism, the author then identifies aspects of Zen Buddhist meditation practice and the psychoanalytic process that focus on connecting with reality, however conflicted, as opposed to escaping it. This paper was written under the mentorship of the psychoanalyst and Zen teacher Barry Magid.

This introduction provides an overview to this special issue honoring the work and legacy of Jeremy D. Safran. Born of the Jeremy Safran Memorial Conference, held on April 2nd, 2023, this issue features a wide range of contributions from leaders in the field, former students, and early career professionals whose work engages and develops central ideas from Safran's work and reflects on his impact on their own clinical work and scholarship. Themes center around the three domains of Safran's major contributions: pedagogy; psychotherapy integration; and Buddhism, spirituality, and psychoanalysis. We observe among the contributions an experiential reconnecting with the deeply relational commitments of our friend and colleague.