Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
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J Am Psychoanal Assoc · Dec 2015
Psychological Repair: The Intersubjective Dialogue of Remorse and Forgiveness in the Aftermath of Gross Human Rights Violations.
The possibility of psychological repair after mass trauma is considered here in the context of the global trend of dialogue between survivors and perpetrators in the aftermath of mass atrocities. Stories of remorse and forgiveness illustrate and allow reflection on the last two decades' experience in dealing with the past, as exemplified by truth commissions in countries like South Africa and Rwanda. Three aspects of this experience are stressed. ⋯ A key element here is the aspect of concern and care for the other that is linked to the empathy-remorse-forgiveness cycle in the dialogue between victim and perpetrator. Finally, remorse and its relation to forgiveness are explored. Contextually rich case study material from research on forgiveness illustrates this discussion.
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J Am Psychoanal Assoc · Dec 2014
Historical ArticleFreud's Jewish identity and psychoanalysis as a science.
Ludwik Fleck, the Polish philosopher of science, maintained that scientific discovery is influenced by social, political, historical, psychological, and personal factors. The determinants of Freud's Jewish identity are examined from this Fleckian perspective, as is the impact of that complex identity on his creation of psychoanalysis as a science. ⋯ Yet it represented at the same time his ineradicable relationship with that inheritance. It encapsulated both the ambivalence of his Jewish identity and the creativity of his efforts to resolve it.
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J Am Psychoanal Assoc · Aug 2014
Biography Historical ArticleErik Erikson and his problematic identity.
In his psychohistorical biographies of Luther and Gandhi, Erik Erikson proposed that great issues of a particular time and place, as experienced by sensitive and creative individuals who are working to resolve their inner conflicts within these contexts, could find solutions that transcend themselves and yield conceptualizations that transform the world. Although Erikson was able to create a conceptualization of the adolescent task of establishing a coherent identity, one that gave voice to the aspirations and frustrations of the rebellious student movements of the 1960s, he was never able, over his lifetime, to resolve his own identity issues. Was he Dane or German, American or Scandinavian, Jew or Christian or both? His lifelong back-and-forths on this struggle are chronicled.
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J Am Psychoanal Assoc · Oct 2011
Dave Eggers's a heartbreaking work of staggering genius: memoir as a "pain-relief device".
Dave Eggers's memoir is an important addition to the tradition of autobiography in America, and offers significant contributions to our understanding of creativity, sublimation, and the psychology of the memoir-writing process. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is really two books--an autobiographical narrative about unbearable suffering, and a book of psychoanalytic commentary on the challenges of writing a memoir about catastrophic loss and trauma. The main narrative suggests the psychological resilience it takes to contain unbearable suffering. ⋯ Eggers's identification with authorship, rather than bereavement or traumatization, may have played an important role in containing his affect and his sense of self when the heartbreaking events were originally unfolding. But a price is paid when a son uses his art to construct a new identity as an author--unconscious conflicts, primitive affect, anxieties about failing, as well as guilt about succeeding--consequences often missed by readers. Heartbreaking is a palimpsest, a story about story-telling superimposed on tales of death and survival, but its messages will be missed unless all its parts are preserved when being read or studied.
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J Am Psychoanal Assoc · Aug 2011
Thinking outside the box: a metacognitive / theory of mind perspective on concrete thinking.
Concrete thinking, an extraordinarily difficult condition to treat, has been psychoanalytically theorized to result from failures of symbolization-problems forming, linking, or fathoming the meaning of symbols-and/or failures of differentiation, resulting in difficulties distinguishing symbols from the thing being symbolized, fantasy from reality, self from other. Though difficulties symbolizing and differentiating are clearly evident in patients whose thinking is concrete, these may be a manifestation of concrete thinking rather than a root cause. ⋯ One such approach, "metacognitive" in nature, draws on a mode of thought used by gifted individuals that helps them "think outside the box" by dispensing with a typical pattern-recognition search so that novel meanings might be discovered. Metacognition, thoughts about one's thoughts and thought processes, facilitates symbolic thinking by creating sufficient distance from one's thoughts to allow the consideration of alternative meanings.