Jules Glenn

A note on loss, pain, and masochism in children.

HE HUMAN PSYCHE IS SO COMPLEX that it iS impossible to T tease out individual factors and demonstrate that they alone produce certain psychic configurations. Overdeterminism is the rule. In this paper, I shall concentrate on the role of early separation from parents and its influence on depression and masochism. Inevitably, I shall supplement the too-simple picture that emerges with an outline of other determinants. I shall indicate briefly the role of oedipal guilt (Freud, 1924; Brenner, 1959), the observation of the primal scene (Freud, 1905), the need to gratify sadistic parents (Berliner, 1947; Bernstein, 1957) and the mechanisms of control of dangerous objects and drives (Panel, 1956; Loewenstein, 1957; Eidelberg, 1968; Panel, 198 1). In referring to depression, I am including the affect of sadness (with its ideational and feeling aspects and physiological concomitants) and the diagnoses, often labeled depression, in which that affect appears. The diagnoses include reactive depression, endogenous depression, mourning, grief, and melancholia. By masochism I mean a clinical condition in which

Psychic Trauma And Masochism

Three analyses are presented in which acute trauma (overwhelming internal or external stimulation so great as to preclude the patients utilizing his usual defenses adequately) in childhood contributed to the development of masochism. The patients later attempted mastery through repetition, reversal, and erotization , and employed regression as a defense against feared oedipal wishes.

Freud, Dora, and The Maid: A Study of Countertransferenge

Early advances in psychoanalytic knowledge, profound though they were, were incomplete structures to be built upon, modified, and partially discarded. In addition to errors due to insufficient knowledge, Freuds difficulties with Dora stemmed from countertransference. Doras transference included an identification with a governess/maid. Important oedipal role played by a nursemaid in Freuds life made him vulnerable to being left by Dora. The maid, Monika, “the prime originator” of Freuds neurosis, seduced him, chastised him, and taught him of hell. In his self-analysis she was associated with Freuds mother who left him when she gave birth to his sister. When he was two and a half years old, Monika was discharged and jailed for stealing. I suggest that Freuds attraction to Dora revealed itself in his libidinal imagery of the treatment and his premature sexual interpretations, the effects of which he misjudged. Defending against his attraction, he pushed her away from him, did not act to keep her in analysis or allow her to reenter analysis later. In addition, since Dora had left him as he must have felt his childhood nursemaid had, he reacted as if she were that maid. Hurl, saddened, and angered, he used reversal and deserted her, thus damping his feelings.

Developmental Transformations: The Isakower Phenomenon as an Example

A review of the literature, and clinical analytic material suggest that the Isakower phenomenon and its variants consist of representations or sense memory traces of the orginal infantile feeding experiences integrated with later representations of experiences during the anal and oedipal stages, latency, and even later. With progressive development, memories of earlier experiences are transformed with regard to function, form, content, and meaning.

Psychoanalysis of a Constipated Girl: Clinical Observations During the Fourth and Fifth Years

T HIS PAPER WILL SUMMARIZE the psychoanalysis of a girl who suffered from bowel-movement retention and will include the details of specific sessions of her analysis, which took place when she was three to four years old. This method of presentation has the advantage of permitting the reader access to the evidence on which psychoanalytic formulations are based, but the disadvantage of being but one case and a relatively brief analysis at that-one year in duration. Another difficulty is in simultaneously evaluating two interrelated sets of data: the complexities of the psychogenesis of the patients illness and the inferences to be drawn concerning the psychology of girls her age. In studying psychopathology, we may also see normal development in relief. Conflicts, wishes, fantasies, and defenses are communicated to us vividly as only a patient eager for help can communicate them.

The significance of the trifurcation of the road: clinical confirmation and illumination.

n the Oedipus myth, the murder of Laius by his son occurs at a fork in the road; in 1923, Abraham wrote that this site was symbolic of the female genitals. According to his data, the bifurcation’ in the road indicated the location of the female genitals at the junction of the torso and the two lower extremities. Thus, the wish to destroy the father and to possess the mother sexually are both expressed in the myth by the conflict which occurs at the bifurcation, at the site of the female symbol. Abraham supported this hypothesis with clinical material. He reported a patient’s dream in which bifurcation carried this symbolism.

Book Reviews: Self and Motivational Systems: Toward a Theory of Psychoanalytic Technique

The Selfand MofivutionaZS’stem is an intriguing book. It is an amalgam of powerful insights, enlightening observations of children, and descriptions of what happens in analysis, along with attacks on straw men. At times the authors prefer to parody analysis based on interpretation of defense, drive derivatives, and unconscious conflict. Although in reading the book I agreed with much of what they had to say, often I was disconcerted by subtle (or not so subtle) distortions. While the book is often quite scholarly, its review of the literature on child development, for instance, is selectively so. Often concepts the authors proclaim as original and neglected by “traditional” analysts have in substance appeared in the writings of Freud and others, if under a different nomenclature. For instance, the authors emphasize the importance of “model scenes” constructed by analyst and analysand (Lichtenberg, 1989). These scenes occur in childhood but appear in current psychic functioning. They are not replicas of early experiences, but ra&er contain them; they may telescope earlier events. Although this sounds remarkably like the constructions Freud (1937), Kris (1956), and the Kris Study Group (Fine, Joseph. and Waldhorn, 1971). among others, have witten about, neither Freud (1937) nor the Kris Study Group paper appears in the references, while Kris is given short shrift. Instead “model scenes” are contrasted with “screen memories,” implying that traditional analysts believe only in the defensive significance of memories. Such distortions, which demean traditional analysts unnecessarily, diminish the value of the book as a bearer of important information regarding psychoanalytic theory. This is a pity, because the authors indeed have much to say. In many ways the book is a powerhouse. It contains a vast amount of information about child develop ment, which it attempts to integrate into analytic theory. It also describes and amplifies Kohut’s work on selfobjects. A strong chapter is included on morality, shame, guilt, and the superego which calls attention to the importance of the values of both analyst and patient.