International Psychoanalysis

Click Here to Read: Interview with Martin Bergmann by Jane S. Hall. 

 Joyce Lerner           Danielle Knafo                         Ann Ulanov

Symposium 2008: Responding to the Erotic Transference
Mount Sinai Hospital: Stern Auditorium
100th Street and Madison
March 8 & 9th, 2008  
1:30 to 3:00pm
Panel 3: The Spectrum of Erotic Transference
Chair: Joyce Lerner
Danielle Knafo, Ira Moses, Ann Ulanov

Click Here to Read: Joyce Lerner’s Contribution

Click Here to Read: Ann Ulanov’s Contribution

 Governor Spitzer is not a hypocrite although his contradictory behavior is surely hypocritical.  Rather he is probably representative of a large group of psychological disorders characterized by an internal struggle often illustrated by that of a fight between virtue and sin.  We call these cases personality disorders exhibiting a vertical split in which an otherwise honorable individual periodically engages in behavior which is abhorrent to them.  These behaviors range from lying to thievery, from excessive shopping to substance abuse.  All of these individuals are suffering from what in psychoanalysis is termed a narcissistic disorder and most of these individuals are treatable by psychoanalysis or psychoanalytically-informed psychotherapy. (more…)

I believe that it is generally best, in understanding a patient or a film, to start at the surface, to understand that surface and use it as our guide as we go deeper. L.A. Confidential gives us a very clear and readable surface with the opening credits, a surface that, we shall see, resonates with deeper, more personal meanings. (more…)

Carolyn Ellman Joseph Reppen Steve Ellman Peter Hoffer Charles Strozier

Symposium 2008: Responding to the Erotic Transference
Introduction and Panel I: History: Freud, Ferenczi, and Kohut
Read more and listen in. (more…)

Click Here to Read: Part VII of Arnold Richards’s interview with Charles Fisher: Final Thoughts

Click Here for: Part I   

Click Here for: Part II 

Click Here for: Part III 

Click Here for: Part IV 

Click Here for: Part V

 Click Here for: Part VI 

Click here to read: Charles Fisher Interview by Arnold Richards Part VI: Looking Back

Last week a new article analyzing ALL the data from ALL the short term clinical trials submitted to the FDA for the licensing of fluoxetine, venlafaxine, nefazodone, and paroxetine was published in PLOS Medicine, [Public Library of Science, a peer reviewed open-access journal.]

Click Here to Read: “Initial Severity and Antidepressant Benefits: A Meta-Analysis of Data Submitted to the Food and Drug Administration” Irving Kirsch, Brett J. Deacon, Tania B. Huedo-Medina, Alan Scoboria, Thomas J. Moore, Blair T. Johnson, February 26, 2008.

The Editors’ Summary includes the following:

 ”WHAT DO THESE FINDINGS MEAN?

These findings suggest that, compared with placebo, the new-generation antidepressants do not produce clinically significant improvements in depression in patients who initially have moderate or even very severe depression, but show significant effects only in the most severely depressed patients. The findings also show that the effect for these patients seems to be due to decreased responsiveness to placebo, rather than increased responsiveness to medication. Given these results, the researchers conclude that there is little reason to prescribe new-generation antidepressant medications to any but the most the severely depressed patients unless alternative treatments have been ineffective. In addition, the finding that extremely depressed patients are less responsive to placebo than less severely depressed patients but have similar responses to antidepressants is a potentially important insight into how patients with depression respond to antidepressants and placebos that should be investigated further.” 

So was the marketing of these drugs not justified based on the submitted data, or are the authors biased as some advocates of SSRIs as first line treatment for depression claim?
Some interesting comments on the article are at:http://tinyurl.com/3dpx6o

Paul Mosher

Stubbs: In Memorium

Click Here To See:  Photos by Ernest Kafka 

39th Annual Margaret Mahler Symposium on Child Development
Saturday, April 26, 2008

Solis-Cohen Auditorium- Jefferson Alumni Hall
1020 Locust Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107

Co-Sponsored by Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia and Thomas 
Jefferson University

Dishonesty, Lying, and Inauthenticity:
Developmental, Clinical, and Socio-Cultural Aspects

Moderator- Salman Akhtar MD (more…)

Click Here to Read: Virginia Hefferman’ Article, “The Return of the Repressed” on In Treatment in the Sunday New York Times Magazine, on Sunday March 9th, 2009. 

The Northern Rockies Psychoanalytic Institute announces
A Day of Conversation with Leo Rangell – May 3, 2008

Leo Rangell writes:

“The backdrop for this conference says it all. Freudian psychoanalysis, in its slow, covered wagons, has reached the last pristine western wilderness of our country, even as its long trail at the other end keeps fighting to survive and prosper. The range of craggy peaks, from deep down in earth, reaching upward toward the stars, and the small group of intellectual pioneers who gather here to preserve the human unconscious, as it too breaks through at intervals from below into the conscious light, is an awesome twosome, too striking not to further and nurture…”

Click here to read or download the full announcement.

Lewis Aron

Click Here to Read: What’s In A Chair? Article in the New York Times by Penelope Green On Thursday, March 6th.

Click Here to Read: Therapy Is Having a Pop Culture Moment by ByJocelyn Noveck review of In Treatment in the US New and World Report.

Click Here to Read:  Other reviews of In Treatment.

Click Here for: Info on Symposium 2008 

Click Here to Read:  Taking Play Seriously by  Robin Marantz Henig on February 17th in the New York Times Magazine

Letter to Editor
NYT Magazine

Your February 17, 2008 article, “Taking Play Seriously,” is a very comprehensive discussion of the importance of play in human development. One area, however, was missing: The importance of recognizing that for children play has meaning. (more…)

International Psychoanalytic Conference 
On Love 
Affiliated Psychoanalytic Workshops (APW)
March 28- 30, 2008
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
 
 The “malady of being two” [mal d'être deux] from which . . . patients suffer hardly frees them from Narcissus’ problem. It is a mortal passion that ends up taking its own life.
-Lacan, Le Minotaure (more…)

Institute of Group Analysis: Psychotherapy and Liberation May ’68 Anniversary Conference
 2nd – 4th MAY 2008

LVSRC, 356  Holloway Road, London N7 6PA

This conference is about psychotherapy and political action that connects with the spirit of 1968 with papers on the intersection between psychotherapy and liberation. How can we build on the dynamic set in play by 1968? What are the lessons of struggles in the last forty years for what we do now? What practical steps should psychotherapists take now to link the personal and the political?

SPEAKERS: Our invited guest speakers link political struggle and personal change: Peter Tatchell and Hilary Wainwright.

Click Here for Details 

Click Here to Read:  “Daring to Think Differently about Schizophrenia”  by Alex Berenson in the Business section of the New York Times, February 4th, 2008.

The following is a letter by Susan Jaffe responding to this article in The Business section of the New York Times on March 2nd, 2008. 

On Schizophrenia
To the Editor:

Re “Daring to Think Differently About Schizophrenia” (Feb. 24), which described new possible medication in battling the disorder:

As a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, I know that there is no magic bullet for the treatment of schizophrenia, or for any mental illness, for that matter. But a focus on serotonin has been a boon financially, but more important medically, in treating some kinds of depression. Hopefully, the research on glutamate will do the same to lessen the worst symptoms of schizophrenia. Let’s hope for the people who suffer from this terrible illness that we can find a medication that will stay its most debilitating and sometimes tragic effects.

Susan Jaffe, M.D.
Manhattan, Feb. 24

The writer is chairwoman of the committee on public information of the American Psychoanalytic Association.