Ken Corbett

More Life: Centrality and Marginality in Human Development

At both ends of the century, a border between the aberrant-marginal them and the ideal-central us has been constructed around and through the homosexual. I challenge the insufficiency of this characterization, so that we may learn more, not only about homosexuality, but also about the ways in which all human development is infused with an interplay between centrality and marginality. I argue that traditional developmental models are dominated by the normative logic of centrality, with limited accounting for the developmental necessity of marginality, whereas postmodern theories of subjectivity overvalue the potential of the margin and fail to account for the significance of similarity and coherence in human relations. I then use that criticism as a platform for proposing five quasi-axioms toward a new developmental model. Central to this new model, which employs constructs derived from chaos and systems theories, is the interplay of centrality and marginality in any given life.

NONTRADITIONAL FAMILY ROMANCE

Family stories lie at the heart of psychoanalytic developmental theory and psychoanalytic clinical technique, but whose family? Increasingly, lesbian and gay families, multiparent families, and single-parent families are relying on modern reproductive technologies to form families. The contemplation of these nontraditional families and the vicissitudes of contemporary reproduction lead to an unknowing of what families are, including the ways in which psychoanalysts configure the family within developmental theory. This article focuses on the stories that families tell in order to account for their formation—stories that include narratives about parental union, parental sexuality, and conception. The author addresses three constructs that inform family stories and that require rethinking in light of the category crises posed by and for the nontraditional family: (1) normative logic, (2) family reverie and the construction of a family romance, and (3) the primal scene. These constructs are examined in tandem with detailed clinical material taken from the psychotherapy of a seven-year-old boy and his two mothers.

Boyhood Femininity, Gender Identity Disorder, Masculine Presuppositions, and the Anxiety of Regulation

This paper details the diagnostic discourse that has accumulated around feminine boys, including the traditional presuppositions of Gender Identity Disorder (GID). The GID discourse is examined for the ways in which it is built upon unquestioned beliefs about masculinity. Distinct from most modern considerations of gender, no effort has been made to critically theorize gender when thinking about feminine boys; masculinity is as masculinity was. Consequently, we are left with modes of diagnosis and treatment that are out of synch with modern social life, and a set of ideas that do not proceed from an adequate understanding of the range that is masculinity. New sustaining ideals are in play, and in accord with these ideals an argument is made for a new mode of psychotherapeutic address. The traditional individual trauma explanation for GID is questioned. Particular emphasis is given to the ways in which this traditional GID discourse fails to reckon with how masculinity is held in place by the strong arm of regulatory anxiety. A new position that incorporates a greater appreciation for the role of social trauma and melancholia is offered. It is argued that a theory that offers insight into the workings of melancholia as it builds the feminine boy affords a more robust set of ideas through which to contemplate the boy. In turn, we come upon a better avenue of psychotherapeutic action—one that does not employ behavioral strategies that reinforce social exclusion.

The Analyst’s Private Space: Spontaneity, Ritual, Psychotherapeutic Action, and Self-Care

The contemplation, containing, and linking that circulate within the analyst’s private space are positioned as key to states of psychic equivalence (the melding of psychic reality and material reality) and to sustained states of unknowing, which are held to be necessary for analytic work and fantastic spontaneity. These modes of practice are considered as they relate to rituals that promote the analyst’s self care. An account of a psychotherapy with a 5-year-old electively mute girl is offered to illustrate the work undertaken in the analyst’s private space, as he seeks to build and sustain potential space and the possibilities borne through play.

Speaking the Body/Mind Juncture: An Interview With Gayle Salamon Assuming a Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010)

This interview/dialogue considers how a bodys materiality and desire assume fleshly form as a series of relational/embodied bids that extend, construct, and undo sensations, perceptions, and relations. Salamons employment of both phenomenology and psychoanalysis toward an enhanced notion of a bodily schema and the body ego are queried and discussed. Particular attention is paid to how Salamon seeks to illustrate transgendered bodies, desires, and identities as they are lived, materialized, and fantasized.

Cracking In: The Psychotherapeutic Action of Comedy

The relational reach and psychotherapeutic action of comedy are examined in the opening phase of treatment with a man who had an early history of neglect and consequent neurotic isolation. Through the examination of a series of comedic enactments that cracked into the beginning phase of this treatment, comedys animating force to defy neurotic gravity and aid in the reanimation of primal density is considered. The ways in which laughter opened into a maternal erotic transference—countertransference is further detailed, in conjunction with reflection aimed at the aggression of this comedic bond, including countertransference hate.

Talking Sex, Talking Gender—A Roundtable

This is an edited transcript of a roundtable held in the Spring of 2012, at the invitation of the Toronto Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis, where 4 of the most important psychoanalytic thinkers in the fields of gender and sexuality, Adrienne Harris, Virginia Goldner, Muriel Dimen, and Ken Corbett, came together to discuss the state of the field. Each of the participants prepared 1 question for each of the others. The discussion explored some of the historical areas these scholars researched as well as more current ones: the development of gender as a theoretical focus and its manifestations in social discourse now; sexual development, variance, and expression; the relations between gender and sexuality studies and the thrust of the women’s and queer liberation movements; the significance of different theoretical frameworks in understanding gender and sexuality, from traditional psychoanalytic notions to chaos theory; clinical considerations; and sexual boundary violations. This roundtable provides rare, sometimes personal, always rigorous, and illuminating snapshots of the work and the place of these minds now.

Clinical Reflection and Ritual as Forms of Participation and Interaction: Reply to Bass and Stern

We agree with the commentaries that Relational psychoanalysis has stood firmly against dichotomizing clinical reflection, on one hand, and interactional processes, on the other. Still, we wonder whether the relational literature has skewed toward interaction at the expense of concentrated attention to patients’ internal worlds. Predispositions toward interaction may diminish reflective space and quiet inwardness, which are themselves forms of analytic relating. We raise the possibility that the Relational model’s inclusive breadth, valuable as it is, might sometimes impede and even devalue discussions of specific technical matters. We consider clinical conceptualizations of ritual, “relating,” and “being in contact.”

Melancholia and the Violent Regulation of Gender Variance: Reply to Commentaries

In this reply to James Herzog and Gayle Salamon, the “in”/“out” boundary of gender and the psychotherapeutic address of gender is considered. Particular emphasis is paid to the ways in which gender is constituted through aggressive and often violent forms of social regulation. Matters of social justice are considered as psychoanalysts and mental health workers take up normative violence in the form of policy speech. Clinical dilemmas with respect to gender melancholia, trauma, and shame are also considered.

Happy Play: Reply to Commentaries

In reply to Phillips and Fuss, I consider the developmental action of affinity—in particular, Winnicotts (1958) propositions regarding “ego-relatedness” and “happy play.” Then, in response to questions raised by Fuss, I explore the function of models as tools—and the difficulties we face in changing our developmental vocabulary.