The Politics of Relational Psychoanalysis

Between private and public: towards a conception of the transitional subject

“…Just as my patient came to experience herself as having a private ‘treasure‐trove’ to share with me in order to realize herself and to implement her dreams in the larger world, so must psychoanalysis constitute itself in a world beyond its own internal discourse if it is to remain relevant to cultural and political life and avoid being appropriated by the culture in a caricatured or reified way. Indeed, recent trends in psychoanalysis suggest that the articulation of the processes by which intersubjectivity evolves (and the personal subject comes into being) is occurring in tandem with a renewed focus on the significance of psychoanalysis for political life (Altman et al, 2004; Botticelli, 2004; Peltz, 2005; Samuels, 2004; Walls, 2004, among many). As we offer our own ‘treasure trove’– the knowledge we have come by about personal transformation, power dynamics, unconscious strivings, and mutual recognition – to shared culture and political life, psychoanalysis also enriches itself.…”

A Burning World, an Absent God

“…In particular, the valorization of intertextuality, engaged understanding, the dialectic of absence and presence, and the prohibition against idolatry suggest the kind of psychotherapy we now refer to as relational psychoanalysis. , Altman, 1995, Altman, , 2000Bodnar, 2004;Botticelli, 2004;Cushman, 2000; Dimen, 1991Dimen, , 2000Flax, 1991;Goldner, 2002;Harris, 1991Harris, , 2000Layton, 2002, Leary, 1997Walls, 2004) are part of an ongoing effort to recognize those entanglements and utilize them in order to contribute to the effort to repair our troubled world.…”

Manic Society: Toward the Depressive Position

“…The social context of the individual is secondary in more classical approaches, Freudian and Kleinian alike; in relational and interpersonal psychoanalysis, the social context is salient in limited form, that is, in the form of the patientanalyst dyad. Botticelli (2004) has called attention to the way in which the social concern and activism of the 1960s has been funneled into the dyadic utopianism of relational psychoanalysis. Bader (1998) has noted how the postmodern turn in psychoanalysis is associated with the abandonment of both therapeutic and social activism, as analysts turn inward to deconstruct the nature of the interaction and their own participation.…”