A critical assessment is presented of positions recently taken by Mitchell and Renik, who are taken as representatives of a "new view" in psychoanalysis. One article by Mitchell and two by Renik are examined as paradigmatic of certain ways of construing the nature of mind, the analyst's knowledge and authority, and the analytic process that are unduly influenced by the postmodern turn in psychoanalysis. Although "new view" theorists have made valid criticisms of traditional psychoanalytic theory and practice, they wind up taking untenable positions. Specifically called into question are their views on the relation between language and interpretation, on the one hand, and the mental contents of the patient on the other. A disjunction is noted between their discussion of clinical material and their conceptual stance, and their idiosyncratic redefinitions of truth and objectivity are criticized. Finally, a "humble realism" is suggested as the most appropriate philosophical position for psychoanalysts to adopt.
This paper considers the issue of systematic empirical research versus clinical case studies raised by Hoffman (2009). A rebuttal of Hoffman's arguments is offered, followed by an argument that each method addresses itself to different questions and that posing them in opposition is not fruitful. Finally, criteria and requirements of the case study method are proposed that, if met, would enhance its evidential value.
psychoanalytic listening, Schwaber ( 1981) defines empathy as "that mode of attunement which attempts to maximize a singular focus on the patient's subjective reality, seeking all possible cues to ascertain it" (p. 378). In this mode of listening, one will be attentive to all the cues that will enable one to understand the experience and the subjective reality of the other. For Schwaber, when one is listening to a patient empathically, the basic questions that orient one's listening are: What is the patient's experience? What is the nature of his or her subjective or perceptual reality?According to Schafer (1959), empathy involves "the inner experience of sharing in and comprehending the momentary psychological state of another person" (p. 345). However, he also appears to define empathy much more broadly when he describes it as a sharing and comprehension of "a hierarchic organization of desires, feelings, thoughts, defenses, controls, superego pressures, capacities, self-representations, and representations of real and fantasied personal relationships" (p. 347). We will return to this issue of broad versus narrow conceptions of empathy.Greenson ( 1960), embracing the narrower definition, wrote that "to empathize means to share, to experience the feelings of another person" (p. 148). He stresses the dangers of both inhibited empathy and the loss of control of empathy seen in overidentification with the patient. Both Greenson and Schafer (1959) emphasize the idea of an optimal distance from the patient and the development of an internal working model of the patient as an important guide to empathic responsiveness.In further refining the meaning of empathy, we should perhaps speak about what empathy is not. As has been said many times, empathy is not identical to sympathy. One can understand the feelings, thoughts, and attitudes of another without having sympathy for the person having them. And conversely, one can feel sympathy for another without a deep understanding of that person's subjective reality. According to Schwaber (1981), another thing that empathy is not is "what we would feel if we were in [another's] shoes" (p. 385).' Hoffman (1984) refers to this stance as "egocentric empathy.'' In short, when one takes an empathic stance one tries to understand the other as an experiencing subject, whereas when one takes an external perspective one understands the other as a behaving object.We believe that Schwaber's statement is too strong. Although putting oneself in another's role involves trying to imagine what the other person is feeling, it seems inevitable that one aspect of this process will include one's own imagined feelings and experiences in a similar situation. We implicitly assume that we are sufficiently like the other so that what we would feel in that person's shoes is similar to what he or she feels. (See Basch, 1983, which will be discussed later.) Indeed, empathy is probably facilitated by the greater similarity between two people. 218 EAGLE A N D WOLZTZKY Copyright American Psychological Ass...
A concealed figure formed by the contours of a perceptually dominant figure influenced the content of viewers' subsequent imagery, although in describing the stimulus they showed no awareness of the concealed figure even after several exposures.
To a significant extent, the history of theoretical developments in psychoanalysis can be understood as a series of successive reactions to Freudian drive theory, with its emphasis on libidinal and aggressive wishes as the primary motives for behavior. Thus, following Pine (1990), the main foci of theorizing in psychoanalysis subsequent to drive theory-ego, object, and self-can be meaningfully viewed as entailing modification or abandonment of that drive theory. These theoretical developments gave greater primacy to interpersonal and social determinants of personality development and psychopathology.The extension of drive theory to include ego psychological considerations was begun quite early by Freud himself with the concept of defense (Freud, 1894(Freud, /1962, continued with his paper, "On Narcissism" (1914/ 1957a) where consideration of self and object and of pre-oedipal periods of development came to the fore, and culminated with the exposition of the tripartite, structural theory of the mind (
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