Dissociation among Psychoanalysts about Sexual Boundary Violations

Blechner, Mark J.

doi:10.1080/00107530.2014.868299

Cited by 11 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…As most of the studies involve self-report, it is reasonable to propose that the true prevalence is much higher. Additional specifics about percentage of psychotherapists who have had sexual contact with their patients can be found in Blechner (2014).…”

Section: Incidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Sexual boundary violations: A century of violations and a time to analyze.

Alpert

Steinberg

2017

Psychoanalytic Psychology

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This special issue focuses on sexual boundary violations. Our intent is clear: We want to promote discussion and clarification on this topic. Underlying this special issue is the belief that a study of sexual boundary violations can potentially avert reenactments. As we are all potentially vulnerable to boundary transgressions, including sexual ones, such study is essential. In this first overview article, we present a brief summary of some of the major topics relevant to sexual boundary violations as well as an overview of the articles included in this special issue on sexual boundary violations.

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Section: Incidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Sexual boundary violations: A century of violations and a time to analyze.

Alpert

Steinberg

2017

Psychoanalytic Psychology

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“…Once the treatment is under way, consent to any changes in the relationship could be seen as a function of transference or countertransference. For instance, Blechner (2014) claims that one of the patient’s roles is to seduce the analyst, while the analyst’s role is to analyze the attempt. Agency is complicated here because patients are to be experienced “as if” they want what they say.…”

Section: Consent As Agency Agency As Consentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Agency is complicated here because patients are to be experienced “as if” they want what they say. The analyst’s job is to hold this “as if” quality (Baranger and Baranger 1969), differentiating the patient playing a seducer from an actual seducer (Blechner 2014), akin to a dream held and examined but not acted out. The patient’s agency is to be analyzed rather than taken for granted.…”

Section: Consent As Agency Agency As Consentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In both settings the accuser, by mentioning the accusation in public, can be sued for defamation and treated as crazy, trouble-making, or just hysterical (Gabbard 2017). In fact, Blechner (2014) refers to Celenza’s research (2007) indicating that psychoanalysts who sue the accusing patient receive more favorable responses from ethics boards than those who do not. Historically the profession has blamed the usually female patient for the usually male analyst’s violation, mirroring a culture that holds tight to an ideal of men’s sexual sovereignty; also reflecting the culture, female patients are apt to blame themselves for the violation (Alpert and Steinberg 2017).…”

Section: Institutional Betrayalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assembling Justice: Reviving Nonhuman Subjectivities to Examine Institutional Betrayal Around Sexual Misconduct

Gentile¹

2018

J Am Psychoanal Assoc

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While some colleges have adopted bystander intervention and restorative justice practices to address sexual misconduct as a community issue, psychoanalytic institutes facing crises of sexual misconduct have typically relied on the tried-and-true tactic of identifying the neoliberal individual as the sole site of trouble. Successful strategies used in colleges can be applied to the psychoanalytic setting by focusing on institutional betrayal. This systemic, community-based approach decenters not only individual bodies but human subjectivities. Here institutions become not just containers for group or networked affect, as if affect itself emanates from individuals into an institution. Agency and affect emerge through networks, not individual bodies, and institutions are active agents in violent betrayal. Acknowledging the ways the nonhuman and the human co-emerge creates the space to hold the vitalities and agencies of both, including multiple potentialities for (re)traumatization, resistance, and transformation.

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“…Levin argues that sexual boundary transgression is the "primal crime" of psychoanalysis and recalls its extensive record going back to Sabina Spielrein and Carl Jung. Similarly, Mark Blechner (2014) recently contends that the profession sorely suffers from "dissociation among psychoanalysts about sexual boundary violations" (p. 23). Levine furthermore suggests this symptom signifies a more pernicious institutional ailment: authoritarian, and at times sadistic, administrative procedures.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of Traumatic ruptures: Abandonment and betrayal in the analytic relation.

Castelloe¹

2016

Psychoanalytic Psychology

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Robin A. Deutsch's anthology addresses various traumatic ruptures of the psychoanalytic dyad, including clinical alliances riven by death, suicide, and sexual boundary violation. Candid first-hand accounts often told from the perspective of psychoanalytic candidates convey painful disruptions as rarely before done in the professional literature. These personal narratives communicate how ethical transgressions not only injure patient and analyst, but also splinter the training institute and compromise the psychoanalytic community as a whole. The book searchingly evaluates the responses of analytic institutes to an ethical breach from the victim's point of view and outlines how such clinical corruptions can better be handled.Robin A. Deutsch's anthology was inspired by the sudden death of her analyst during treatment, an experience we both despairingly share. This book, over its four sections, broadens in subject matter to address various traumatic ruptures of the analytic frame: clinical alliances riven by death, suicide, and sexual boundary violation. Candid first-hand accounts often told from the perspective of psychoanalytic candidates convey these intimate and painful experiences as rarely before done in the literature. Every author in this collection is referenced here, to greater or lesser degree. These narratives elucidate ethical and emotional concerns and how they are different when a person in the dyad has died in contrast to when one has committed a sexual boundary infraction. They communicate how ethical transgressions not only injure patient and analyst, but also splinter the training institute and compromise the analytic profession as a whole. This book searchingly evaluates the response of analytic institutes to an ethical breach from the victim's point of view and outlines how such clinical corruptions can better be managed.In the wake of her analyst's demise, Deutsch describes being "trapped between mourning and melancholia" (p. 39). Conflicted in her loyalties, she felt inhibited about entering a new analytic relation and seized by guilt commensurate with criminal action. Trauma collapses the individual's symbolic capacities, Deutsch observes. Her introduction proceeds to articulate a methodology that informs all subsequent essays, one that explicitly uses the act of writing as a way of regaining the capacity to express loss through

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Dissociation among Psychoanalysts about Sexual Boundary Violations

Cited by 11 publications

References 15 publications

Sexual boundary violations: A century of violations and a time to analyze.

Sexual boundary violations: A century of violations and a time to analyze.

Assembling Justice: Reviving Nonhuman Subjectivities to Examine Institutional Betrayal Around Sexual Misconduct

Review of Traumatic ruptures: Abandonment and betrayal in the analytic relation.

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