International Psychoanalysis » Letters To Editors

Letter to the Editors of the Washington Post by Herbert Gross

Tamar Schwartz — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:12:37 +0000

Click Here to Read: ‘Goldilocks’: Balancing learning and self-esteem, Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post by Herbert Gross on January 21, 2012.

Click Here to Read: The article Herbert Gross was respondidng to: In schools, self-esteem boosting is losing favor to rigor, finer-tuned praise By Michael Alison Chandler in the Washington Post on January 15, 2012.

Treating People With Schizophrenia

Tamar Schwartz — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:21:59 +0000

Click Here to Read: Treating People With Schizophrenia, Letters to the Editors of the New York Times on November 29, 2011.

‘Mandated reporter’ applies at Penn

Tamar Schwartz — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:24:55 +0000

Click Here to Read: Letter: ‘Mandated reporter’ applies at Penn by Richard R. Hansen on the Newsday website on November 17, 2011.

Tomorrow’s Psychologists

Tamar Schwartz — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:12:30 +0000

Click Here to Read: Tomorrow’s Psychologists (3 Letters) in the New York Times on November 14, 2011.

Training Lawyers: Theory vs. Practice

Tamar Schwartz — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:25:27 +0000

Click Here to Read: Training Lawyers: Theory vs. Practice: Letters in the Editors in the New York Times November 21, 2011.

Intern Gap Frustrates Clinicians in Training

Tamar Schwartz — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:19:44 +0000

Click Here To Read: Intern Gap Frustrates Clinicians in Training By Joseph Berger in the New York Times on November 8, 2011.

Click Here to Read: Tomorrow’s Psychologists (3 Letters) to the New York Times on November 14, 2011.

Crews’ vs. Freud’s need for Certainty

Tamar Schwartz — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 19:59:22 +0000

Click Here to Read: Physician Heal Thyself Part I by Frederick Crews in the New Review of Books September 29. , 2011.

Click Here to Read: Physician Heal Thyself Part II by Frederick Crews in the New Review of Books October 13, 2011.

Crews’ vs. Freud’s need for Certainty
By William J. Massicotte and Harold J. Bursztajn

On Crews’ Physician, Heal Thyself: the scientific studies showing clinical effectiveness for the psychodynamic psychotherapies have detached the issue from Freud the person.[1]. Within Crew’s piece Freud’s discovery of countertransference attitudes are implicitly mentioned when discussing Freud’s own occasional unhelpful attitudes towards patients. One condition required for effectiveness is the management of countertransference, including both consciously rationalized and unconsciously motivated desires for diagnostic and therapeutic certainty, which shadow much of clinical and medical practice.[2] In psychoanalytically informed therapy, when countertransference is not recognized and managed this becomes one predictor of therapeutic failure.[3]

Freud himself quite often changed his mind both about theory, the causes if his patients’ suffering, and how best to be of help. We continue to learn with our patients’ help. Crews’rehash of his own clever, nowcocaine focused, ad hominemcertainties as to Freud’s cocaine use being responsible for the limitations in Freud’s theories, arefantasies reminiscent of Newton’s religious and alchemistic views being held responsible for the limitations of Newtonian mechanics on the quantum level. By way of full disclosure neither of the authors below is a cocaine or opiate user.

William J. Massicotte Ph.D., FIPA

Co-Chair, Public Information Committee, International Psychoanalytical

Association

Montreal West, CANADA

Harold J. Bursztajn, M.D.

Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry

Harvard Medical School

Cambridge, Ma USA

[1]E.g., Jonathan Shedler’sThe Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (American Psychologist, vol 65, p 98). The letter signed by 54 credible scientific researchers (The New Scientist, 27 October 2010) all of whom have produced evidence. The JAMA piece by Leichsenring and Rabung, Effectiveness of Long-term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: A Meta-analysis, JAMA. 2008;300(13):1551-1565.

[2]Bursztajn HJ, Feinbloom RI, Hamm RM, Brodsky A. Medical Choices, Medical Chances: How Patients, Families, and Physicians Can Cope With Uncertainty. New York: Delacorte, 1981; New York: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, 1999.

[3]Therapeutic outcome success is commonly defined as an effect size on a scale out of 2. For psychodynamic therapies, the effect size is between .69 and 1.46 depending on the initial condition; compared to the common antidepressants, between .17 and .31. (Shedler).

Sunday Dialogue: Seeking a Path Through Depression’s Landscape

Tamar Schwartz — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 15:25:52 +0000

Click Here to Read: Sunday Dialogue: Seeking a Path Through Depression’s Landscape in the New York Times on July 16, 2011.

Invitation to a Dialogue: Treating Depression

Tamar Schwartz — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:02:21 +0000

Click Here to Read: Invitation to a Dialogue: Treating Depression by Warren Procci in the New York Times on July 12, 2011.

Warren Procci

Paul Holinger’s Letter to the New York Times Re: Physical Punishment

Tamar Schwartz — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 22:33:03 +0000

To the Editor:

As a child analyst, I see the carnage of physical punishment every day in the office. Physical punishment is a major public health problem in this country.

Elizabeth Gershoff (Report on Physical Punishment in the United States) and Susan Bitensky (Corporal Punishment of Children) have recently summarized the data: physical punishment does not work; it makes things worse at every developmental level (it is associated with delinquency, antisocial behavior, abuse of one’ own children later on and so forth); and there are effective alternatives.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychoanalytic Association are among those calling for a ban on physical punishment and the use of effective alternatives. Crucial to decreasing physical punishment are education (about infant and child development), legislation (to help parents who are at risk and to protect the children) and additional research.

The prevalence of smoking has been cut in half in the past 40 years. Surely we can do the same with physical punishment.

Effective alternatives can be summed up as “words instead of actions.” If we truly want a less violent society, not hitting our children is a good place
to start.

PAUL C. HOLINGER
Chicago, March 30, 2011