Psychoanalysis On and Off the Couch

"Instead of the analyst being in a position where they know something about the patient, they are with the patient. As Winnicott says in his late work, if you are a philosopher in your armchair, you have to come out of your armchair and be on the floor with the child playing. I don't think that one should act that out with an adult patient- however it is that approach to actually being with the patient, listening to the patient's words, listening to their state of mind without preconceived ideas. That's almost impossible, but Winnicott says that psychoanalysis is an objective study, an objective way of looking at things without preconceived ideas, without preconceived notions. It links with what you said about 'normative' - if we go into the consulting room feeling that our patients need to be as we are or need to fit in some kind of norm, then I don't think this is psychoanalytic. I think it is against the whole aim of psychoanalysis."

Episode Description: Jan begins her conversation with Joel by sharing her background in theater and the steps she took to train as an analyst. She describes what drew her to Winnicott and how she sees him as broadening, not replacing, Freudian thinking. She distinguishes her understanding of Winnicott from others who believe that, by speaking of the importance of the environment, he minimized constitutional factors and the unconscious. She interprets what he meant by the environment in terms of the 'psyche-body' and the mother's unconscious. Jan discusses a paradox in Winnicott in that he offers a positive theory of health while also being uniquely non-judgmental and non-pathologizing. She concludes with a controversial observation that a five times weekly in person training analysis is essential to achieve a deep regression that will familiarize analysts with the primitive parts of their personalities so they will be able to accept and deal with those parts of their patients' personalities.

Our Interviewer and Guest:

Joel Whitebook, PhD is a philosopher and psychoanalyst. He is on the Faculty of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research and was the founding Director of the University's Psychoanalytic Studies Program. In addition to many articles on psychoanalysis, philosophy, and critical theory, Dr. Whitebook is also the author of Perversion and Utopia (MIT) and Freud: An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge).

Jan Abram, PhD is a training and supervising analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society and in private practice in London. She is Visiting Professor of the Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London, and is currently Vice President of the European Psychoanalytic Federation for the Annual Conferences. She is President-Elect for the EPF to start her term in March 2024. She is a Visiting Lecturer and supervisor at the Tavistock Clinic, in London. In 2016, she was a Visiting Professor for the University of Kyoto, Japan, where she resided for a writing sabbatical. Jan Abram has published several books and articles notably: The Language of Winnicott, Donald Winnicott Today (2013), The Clinical Paradigms of Melanie Klein and Donald Winnicott: comparisons and Dialogues (co-authored with R.D. Hinshelwood 2018); The Surviving Object: psychoanalytic clinical essays on psychic survival-of-the-object (2022) and her second book with R.D. Hinshelwood: The Clinical Paradigms of Donald Winnicott and Wilfred Bion: comparisons and dialogues (2023).

Learn more about Jan Abram

Recommended Readings:

Abram, J. (2007) The Language of Winnicott: A Dictionary of

Winnicott's use of terms Routledge

Abram, J. (ed) (2016) André Green at the Squiggle Foundation Routledge

Abram, J. (2008) Donald Woods Winnicott (1896 – 1971): A brief introduction Education Section Int J of Psychoanal 99: 1189 - 1217

Abram, J. (2021) On Winnicott's Concept of Trauma Int J of Psychoanal 102: 4 10

"I made a film for PepWeb on the research of Beatrice Beebe. I made the video for her picture book, The Mother-Infant Interaction Picture Book, and various other short films. These are deep dives into mother-infant dyads that reveal something, i.e. rupture and repair, various kinds of dyadic interchanges. These are available for free on YouTube. That's another way that I use my analytic self and my documentary maker self together. I'm much happier with the YouTube films even though they're less produced because they reach a wide audience - they are for parents, not clinicians. I want to get the story of this way of thinking or various ways of working, or psychoanalysis itself out to the greater public because I'm such an evangelizer for it. It changed my life in so many ways, and I think it's a very different animal than what the wider world (if they've heard of it at all) thinks that it is - it's so alive these days, so integrative, and so worthy of letting people know."

Episode Description: We began with Karen sharing with us her journey from documentary filmmaker to psychoanalyst. She discusses her immersion in the world of cinema verité - "a camera capturing life" - as the pathway that brought her to train in psychoanalysis. We consider the similarities and differences between these ways of thinking and how she feels that for her, they are additive in deepening her listening abilities. She describes her films of Beatrice Beebe's work, how she serves as a consultant to filmmakers, and how she often treats those in the field, especially in regard to their (over)involvement with trauma. We close with Karen's recommendations for using YouTube to let the wider community know about psychoanalysis.

Our Guest:

Karen Dougherty is a Psychoanalyst (FIPA) and documentary filmmaker. She has an MA in English Literature (McGill) and an MA in Psychoanalytic Studies (University of Sheffield). She is a clinical supervisor and course instructor at the FPP and the Advanced Training Program in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, with a particular focus on attachment, relationship issues, and trauma. In addition to her private practice in rural Amaranth, Ontario, Karen is the host of the podcast for the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society, Conversations in Psychoanalysis. Since 2022, she has been a member of the IPA Think Tank on the Resolution of Intractable Conflict, for which she produces a YouTube Channel. The recipient of a PEPweb video grant, she has made several films on the research of Dr. Beatrice Beebe for clinicians and parents. She continues to collaborate on documentary projects as a researcher and story consultant (recent films include Toxic Beauty; Category: Woman, both directed by Phyllis Ellis). Bridging these two careers, Karen is both a communications consultant for psychoanalytic organizations and a mental health consultant for film and television.

Linked Episode:

Episode 97: Off the Couch and into the Political Arena with John, Lord Alderdice FRCPsych – IPA Off the Couch

Recommended Links:

Karen Dougherty

The CPS podcast will be accessed through the CPS website.

The PEPweb citation for the documentary for clinicians:

Dougherty, K., Beebe, B., Margolis, A., Altstein, R., Berman, J. & Mathieson, G. (2016) Mother-Infant Communication: The Research of Dr. Beatrice Beebe. PEP Video Grants 1:11.

Beebe, Dr. Beatrice, prod., Dougherty, K., dir. "Joining Your Baby's Distress Moments: A Story of One Mother and Infant":

"Decoding Mother-Infant Interaction: A Story of One Mother and Infant," the first two of a series of short films for parents showcasing the research of Dr. Beatrice Beebe:

Allan King, The Criterion Collection

Allan King, Queens University Film and Media Collection

Allan King's Warrendale, a "direct cinema" documentary about a home for emotionally disturbed children in Toronto:

"We know as analysts there's a long literature on mourning and its connection to creativity from the time of Freud's work to George Pollock's work and others - but that's too intellectual; let me make it more personal, and then I'll talk about Freud and Maimonides. My father and my mother lost a combination of 10 siblings and a granddaughter murdered by the Nazis, plus their parents and aunts and uncles. I've heard stories about their siblings and I think: 'Look what they would have done, what they would have created not just families but ideas', and I realized in my analysis that for years I have been trying to make up, by writing books, what would have been done by the aunts, uncles, and cousins that I never knew because they were murdered. So creativity can have a reparative, never enough perhaps, but a reparative quality."

Episode Description: I introduce the topic of the not fully acknowledged role of religion in the lives of analysts and analysands, which will be explored in future conversations. Nathan begins by sharing his personal connection with his religion, which he feels does not involve a belief in a God. He describes how his relation to his Judaism, like his essence as an analyst, entails an attunement to an inner life, a commitment to proper behavior, and a search for hidden meanings. He describes his family of origin and their almost complete annihilation in the Holocaust. We discuss the similarities he feels exists between Maimonides and Freud, the importance of mourning in their creative processes, and the great attention to 'the word' that both worldviews exhibit. We also take up whether 'belief' is an appropriate term to characterize one's psychoanalytic clinical work. We close with his sharing clinical examples where religion played an important role in the treatment.

Linked Episode: https://harveyschwartzmd.com/2021/04/23/ep-6-how-to-raise-loving-and-creative-30-year-old/

Our Guest:

Nathan Szajnberg, MD, is Retired Freud Professor, the Hebrew University and former Wallerstein Research Fellow in Psychoanalysis. Born in Germany, he attended the University of Chicago College and Medical School. His most recent books are Psychic Mimesis from Bible and Homer to the Present (Lexington) and The Secret Symmetry of Maimonides and Freud (Routledge). His third novel is A Windmill, A Knight, A Jerusalem.

Recommended Readings:

1. Freud, Future of an Illusion (1928) Hogarth Press.

2. Meissner, W. W. (1985) Psychoanalysis: The Dilemma of Science and Humanism. Psychoanalytic Inquiry 5:471-498

3.Szajnberg, N. (2019) Jacob and Joseph, Judaism's Architects and Birth of the Ego Ideal. Cambridge Scholars Publishing

4. Wallerstein, R. S. (1998) Erikson's Concept of Ego Identity Reconsidered. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 46:229-247

5. Wallerstein, R. S. (2000) The Analysis of the Hysterical Patient: Limitations?. Forty-Two Lives in Treatment: A Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy 56:293-321

6. Wallerstein, R. S. (2014) Erik Erikson and His Problematic Identity. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 62:657-675

"Conscience represents ethics that are not socially constructed and not socially learned but built-in. In fact, the whole of psychoanalysis is grounded in such an ethic - we all as analysts value life over death, we value truth over lies, we value love over hate, kindness over cruelty. Like those little three-month-old infants that Bloom studied at Yale, these values are grounded in our biology. They are part of what Winnicott would call our true self and they are quite distinct from the very different moral notions that wind up in our superego. After all, our superego contains our racism, it contains our sexism, it contains our heterosexism and those values are very distinct from our core values: love over hate, life over death. We all know on a fundamental level what's right and what's wrong on that very basic level, and that is the voice of conscience; we don't need God for this; it is built in biologically."

Episode Description: Don begins by describing the difference between the narcissistically based superego from the object-oriented conscience. He sees the former as culturally derived and the latter as biologically given. We discuss how in the clinical situation persecutory guilt, i.e., superego, may often be emphasized to defend against the vulnerabilities associated with loving and being loved. We consider the use and overuse of the concept of trauma in contrast to intrapsychic conflict, and he distinguishes between empathy and sympathy. He shares his view that the edges of our political parties are imbued with the self-certainty born from the paranoid position. Ultimately, he concludes, "I'm not afraid that analysis will disappear - people who have problems with their soul will seek out soul doctors."

Our Guest: Don Carveth, Ph.D., is an emeritus professor of sociology and social and political thought at York University in Toronto. He is a training and supervising analyst in the Canadian Institute of Psychoanalysis, a past Director of the Toronto Institute, and past editor-in-chief of the Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis. He is the author of The Still Small Voice: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Guilt and Conscience, Psychoanalytic Thinking: A Dialectical Critique of Contemporary Theory and Practice, and Guilt: A Contemporary Introduction. Many of his publications are available on his York website (yorku.ca/dcarveth) and his current website (doncarveth.com); his video lectures are available on his YouTube channel (YouTube.com/doncarveth). He is in private psychoanalytic practice in Toronto.

Recommended Readings:

Carveth, D. (2016). Why we should stop conflating the superego with the conscience. Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society(2017) 22, 15-32.

Carveth, D.(2023). Guilt: A Contemporary Introduction. New York: Routledge.

Carveth, D. (2006). Self-Punishment as Guilt Evasion: Theoretical Issues." Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis/Revue Canadienne de Psychanalyse 14, 2 (Fall2006): 172-96.

"One of the changes that analysis provided me with was an awareness about how similar we all are, of course with a few differences. For me, an analyst is before all a person who had the opportunity to realize how we all human beings are very similar. We can familiarize with ourselves and with others thanks to these similarities and continuities. I would say like all my colleagues I asked for analysis when I was a young doctor in order to be helped. This is what is common to all analysts - analysts are people who are more aware and more experienced to ask for help than other people because they had the opportunity to be helped by a good treatment and to have the opportunity to integrate better."

Episode Description: Stefano begins by describing the characteristics of many analysts today who seek treatment through the lens of mistrust of dependency and mutuality. Instead, defensive styles lean towards pseudo-autonomy, entitlement, and suspiciousness. We discuss how dealing with initial resistances to the transference is both similar to and different from generations ago. We consider the theoretical advances in understanding earlier developmental struggles as well as our greater appreciation of the medium of countertransference. Stefano notes that today's longer training analyses are an important contribution to these more profound clinical skills. He discusses some of the environmental contributions to current narcissistic inclinations as well as the temptations to reduce the uniqueness of the analytic experience to the familiar and comfortable. He closes by sharing with us his personal story and the essential step for all of us to be able to "ask for help."

Our Guest: Stefano Bolognini, MD, is a psychiatrist and training and supervising analyst of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society (SPI), where he served as president (2009-2013). He also was an IPA Board member (2002-2012) and was IPA president from 2013-2017. He was a member of the European Editorial Board of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and a founder of the IPA Inter-Regional Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. He has published over 260 psychoanalytic papers, and his books on empathy and on the inter-psychic dimension have been translated into several languages.

Recommended Links and Readings:

Bolognini, Stefano:

Secret Passages. The Theory and Technique of the Interpsychic Relations. IPA New Library, Routledge, London, 2010

Vital Flows between Self and Not-Self, Routledge, London, 2022

The Analyst's awkward Gift: balancing Recognition of Sexuality with parental protectiveness. Psychoanal. Quart., vol. LXXX, 1, 33-54, 2012.

Enchantments and disenchantments in the formation and use of psychoanalytic theories about psychic reality. The Italian Psychoanalytic Annual, 13, 11-24, July 2019.

New forms of psychopathology in a changing world: a challenge for psychoanalysis in the twenty-first century. The Italian Psychoanalytic Annual, 2020.

Reflections on the institutional Family of the Analyst and proposing a "fourth Pillar" for Education. Opportunities and problems of transferal dynamics in the training pathway". In Living and Containing Psychoanalysis in Institutions. Psychoanalysts Working Together, edited by Gabriele Junkers, 89-104, Taylor & Francis, 2022.

From What to How: A Conversational with Stefano Bolognini on Emotional Attunement by Luca Nicoli & Stefano Bolognini. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 91 : 3, 443-477, 2022.

The Interpsychic, the Interpersonal, and the Intersubjective: Response to Steven H. Goldberg's Discussion". The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 91:3, 489-494, 2022.

Hidden unconscious, buried unconscious, implicit unconscious. The Italian Psychoanalytic Annual, 16, 87-102, 2022.

"Technology is based on the premise that there can be an optimization of things through algorithmic understanding. 'Ones and zeros' data can be manipulated and thus produce an optimal outcome which is a lovely idea for certain kinds of things. It's not necessarily, in my opinion, the best idea for the psyche or for happiness or for developing a life that's meaningful. I think a psychological mindset is slightly different in that our colleagues are really concerned with being with the person, making meanings, suffering sometimes through difficult things, so there isn't just an automatic assumption as there is in the tech mindset that we're trying to optimize for whatever it is that's good. It becomes very philosophical in the end… What is optimized? What is good? Why should we do it? There are all these kinds of questions that one may ask the technology mindset person: Why would we want to hack our nutrition or our mental health in order to become stronger or better? It is a little problematic, I think, as an end goal."

Episode Description: Nicolle begins by describing her journey from being a math teacher in the inner city to then becoming a consultant in the early days of the tech revolution. She shares the ethical concerns that led her to shift her interest to the mental health field and her eventually becoming Dean of the School of Professional Psychology and Health at California Institute of Integral Studies. While there she observed that "analysts think differently." This led her to seek to train as an analyst while also utilizing her familiarity with the tech mindset to create bridges with those in each field. We discuss the differences in ways of thinking between technologically immersed individuals and those with a psychological orientation - keeping in mind that each has much to learn from the other. We consider the dangers in the developing technological world, which include matters of privacy, distractedness, and a capacity to sit with suffering. We close with Nicolle sharing her vision for the future, which includes analysts playing a part in developing ethical approaches to the upcoming new developments. Her podcast is titled Technology and the Mind.

Our Guest: Nicolle Zapien, Ph.D. is a licensed MFT with 20 years of clinical experience. She is a post-seminar candidate at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC). She serves on the Ethics committee and the Visiting Scholar committee at PINC and also on APsA's committee for public information. From 2015 to 2019, Dr. Zapien served as Professor and Dean of the School of Professional Psychology and Health at California Institute of Integral Studies, overseeing 6 clinical training degree programs and 5 training clinics. There, she served on the IRB and chaired the research committee. Prior to her clinical work, Dr. Zapien spent a decade as a consultant designing, conducting, and/or overseeing over 200 quantitative and/or qualitative studies for industry clients and non-profits. Some of these studies employed user experience and human factors design methods to optimize the user experiences of technology products and services delivered via smartphones, tablets, websites, or kiosks. She has authored 2 books and several academic articles on themes associated with human decision-making, ethics, and phenomenology.

Recommended Readings:

Bednar, K., & Spiekermann, S. (2022). Eliciting Values for Technology Design with Moral Philosophy: An Empirical Exploration of Effects and Shortcomings. Science, Technology, & Human Values.

Frankel, R. & Krebs, V. (2022). Human Virtuality and Digital Life: Philosophical and Psychoanalytic Investigations. Routledge: New York, NY.

Greenfield. A. (2021). Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life. Verso: New York, NY.

Marshall, Brandeis Hill (2023). Data Conscience: Algorithmic S1ege on our Humanity.John Wiley & Sons: Hoboken, NJ.

Millar, I. (2021). The Psychoanalysis of Artificial Intelligence. Palgrave MacMillian: Cham, Switzerland.

Turkle, S. (2022) The Empathy Diaries. Penguin Press: New York, NY.

"In divorce it's fundamental that even though the couple ends, there's not an end to the family. We still owe a debt to the other - that other who offered to love us, who we had the opportunity to love, our debt to the children of that union. We are irrevocably called to ethics and to the continuing sense of responsibility to that other. Even though the marriage doesn't survive, the family needs to. In the high - conflict scenario, not only does the marriage not survive, often the family doesn't as well. In that sense it is profoundly unethical. So when I attempt to work with people in that situation, I always do so from an ethical perspective - ethical in the sense of creating a third, so that you try and enter into that system, but it has to be a profoundly ethical presence which I also find is distinctly psychoanalytic. I think our method is saturated with ethics without even realizing it, we're always thinking in ethical terms, managing transference, powerful forces within analytic relationship - it's a profoundly ethical task that we do. In that sense we also serve as witnesses to what our patients have experienced. The witnessing is also a kind of engagement and we try to do that when we work with people in the high-conflict position."

Episode Description: We begin by distinguishing high-conflict divorce from less malignant versions. Arthur has found that high-conflict divorce is characterized by a particular timeless destructiveness that lacks regard for the sense of the family or the history of affection that had existed within and between the individuals.

He has noted an experience of overwhelming disillusionment in the histories of those who are unable to mourn and instead remain immersed in vendetta seeking. We discuss the role of ethics, witnessing, and the capacity for the 'third' in these couples. Arthur shares with us his clinical experience with same-sex couples as well as with the unfortunate scenarios of alienated children who attempt to bolster the fragile capacities of one parent by refusing any contact with the other. He concludes by describing that his attention to the inner realities of these individuals is what he uniquely brings as a psychoanalyst to these often behaviorally tumultuous human tragedies.

Our Guest: Arthur Leonoff, Ph.D., is a psychologist and Supervising & Training Analyst of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society. He is a past president and recipient of his Society's Citation of Merit. He is also an Honorary member of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Dr. Leonoff was the first president of the North American Psychoanalytic Confederation. He currently is chair of the IPA Committee International New Groups.Dr. Leonoff has maintained a private psychoanalytic practice for more than four decades. He is an active clinician, teacher, supervisor, and presenter, as well as author. Recently he has contributed to two edited volumes, Dear Candidate and Psychoanalysis at the Crossroads. He has written on diverse subjects of clinical interest, including the kindling of metaphor in recovering from the impact of early complex psychic trauma.In addition to his psychoanalytic practice, Dr. Leonoff has worked extensively as a consultant and expert witness to the Canadian courts on the confluence of psychopathology and high-conflict divorce. He is the author of three books in this field, most recently The Good Divorce (2015) and When Divorces Fail, Disillusionment, Destructivity & High Conflict Divorce (2021), The Good Divorce has been revised and republished as The Ethical Divorce, which is available from Friesen Press.

Recommended Readings:

Leonoff, A (2021). When Divorces Fail: Disillusionment, Destructivity, and High Conflict Divorce. Rowman & Littlefield.

Leonoff, A. (2021) The Ethical Divorce: A Psychoanalyst's Guide to Separation, Divorce, and Childcare. Friesen Press.

Fidler, B. and Bala, N. (2020). Conclusions, concepts, controversies, and conundrums of "alienation:" Lessons learned in a decade and reflections on challenges ahead, Family Court Review, 58(2). 576-603.

Greenberg, L., Fidler, B. and Saini, M.A. (Eds). (2019). Evidence-Informed Interventions for Court-Involved Families: Promoting Healthy Coping and Development, Oxford University Press.

Levinas, E. (1985). Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo (R.A. Cohen, Trans.). Duquesne University Press.

Wallerstein, J. and Kelly, J. (1980). Surviving the Breakup: How children and Parents cope with Divorce. Basic Books.

"The basic principle in defense analysis is that one approaches what is going on right now - it's an experience-near technique. You don't make conjectures about what would be called experience-distant phenomenon until you have a lot of material, a lot of knowledge about the patient. As the treatment goes on you really stick with what the patient is doing right now."

Episode Description: Leon shares with us what he sees as the fundamental method of analytic treatment, which "regardless of the manifest theoretical orientation of the therapist ... are effectively utilizing the technique of interpreting defenses against unwelcome affects." He emphasizes the importance of being interested in the patient's defenses and less so the warded-off content. We consider the term 'protection' in place of 'defense'; how these interventions are an amalgam of clarification and interpretation; and the source of the bad reputation that attaches to the concept of 'defense interpretation'. He shares with us how this approach links with the neurosciences and the concept of implicit emotion regulation. We discuss the work of Berta Bornstein, who introduced the importance of defending against unpleasant affects. He discusses two cases of disruptive children and their use of aggression in an effort to avoid sadness and loneliness. We close with his sharing his view of our field and his conclusion that "analysis will survive - it's too powerful a tool."

Our Guest:

Leon Hoffman, MD, is a psychiatrist and child and adolescent psychiatrist. He is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. He is the Co-Director of the Pacella Research Center of NYSI. Among many publications, he is co-author with Timothy Rice and Tracy Prout of Regulation Focused Psychotherapy for Children (RFP-C): A Psychodynamic Approach and with Timothy Rice Defense Mechanisms and Implicit Emotion Regulation: A Comparison of a Psychodynamic Construct with One from Contemporary Neuroscience. In 2022, he presented the Norbert and Charlotte Rieger Psychodynamic Psychotherapy lecture at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry on "Helping Parents Spare the Rod: Addressing Their Unbearable Emotions" based on a paper he authored with Tracy Prout. He presented the Paulina Kernberg Memorial Lecture at Weill Cornell Medicine Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Grand Rounds. On Regulation Focused Psychotherapy: An evidence-based psychodynamic treatment for children with disruptive behaviors. And The Bruce A. Gibbard Lectureship in Psychiatry, University of Vermont, Department of Psychiatry.

Linked Episode:

Episode 38: A Psychoanalyst Studies 'Why is it easier to get mad than it is to feel sad?' with Leon Hoffman

Recommended Readings:

1. Hoffman, L. (2007) Do Children Get Better When We Interpret Their Defenses Against Painful Feelings? Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 62:291-313.

2. Hoffman, L. (2014). Berta Bornstein's Frankie: The Contemporary Relevance of a Classic to the Treatment of Children with Disruptive Symptoms. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 68:152-176

3. Rice, T. R., & Hoffman, L. (2014). Defense mechanisms and implicit emotion regulation: a comparison of a psychodynamic construct with one from contemporary neuroscience. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 62(4), 693-708.

4. Prout, T. A., Rice, T., Chung, H., Gorokhovsky, Y., Murphy, S., & Hoffman, L. (2021) Randomized controlled trial of Regulation Focused Psychotherapy for Children: A manualized psychodynamic treatment for externalizing behaviors. Psychotherapy Research, 32(5), 555-570.

5. Hoffman, L. (2020). How can I help you? Dimensional versus categorical distinctions in the assessment for child analysis and child psychotherapy. Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 19(1), 1-15.

6. Leon Hoffman, Tracy A. Prout, Timothy Rice & Margo Bernstein (2023): Addressing Emotion Regulation with Children: Play, Verbalization of Feelings, and Reappraisal, Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, DOI: 10.1080/15289168.2023.2165874

7. Prout, T. A., Malone, A., Rice, T., & Hoffman, L. (2019). Resilience, defenses, and implicit emotion regulation in psychodynamic child psychotherapy. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 49(4). 235-244.

8. Hoffman, L., & Prout, T. A. (2020). Helping parents spare the rod: Addressing their unbearable emotions. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 73(1), 46-61.

"He [Bernays] proposed to his uncle that he'd do a translation of this book that had been given to him and Freud, perhaps without thinking too much about it, approved the idea. Bernays went about hiring a translator who was a psychology Ph.D. student that he found at Columbia University and he got Stanley Hall to write an introduction for what was published in 1920 as 'A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis'. Now, shortly after this happened, Freud had second thoughts about authorizing Bernays to translate his lectures, particularly as he had been working with his trusted colleague Ernest Jones on translations. But by the time Freud wired Bernays to try to stop this publication, Bernays said that it was already too late and that the advertisements had already been placed and the publication was proceeding. Bernays assured Freud that it would be all right and he also assured him that he would get fame and glory and also substantial recompense for the publication. Freud was not too happy about this, nor was Ernest Jones, and when they finally received the translation that Bernays had done they were particularly upset."

Episode Description: We begin by describing the complicated bloodline between Freud and Edward Bernays - Bernays' mother was Freud's sister, and his father was the brother of Freud's wife. We then consider Bernays' role as the founder of the field of public relations. This has led many to inaccurately see him as a manipulator of the masses through the use of his uncle's theories. In fact, Bernays served as the pro-bono literary agent for Freud's books in the US which contributed to his popularization and to providing vital financial support during the years of Austria's hyperinflation. We also discuss Bernays' role in the American pro-democracy movement, which was designed to counter the influence of Nazi propaganda in the years before WWII. We close with Joseph's describing his interest in this subject and his wish to "set the record straight" about Edward Bernays.

Our Guest: Joseph Malherek is a historian who holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He was the Junior Botstiber Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University, and he has been a Fulbright Visiting Professor of Austrian-American Studies at the University of Vienna. He has published widely on the topics of transatlantic migration, twentieth-century intellectual history, and the history of capitalism and consumer culture. His book, Free-Market Socialists: European Émigrés Who Made Capitalist Culture in America, 1918–1968, was recently published by Central European University Press.

Linked Paper: https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/pah.2023.0452?journalCode=pah

Recommended Readings:

Freud's American Nephew: Edward Bernays and the Selling of Psychoanalysis.

Psychoanalysis and History 25, no. 1 (2023): 59–78.

Bernays, Edward L. (1923) Crystallizing Public Opinion. New York: Boni and Liveright.

Bernays, Edward L. (1965) Biography of an Idea: Memoirs of Public Relations Counsel Edward L. Bernays. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Freud, Sigmund. (1920) A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis. New York: Horace Liveright.

Gay, Peter. (1988) Freud: A Life for Our Time. New York: W.W. Norton.

Lippmann, Walter. (1922) Public Opinion. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.

Roudinesco, Élisabeth. (2016) Freud: In His Time and Ours. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press

"Analytic candidates in training struggle with the fact that you tend to get thrown into the deep water before you really know what you're doing. Then, the anxious candidate will typically struggle to find something to hang on to - and it's much easier to hang on to a theory than it is to hang on to the subtle and irreproducible nuances of clinical work. Candidates tend to latch on to theory and displace their anxiety about what they don't know to the theory, which is at least in principle knowable in order to calm down their anxiety about the actual interpersonal event that is the therapy."

Episode Description: We begin with explaining that our title Technique is Character Rationalized recognizes that we refer to colleagues based on our sense of their character not based on their theoretical orientations. We discuss the use and misuse of theory to offer analysts distancing structures when faced with the uncertainty of intensive treatment. Lee distinguishes between neurotic and perverse mental processes and considers the differing clinical challenges faced with each. We take up sado-masochism as object-preserving, the use of aggression to defend against tenderness, and how privileging psychic reality may for some result in confusing fantasy with reality. We close with Lee sharing with us his personal analytic journey and his reflections on our field now that he is retired.

Our Guest: Lee Grossman, MD trained at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis where he was a training and supervising analyst for 40 years. He served on the editorial board of The Psychoanalytic Quarterly for fifteen years, and currently serves on the board of JAPA. He is also an exhibiting photographer whose work can be seen at www.leegrossman.net. He and his wife, Jan Baeuerlen, have both just retired from clinical work. They live in Oakland, CA with an English bulldog named Frank.

Recommended Readings:

Bateson, Gregory (2002) Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences. Hampton Press.

Erikson, Erik H. (1963). Childhood and Society, 2nd edition. NY: W.W. Norton.

Friedman, Lawrence (1988). The Anatomy of Psychotherapy. Hillsdale NJ: The Analytic Press

Greenberg, J.R. (1981). Prescription or description: the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis. Contemp. Psychoanal. 17: 235-57.

Hoffman, I.Z. (1983). The patient as interpreter of the analyst's experience. Contemp. Psychoanal. 19:389-422.

Levenson, E.A. (1988). Real frogs in imaginary gardens. Facts and fantasies in psychoanalysis. Psa. Inquiry 8:552-67.

Loewald, H.W. (1952). The problem of defense and the neurotic interpretation of reality. Int. J. Psa 33:444-449.

Reed, G. S. (1987) Rules of Clinical Understanding in Classical Psychoanalysis and in Self Psychology: A Comparison. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 35:421-446

Upcoming Episode: Freud's Nephew and the Creation of 'Buzz' for Psychoanalysis with Joseph Malherek, Ph.D. (Raleigh, NC)