Emanuel Berman

Something there is that doesn't love a wall

The history of the stormy love affair between psychoanalysts and literature is explored, with an emphasis on their basic affinity and on the animosity created by analysts’ reductionistic tendencies. Past studies of the dynamics of Robert Frosts emotional world and poetry are reviewed in this context. Ogdens sensitive reading of Frosts poems is portrayed as an example of the potentially mutual egalitarian encounter allowed by newer trends in psychoanalytic theory.

The Ferenczi renaissance

Sandor Ferenczi: Reconsidering Active Interventions by Martin Stanton (Northvale, NJ: Aronson, 1991, xv + 226 pp.) The Legacy of Sandor Ferenczi, edited by Lewis Aron and Adrienne Harris (Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press, 1993, xxiii + 294 pp.) The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sandor Ferenczi, Vol. 1, 1908–1914, edited by Eva Brabant, Ernst Falzeder, and Patrizia Giampieri‐Deutch under the supervision of Andre Haynal; translated by Peter T. Hoffer (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1993, xxxv + 584 pp.)

Sándor, Gizella, Elma: A biographical journey

In recent years, particularly with the publication of the Freud‐Ferenczi correspondence, it has become clear that the rich theoretical dialogue between Freud and Ferenczi, a dialogue that may be seen as constitutive for psychoanalytic discourse in recent decades, was intensely intertwined with their complex personal relationship. Two women‐Gizella Pálos, who eventually became Ferenczis wife, and her daughter Elma, who was both Ferenczis and Freuds analysand, and with whom Ferenczi fell in love‐played a crucial role in shaping the Freud‐Ferenczi relationship. Their own voices, however, have so far been barely heard. This paper is a preliminary report of a biographical research project which aims to complete the puzzle, by getting to know better Gizella, Elma and their family, with the help of numerous original sources, many of them unpublished till now. The emerging picture tends to confirm Ferenczis initial view of Elma as a person of depth and integrity, rather than Freuds view of her as fundamentally disturbed; countertransference‐love, it is suggested, may have facilitated fuller perception rather than clouding it. The question of the impact of Elmas ‘confusion of tongues’ with Ferenczi and with Freud on her subsequent life is also discussed.

Psychoanalysis and life.

The relevance of analytic work for people’s actual lives is a vital issue. The formation of analytic goals requires a negotiation process between analyst and analysand, a negotiation influenced by the inherent conflictuality of goals for each partner, and colored by the dialectics of goals and goallessness. As a potential contribution to such negotiation, the author emphasizes the fuller understanding and evolution of self-other relations, both as inner object relations and in their actualized external versions, with the help of the analyst’s complementary identifications, their self-disclosures when indicated, and a mutual intersubjective exploration when possible. The risks of an insular analytic process, uninvested in “external” reality and dealing exclusively with the analytic dyad, are discussed.

Ferenczi, Rescue, and Utopia

My interest in the paradoxical place of rescue fantasies in the vocational motivation and countertransference of analysts and therapists (1997), and in the way these fantasies can become a springboard for utopian wishes to rescue humanity (1993), has led me to contemplate the relevance of this topic for our understanding of Ferenczi’s work and its impact today (1996; 1999). The history of thinking about rescue fantasies teaches us something about the potential of professional and intellectual traditions to imagine themselves immune from the blind spots they observe in the outside world. When Freud (1910a) first discussed the phenomenon of the rescue fantasy, he attributed it to certain male patients whose emotional life centers around the rescue of “fallen women.” His interpretation was along oedipal lines: the woman is unconsciously seen as mother, and her rescue from sexual exploitation signifies having her for oneself, in defiance of the oedipal father. Theodor Reik (1911), Wilhelm Stekel (1911), and other early analysts pursued this line of thought, supplying intriguing clinical and literary examples. Karl Abraham (1922) added fantasies of rescuing the father, and interpreted them as a reaction formation to murderous oedipal wishes. But none of these prominent authors appeared to realize that these rescue fantasies may be relevant to our own profession. The roots of this insight, like the roots of our understanding of many other aspects of countertransference, appear in Ferenczi’s work, though he did not utilize the term rescue fantasies directly in this context. In “On the Technique of Psychoanalysis,” Ferenczi described situations when “the doctor has unconsciously made himself his patient’s patron or knight” (1919, 188). The context of this insight is important

Beyond Analytic Anonymity: On the Political Involvement of Psychoanalysts and Psychotherapists in Israel

This chapter is unique in combining several levels of discussion. One is the technical-theoretical discourse of psychoanalysis, aimed at therapeutic effectiveness, which, according to older models, recently challenged, will be hampered or eliminated by the analyst’s disclosing any real information about personal opinions and preferences. Another is autobiographical, as Emanuel Berman frankly discusses, and reflects on, his life history, including both early family and later political opinions and actions. A third is a well-informed brief history of political activities by mental health professionals in Israel wishing to take a role in unfolding historical developments around them. An interesting ethical and political question is raised: Should mental health professionals take a public stand on political issues qua mental health professionals? The writing in this chapter is marked by an uncommon degree of self-disclosure, self-analysis, and self-criticism, of the kind that has always been the ideal, if not the reality, in the history of psychoanalysis. One wonders how many of us could live up to that ideal in the way Emanuel Berman does.

ON “POLYGAMOUS ANALYSIS”

The close relationships among Ferenczi’s analysands at the time the Clinical Diary was written are explored, and their potential influences on their analyses are discussed. It is suggested that the fact that “a virtual group” emerged in this context may have sabotaged to some extent Ferenczi’s clinical work, because this setting did not allow the open joint exploration possible in an actual analytic group, and at the same time stood in the way of achieving “a background of safety” fostered by the privacy and confidentiality of a fully individual analysis. Several examples are given of situations that may have made analysands feel betrayed or abandoned by the divided loyalties of their analyst, and may have created painful splits in Ferenczi’s own countertransferences.

Reader and story, viewer and film: on transference and interpretation.

Two sides in Freuds attitude towards literature and art are presented: Freud the sensitive listener, whose interest in art is a potential springboard for a rich interdisciplinary dialogue; and Freud the conquistador, whose wish for power in ‘invaded’ territories is related to troublesome aspects of ‘pathography’ and ‘applied analysis’. The unique contribution of psychoanalysis may not be discovering objectively the true unconscious content of works of art, but rather enriching the exploration of the potential transitional space evolving between artist, work of art and readers or viewers, enhancing our sensitivity to multiple meanings and complex emotional influences of art. This requires exploring our own subjective experiences of art, which may be described as transferences (when art is mostly perceived as a source of insight) or countertransferences (when artists and their work are basically experienced as troubled patients). Transference (broadly defined) and interpretation tend to intermingle, both in the clinical analytic encounter, and in any reading/viewing of art, be it by laymen, analysts or other scholars. Several examples from the psychoanalytic study of literature and film are given, and three pairs of contrasting interpretations are studied, concerning Kafkas The metamorphosis, Minghellas The English Patient and Polanskis Chinatown.

Ferenczi and Winnicott: Why We Need Their Radical Edge: Commentary on Paper by Michael Parsons

Parsonss paper, “An Independent Theory of Clinical Technique,” is discussed. Agreement is expressed with many of the theoretical points made by Parsons, and the creative and freeing historical role of the British Independent tradition (recently attacked by Kleinian authors such as Segal) is praised. However, the author sees some of the clinical examples in the paper as expressing a traditionalist conception of psychoanalytic practice, with a strong one-sided emphasis on the analyst as a knowledgeable expert offering deep interpretations. Parsons does not question the nature of the actual intersubjective relationship in each dyad, with its fluctuations and its subtle nuances, which can go far beyond the proclaimed roles of the two partners, at times even reversing them. More radical points of view can be found in the work of Ferenczi and Winnicott, two authors who are significant both for Parsons and for the author; for example, Ferenczis emphasis on the patients capacity to interpret the analysts countertransference, and the experiments with the setting both made in their search for an adaptation to the unique ‘analysands needs. In conclusion, the paper calls for continued departure from standard techniques of any kind, critically deconstructing all traditional assumptions regarding the analytic process.

Identifying with the Other—A Conflictual, Vital Necessity: Commentary on Paper by Jay Frankel

Frankels paper is related to issues in the study of multiple personality, as well as to the dilemmas of identification in psychoanalytic training. The main point raised in this discussion is that the generalization that all identification is related to fear is untenable and that a continuum should be recognized between identification with the other in a close relationship as a constructive building block of ones identity and a traumatic identification with the aggressor that results in alienation.