Blanche wittman's breasts: the aetiology of the split between body, trance, and psychoanalysis

Ben-Shahar, Asaf Rolef

doi:10.1002/ppi.224

Psychother. Politics Int.

2010

DOI: 10.1002/ppi.224

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Blanche wittman's breasts: the aetiology of the split between body, trance, and psychoanalysis

Asaf Rolef Ben-Shahar

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Cited by 5 publications

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“…Some of these I have actively tried to seek out; with others, it is only at this point of retrospection that I notice their absence. Although we have published quite a lot, especially in the earlier years, on gender politics – masculine as well as feminine – and psychotherapy (e.g., Eichenbaum and Orbach, ; Dimen, ; Eichenbaum, ; Gilligan, ; Emery, ; Nakamura, ; Rowan, ; Spong, ; Ben‐Shahar, ; Rajan, ; Zentner, ), we have done much less well with class (I can only identify two papers focused squarely on this: Walkerdine, , and Mitchison, ) and with ethnicity and racism (Altman, ; Clarkson, ; Lago, ) – in fact there was an embarrassingly complete absence, until Eugene Ellis's paper in this issue, of contributions on the theme of therapists of colour. I am also rather surprised, given my own therapeutic background, to find that PPI has only really published two pieces from a body psychotherapy perspective (Ben‐Shahar, ).…”

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Totton¹

2011

Psychother. Politics. Int.

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confidence: 99%

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Totton¹

2011

Psychother. Politics. Int.

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Three Hot Potatoes, or Nick Totton's Courage in Inconveniencing the Field of Psychotherapy

Ben-Shahar¹

2013

Psychotherapy and Politics International

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Nick Totton has over a number of years written vigorously about paradoxical, conflict‐laden and otherwise inconvenient topics and, in doing so, has contributed significantly to various psychotherapeutic milieux. This paper focuses on three “hot potatoes” that Totton has written about, areas that presented uncomfortable conflicts in and into psychotherapy, namely: body, relationality, and politics. Being aware of and working with the body compels us to confront our aggressive and erotic drives, our wounds and yearnings, and as therapists often reveals us to our clients more than we intend. Being relational also entails the therapist revealing more of themselves and challenges the traditional analytic assumption (let alone the reality or usefulness of) a neutral, “blank‐slate” position. Thirdly, I argue that taking an explicit political stance challenges the clinician's comfortable, clinic‐bound practice, and discomforts the psychotherapist's habitual position regarding social involvement. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Forever Young: Consumerism and the Body of Politics from a Body Psychotherapy Perspective

Ben-Shahar¹

2015

Psychotherapy and Politics International

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This paper examines the relationship between inherent oral traits (neoteny), cultural bias towards orality and consumerist culture. Through exploring the evolution of Mickey Mouse and looking at the consensual ideal body, I shall offer that consumerism and politics are shaping our body to remain needy, unsatisfied and pathologically oral. The paper suggests that psychotherapy, inasmuch as it challenges such pathological positions, is political and counter-cultural. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Key words: consumerism; politics; orality; neoteny; gender The world of human behaviour is too complex and multifarious to be unlocked by any simple key. I say this to maintain that this richness -if anything -is both our hope and our essence. (Stephen Jay Gould, 1978, p. 533) Psychoanalyst and body psychotherapist John Conger (1994, 2005) claimed that Western civilisation turned the body into the shadow: the part of us that held whichever sides we did not find worthy of owning up to. The body held a paradox: on the one hand, it was covered and layered, painted and camouflaged; on the other, it was our body that was first seen. We modestly (or shamefully) concealed it, yet it was visible to all, publicly expressing our personal (and possibly our social) unconscious processes.Whatever fears, cultural and social attitudes, aspirations, and values and beliefs we hold, these all find their expression in the body. Culture creates the body and, in return, the body conceptualises the culture and embodies it (Appel-Opper, 2010). Thus the body has its own politics and, faced with the speeches of our persona, the body tells the stories of our unspeakable shadow: our pains, our unrealised wishes, our jealousy, passion, and neediness which sometimes are too painful even to be spoken of.It is no surprise that from the dawn of history many attempts were made to silence the body, and since men were in power for the majority of time, the woman's body was silenced even more extensively than man's (Butler, 1988;Cixous & Clement, 1986;Irigaray, 1993 tried to narrow down the body's dialogue, to hide its inconvenient transparency, its visible passion and fear, hate, and desire for connection which are easily seen by those willing to look. Such political attempts at silencing were expressed in gendered power struggles (chauvinism throughout the years), by religious institutions and by other societal and familial organisations. This paper is dedicated to the exploration and demonstration of the dialectical relationship between body and politics, through body-reading of cultural icons, some clinical vignettes and cultural examples. I would claim that the politics of the body has been at the centre of the psychotherapeutic practice since the very early days of psychoanalysis and that psychotherapeutic acts represent political choices, which are publicly announced by the bodies that we are. BARBIE COMES TO THERAPYMiri sought psychotherapy following some anxiety attacks and unexplained chest pain. She was 25, beautiful and hi...

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Blanche wittman's breasts: the aetiology of the split between body, trance, and psychoanalysis

Cited by 5 publications

References 18 publications

Editorial

Editorial

Three Hot Potatoes, or Nick Totton's Courage in Inconveniencing the Field of Psychotherapy

Forever Young: Consumerism and the Body of Politics from a Body Psychotherapy Perspective

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