Charles Brenner

A psychoanalytic perspective on depression

A correct understanding of the role of depressive affect in triggering psychic conflict leads to a reformulation of the origins and the psychodynamics of depression as a feature of mental illness. It also raises serious question about the validity of the diagnosis of depressive illness.

Notes on psychoanalysis by a participant observer: a personal chronicle.

Experience has shown how difficult it may be to decide which ideas are of passing interest and relatively little value and which are more important and fruitful. Examples of each are given in the form of a personal memoir. Some thoughts are added about the present and the future from the same vantage point.

Psychic Change in Psychoanalysis

Dr. Charles Brenner, the Chairman, noted the broad potential of the chosen topic and the intention of the panel to discuss change in many senses: as a philosophic concept, leading to considerations of the relation between psychoanalysis and physical science; as oscillation about a baseline of forward progress during clinical analysis, leading to recommendations concerning interpretation and technique; as alteration of psychic conflicts; and in relation to problems in devising methods for assessment of psychic changes resulting from the psychoanalytic process. The panel had previously decided not to read extended prepared papers, but rather to make brief opening statements, to be expanded as appropriate in the course of the discussion.

Re-evaluation of the libido theory.

At the beginning of the morning session Robert Wnelder outlined the idea and the plan of the panel. The idea was to concentrate on the clinical rather than on the metapsychological aspects of the libido theory. These clinical aspects he defined as follows: (1) The concept of sexuality is properly not limited to the genital expressions of sexuality, such as cohabitation, but on the contrary, as Freud proposed in 1905 in the Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, many other activities and propensities of the human organism rightfully deserve to be called sexual as well. (2) As Freud also proposed even earlier, psychoneuroses are primarily due to an inner conflict over sexual drives. That is, the clinical aspect of the libido theory may be said to refer to the doctrine of the crucial importance of infantile sexuality for the development of character, of neurosis, and indeed of all psychopathological phenomena. In this connection Waelder reminded us at both sessions that Freud held to this view throughout his life and expressed it even in his last work, the unfinished Outline of Psychoanalysis, in which he offered the opinion that the time of greatest psychic vulnerability was childhood and that the area of greatest vulnerability was that of the sexual functions. The plan of the panel was that the morning session was devoted to a consideration of the more radical criticisms of the libido theory by those who might be called culturalists or environmentalists. Such critics would discard the libido theory as untenable altogether. The afternoon session was devoted to the discussion of less radical forms of criticism, that is, in Waelder’s words, “criticism which does not question the role of the libido theory as such, but which sees its range of applicability both defined and restricted by the development of psychoanalytic thought in the ,last thirty years, which has been occupied above all with problems of aggression and with ego psychology.”

Analysis Of Transference Vol. I: Theory And Technique. By Merton M. Gill And Irvin Hoffman:

jh-ocess iiiorlel in mrlj chilllrood“ (p. 295). His data does not provide such a basis and his interpretation of tlie data only reflects the conclusion he had apparently reached before he began the study. T h e reference list consists mainly of studies by psychologists and psycliopliysiologists. There are sonic references to Freud and one to Jung, but none to more recent analytic studies of development, of ego psychology, or of dreams of either children or adults. Appendices consist of tables of correlative data iisetl to determine reliability of the dream analysis, dream findings, and extradream variables. \\‘hat is missing in this effort to 1tntlerst;ind children’s dreams is those data which help analysts to understand them-the background of the children studied, the current conflict and day residues, and the relation to the investigators (with its transference implications). If the author’s hope for collaborative studies could be fulfilled, he might consider having ;I child analyst participate in his next study so that some integration of analytic ktiowledge of tlevelopnient and of intrapsychic conflict with psycliological views of dream development might be achieved.