International Psychoanalysis

Click Here to Read: The Power of Political Misinformation By Shankar Vedantam Monday, on Washington Post website September 15, 2008.

The IP Blog is pleased to bring to your attention an important article on fighting cancer, a problem that touches us all. Click here to read David Servan-Schreiber’s opinion piece, “We can stop the cancer epidemic” published in the Herald Tribune, September 19, 2008. Thank you, David, for letting us know about it.

Jane S. Hall
op-ed editor

Click Here to Read: The Teaching Cure: By Negar Azimi in the New York Times Magazine on September 19, 2008

Judaism and Psychoanalysis:A Continuing Dialogue
Sunday, October 5, 2008
The Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies
610 South Michigan Avenue
Downtown Chicago

Click here for the details

Click Here to Read: Science unveils hidden drivers of stock bubbles and crashes (from the AFP website).

Click Here to Read: Psychologists Vote to End Interrogation Consultations By Benedict Carey from the New York  Times on September 18, 2008.

Introduction: APA Eliminates Torture/Interrogation Work by Jerrold Atlas

After working for several years to overturn the APA embrace of participation in interrogation of detainees/prisoners, the membership finally defeated this oprogram as violative of ethics codes.  Thus, psychologists/psychoanalysts are now reclaiming  their higher moral/etchical purpose and rejecting
the notion that this could be done without violating these concerns. (more…)

Click Here to Read: Political views ‘all in the mind’ By Matt McGrath, Science reporter, BBC World Service on the BBC World News America website.

Click Here to Read: What Makes Peope Vote Republican? By Jonathan Haidt on the Edge: The Third Culture website on September 9th, 2008.

THE FUTURE OF PSYCHOANALYTIC EDUCATON: PRESERVATION AND INNOVATION
Together Everyone Achieves More
Cochairs:Jane S. Hall and Arnold D. Richards
Farkas Auditorium,
NYU School of Medicine NYU School of Medicine
530-550 First Avenue
New York, New York,
November 16, 2008

Click Here for the Details 

Click Here to Register

NOTICE: We will have 5.75 units of CEUs for Social Workers (from NASW) available at the Future of Psychoanalytic Education Conference.  You will need to fill out a questionaire after the conference.  Please sign up for this important conference on education soon.

 Click Here To View: A beautiful short movie about International Peace Day: September 21st from the  Heartmath website.

Letter to the editor from Fred Griffin which was published in the September 15 issue of The Birmingham News (Birmingham, AL).

Letters to the Editor
The Birmingham News
September 15, 2008

 WE MUST FIGHT FOR OUR COUNTRY, BUT NOT ENGAGE IN KNEE-JERK REACTIONS

    In watching the Republican national convention, references to fighting and combat appeared to dominate the rhetoric of the candidates. For example, in a front-page article in the September 5 Birmingham News, Senator McCain is quoted as saying, “Fight with me.  Fight with me. Fight with me.  Fight for our country.”

 I began to wonder just how far our country has been able to process the trauma we experienced on 9/11.  I am reminded about my work with Vietnam veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder for whom a variety of even non-threatening stimuli trigger reflexive violent reactions.  Neuroscientists tell us that this set of responses is largely because the emotional experience of the overwhelming trauma becomes lodged in the deep structures of the brain and bypasses the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain that permits us to truly think about our experience.  Therefore, we react, rather than reflect-a
knee-jerk reaction.

       This country was violently invaded on 9/11.  We may still be stuck in our own post-traumatic reactions to this event.  One might also wonder if McCain is somehow haunted by post-traumatic reactions to his own private ordeal as a prisoner-of-war, which he so courageously
endured.

      Of course we must fight for our country.  I am in no way advocating for passivity.  But we should not engage in knee-jerk reactions that are robbed of thoughtful reflection about additional avenues to create safety for our country and to restore our country’s standing on the world stage.

Fred L. Griffin, M.D.

Click Here to Read About: Broken Sons/Broken Fathers: A Pschoanalyst Remembers, a book by Gerald J. Gargiulo.

Click Here To Read: A Review of Broken Sons/Broken Fathers: A Pschoanalyst Remembers  by Gerald J. Gargiulo.  Reviewed by Richard Raubolt.

Click Here to Read: Gerald J. Gargiulo’s “End Thoughts” from the book Broken Sons/Broken Fathers: A Pschoanalyst Remembers.

From the PANY Bulletin, Summer, ’08

I am certain that I am far from the only member of PANY/NYUPI who was deeply saddened at hearing that Jules Glenn had died. Jules was not merely a revered teacher and a major contributor to psychoanalysis, he was a naturally warm and friendly man who took a genuine interest in people. I took classes with him as a candidate at the NYU Institute and later attended many discussion groups and seminars with him as a faculty member. He was always friendly, down to earth, “hamish”.

Jules was one of the instructors for the “applied analysis” course that I took as a candidate. In one of the classes, he talked about his own work on the plays of the twin authors, Peter and Anthony Shaffer. That was when I first learned of his particular interest in the dynamics of twins. It came up again in discussions over the years, most likely in some of the many meetings of the Psychoanalytic Colloquium for Psychoanalysis and the Arts that we both attended. It was for that reason that I instantly thought of him when I happened onto the film, The Prestige. (more…)

Click Here to Read: The Bipolar Puzzle by Jennifer Egan, on the New York Times website on September 12, 2008.

Click Here To Read: Don’t Think of a Maverick! by George Lakoff, from the Truthout  website on  September 11th, 2008.

Click Here to Read: What Obama Needs to Do in the Final Sixty Days: Avoiding President Palin by Drew Weston from the Huffington Post Website on September 13th, 2008. 

Click Here To Read: Claude Levi-Strauss and Genesis 37– Exodus 20 by Alan W. Miller.  The was previously published as Miller, Alan W. Claude Levi-Strauss and Genesis 37 Exodus 20 in SHIV’IM: Essays in Honor of Ira Eisenstein (1977)  edited by Ronald A. Brauner.  Philadelphia, PA: Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, p. 21-32 and appears here with all requisite rights and permissions.
 
 
 

Click Here To Read: Queen of Darkness: At 90, the psychoanalyst Hanna Segal has spent decades probing the murkiest corners of the human psyche, an interview by John Henley in The Guardian  from the Website facekraft on September 09, 2008,

She talks to Jon Henley about her search for truth, the healing power of art and what her years in practice have taught her about life.

Hanna Segal

Click Here to Read: WUNC: The State of Things interview: Torture and Interrogation Symposium: Diary Entry by Stephen Soldz from the website OpEd News.com.

The following article on the research of Dolores Malaspina, chair of our dept of psychiatry at NYU Medical Center, replacing the irreplaceable Bob Cancro, confirms a position I articulated 11 years ago when I was studying the effects of cortisol on the developing fetal neuroaxis. Marta Weinstock’s research in Israel demonstrated ADHD type sx in offspring whose mothers suffered a great deal of stress during pregnancy. There is a great deal of this kind of research involving the effects of war (the devastating invasion of Finland by Russia, the nuclear holocaust of Japan, etc.) I am including some material on this subject from a previous paper of mine given at an international psychiatry conference.
Brian Koehler

Click Here To Read: Material on Prenatal Stress and Schizophrenia by Brian Koehler

Click Here To Read: Offspring of Mothers Exposed to Severe Stress More Likely to Have Schizophrenia, Study Finds (Great Neck, NY – September 08, 2008), This article was adapted by NARSAD with permission of NYU Langone Medical Center/New York University School of Medicine.