Eline Trenson

Psychoanalytic Single Cases Published in ISI-Ranked Journals: The Construction of an Online Archive

nique (e.g. music therapy, bodypacking, wilderness therapy, etc. were not included), (3) the case study is either the focus of the article or an illustrative vignette of sufficient size (more than 50% of the publication or longer than five pages), (4) the case study is written in English, French, or German, and (5) the case study presents an original analysis of therapeutic data. Four hundred and fifty-three cases were selected according to these criteria. The full text of 8 cases could not be obtained. The full texts of the remaining 445 articles were screened with the Inventory of Basic Information in Single Cases (IBISC), an ad hoc constructed inventory that assesses the presence of basic information on research method, patient, therapist, and therapy. The IBISC, the IBISC manual, and the full results of the screening are available at www.singlecasearchive.com. What follows is a concise overview of salient results of the screening.

Interpersonal problems and cognitive characteristics of interpersonal representations in Alexithymia: a study using a self-report and interview-based measure of Alexithymia

Abstract In this study, associations between alexithymia, interpersonal problems, and cognitive-structural aspects of internal interpersonal representations were examined. Alexithymia was measured using the Toronto Structured Interview for Alexithymia (TSIA) and the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). To measure interpersonal problems, the dominance and affiliation dimension scores of the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems were used, and cognitive-structural characteristics of interpersonal representations were measured using the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale (SCORS). As hypothesized, alexithymia was related to cold and withdrawn, but not to dominant or submissive, interpersonal functioning. In terms of the SCORS, alexithymia was negatively related to complexity of interpersonal representations, both in TAT and in interview narratives, indicating a link between alexithymia and mentalization. However, alexithymia was related only to the dimension of social causality when this dimension was scored on TAT narratives. Overall, the TSIA provides the most consistent and stable results after controlling for negative affectivity.

The Assessment of the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale on TAT and Interview Data

This study examines the reliability and convergent validity of 2 versions of the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale (SCORS), one for use with Thematic Apperception Test narratives (SCORS–TAT; Westen, 1990) and one for use with clinical interview data (SCORS–CDI; Westen, Barends, Leigh, Mendel, & Silbert, 1990). Four SCORS dimensions were evaluated. Data were collected in a psychiatric sample (N = 74). Results show that although interrater reliability was good for all dimensions, internal consistency was low, especially for the affective dimensions. Structural equation modeling, in which a model with 2 factors (i.e., SCORS–TAT and SCORS–CDI) and 4 dimensions each was tested, indicated low convergence between corresponding dimensions of SCORS–TAT and SCORS–CDI. Correlational analyses suggested that this was due to a strong method factor. Regression analyses, however, revealed that the presence of a personality disorder operated as a moderator for convergence between corresponding cognitive-structural dimensions.

Hysteria between Big Brother and Patriarchy

Like many others, I (Verhaeghe) discovered Juliet Mitchell via her first book, Psychoanalysis and Feminism (1974). The way she extended psychoanalysis, from the individual to family and society, was an eye-opener to me. In the two decades that followed, I studied Freud and Lacan, but just after the new millennium, Anglo-Saxon psychoanalysis was brought back again under my attention when I attended Juliet Mitchell’s lecture on siblings in New York, and later, in Vienna, her lecture on gender. I read Mad Men and Medusas and Siblings, which reminded me of the necessity to place psychoanalysis in a much broader framework than only a family frame, and to assign psychoanalysis an explicit political and social dimension (Verhaeghe, 2014a).

Psychoanalyse morgen: Aan gene zijde van ‘het goede’ en ‘het geluk’

Met behulp van de dystopie ‘Corpus Delicti’ van Juli Zeh maakt dit artikel een opstap naar onze huidige maatschappij, die op een gelijkaardige manier wordt gekenmerkt door een streven naar een ideaal. Zowel het boek als de hedendaagse westerse maatschappij keert terug naar een aristoteliaanse ethiek, die het ultieme ‘goede’ – uiteindelijk ‘geluk’ – beoogt. Via een lezing van De Kesels ‘Eros en Ethiek’ en een korte omweg langs Freuds ‘Aan gene zijde van het lustprincipe’ zien we dat er vandaag – naast het streven naar lust – een andere tendens van het lustprincipe wordt ontkend: het streven ‘aan gene zijde van lust’.In een maatschappij die steeds minder oog en oor heeft voor het enigma van het menselijk verlangen – dat net omwille van haar structurele tekort en onmogelijkheid tot bevrediging angst inboezemt – is het de psychoanalyse die de weg aan gene zijde van ‘het goede’ en ‘het geluk’ erkent. Deze angst leidt er uiteindelijk toe dat de plaats van de psychoanalyse er steeds meer een wordt ‘aan gene zijde van’ het huidige dominante maatschappelijke vertoog.