Manic Society: Toward the Depressive Position

Altman, Neil

doi:10.1080/10481881509348833

Cited by 39 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Clemmons was exposed and condemned as a traitor. His death also symbolized the failure of a construction or facade of justice, wherein America's history of oppression and violence crashed into the American ideal of freedom and equality for all (Altman, 2005). Thus, Clemmons also represented a disavowed creation: an Other, our Frankenstein.…”

Section: The Eventmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Pressure builds until there is an enactment in the form of a violent act, which brings unresolved issues such as cultural oppression back to the surface. It is here, in the discomfort of the present tense, where acts of reparation, social change and reconstruction might be possible (Mitchell, 1993;Altman, 2005).…”

Section: Reconsidering Freud's Topographic Modelmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Our manic defenses were set in motion; we could not pause long enough to reflect, much less consider embodying the hovering vigilance and social conscience of an Antigone. After three years, the dominant Seattle culture has yet civically to integrate this event through public discourse, which would require, from a psychoanalytic viewpoint, that we collectively maintain a depressive position long enough to examine the complexity and layers of loss inherent in it (Altman, 2005). Instead, Maurice Clemmons' actions and his death were subsumed in the omnipotent stance of the status quo.…”

Section: The Eventmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…We were embarrassed, and incredulous. Rather than admit that the American banking and real estate industries were slowly deconstructing in 2008, and thereby acknowledge our own suffering, limitations and vulnerabilities, we asserted our omnipotence (Altman, 2005).…”

Section: The Eventmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Cultural tectonics

Ready

2012

Psychoanal Cult Soc

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On a Sunday morning in 2009 near Seattle, Maurice Clemmons, a middleaged African American man, shot four white policemen. The ensuing media coverage of the manhunt, and numerous legal system failures to contain Clemmons eclipsed any alternative pursuit to uncover and explore the social and environmental forces that may have helped shape Clemmons' psychological structure. In making a scapegoat of Clemmons, Seattle missed the opportunity to explore the long-term and insidious psychological impact of oppression, poverty, racism, and cultural violence. The author also explores individual and community psychological structure within the overarching metaphor and model of plate tectonics. The EventThree years ago, on the Sunday morning following Thanksgiving 2009, a social cataclysm erupted, a metaphoric earthquake, in Tacoma, Washington. A southern born African American man, who had spent the majority of his life imprisoned or monitored by the American legal system, executed four white police officers enjoying breakfast before their upcoming shift. He had told a friend a few days before that he wanted company in death. Maurice Clemmons was on the verge of his third strike, and the prospect of losing his home to foreclosure. He was increasingly delusional (Armstrong et al, 2009).In a cell-phone photograph that circulated the Internet in 2009, Maurice Clemmons' naked body, half-covered by a white sheet, lies on a gurney (Wikipedia, 2010). A bullet hole, inflicted by the gun of an officer Clemmons killed, was visible in the center of his abdomen. Round bandages cover other bullet holes that later felled the fugitive as he fled from a Seattle police officer, thus ending a desperate, relentless manhunt, involving helicopters, swat teams, infiltrated neighborhoods, and police robots (Gutierrez et al, 2009).

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Section: The Eventmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Reconsidering Freud's Topographic Modelmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: The Eventmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: The Eventmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Cultural tectonics

Ready

2012

Psychoanal Cult Soc

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“…(Menzies Lyth 1959, p. 74-75) In sum, individual countertransference and organizational dynamics, along with societal pressures and norms, all intersect to shape my experience of and response to the 3 In an organization that is already managing anxiety through depersonalization and denial of the significance of the individual, the values of capitalism and managed care add further pressure to treat the patient as an exchangeable commodity rather than as a unique individual. Our cultural preference for manic defenses may interact with the culture of the agency to create an environment that cheapens the therapeutic relationship when we need to cherish it (Altman 2005). no-show appointment. These conspire to keep me and my patient trapped in a vicious cycle of projections (of the patient's internal objects, of organizational or social defenses) that may be repeatedly reintrojected and that may confirm my patient's and my own worst expectations about relationships, a cycle I can only break by finding ways to maintain some perspective.…”

Section: Organizational Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 98%

When Absence Speaks Louder than Words: An Object Relational Perspective on No-Show Appointments

Kwintner

2011

Clin Soc Work J

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The rates of no-show appointments in community mental health are reported to be as high as 50%. Yet there is a striking scarcity of clinical literature on this subject compared with the abundance of articles written from an administrative point of view. This paper describes a variety of countertransference responses to missed appointments. Drawing from object relations theory, the author maps out different pathways to guide thinking about the use of countertransference, listening to clinical material following a no-show appointment, and responding to organizational pressures. The paper aims to help practitioners make greater sense of the patient's inner world and of what is going on in the transference-countertransference matrix.

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“A weird culture of coercion”: The impact of health care corporatization on clinicians

Rudden

2022

Appl Psychoanal Studies

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This paper describes the nature of today's corporatized health care system in the United States, offering examples of the psychological toll it takes on clinicians at all levels. It details corporate practices that disenfranchise practitioners from exercising their clinical judgment and from offering input to system administrators about problematic patient care experiences. It discusses the sense of frustration, resignation and moral injury that can permeate their work lives and disrupt their sense of effectiveness and well‐being in this context. Following this background is a psychoanalytic analysis of narratives from two physicians about their corporate health care experiences. Two case studies follow, in which a nurse and a physician entered psychoanalytic psychotherapy to process the destructive psychological impact of their work environments. A third case illustrates the negative impact of automatized insurance practices on one psychologist and her patient.

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Manic Society: Toward the Depressive Position

Cited by 39 publications

References 6 publications

Cultural tectonics

Cultural tectonics

When Absence Speaks Louder than Words: An Object Relational Perspective on No-Show Appointments

“A weird culture of coercion”: The impact of health care corporatization on clinicians

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