Roy Schafer

Problems in Freud's Psychology of Women

Freud’s ideas on the development and psychological characteristics of girls and women, though laden with rich clinical and theoretical discoveries and achievements, appear to have been significantl...

The interpretation of psychic reality, developmental influences, and unconscious communication.

H E D I s r I r w u I s t ~ I N < ; FEATURE OF CLINICAL analytic interpreT tation is its emphasis on psychic reality. That is to say, interpretation centers on the personal meanings the analysand ascribes, especially unconsciously, to events and actions in the past and present. Typically, these unconsciously ascribed meanings are organized in repetitive fashion around infantile conflicts, fantasies, and modes of thought and feeling. But interpretation deals not only with psychic reality. It is more exact to say that it involves a complex, subtle, and shifting distribution of emphasis on psychic reality, developmental influences, and unconsciously communicated messages. I shall attempt to clarify some of the issues that arise in connection with this shifting distribution of emphasis. To make the issues concrete, I shall focus specifically on how analysts take their analysands’ representations of other people and how they deal with these representations in their interventions. By “other people” I refer to people other than the analyst and analysand, those whom the analyst encounters only in what the analysand says about them. I shall, however,

Character, ego-syntonicity, and character change.

EKtiAI’S TIiE FIRST QUESTIOX TO RAISE in a theoretical discusP sion of character is whether it is worth bothering with the concept at all. Unlike the ego, which, as a systematic concept, camc after it, character has never been provided with either a satisfactory conceptualization or a definite place in psychoanalytic theory. iUorcovcr, in an amorphous way character overlaps the concept ego. In other respects, character overlaps both the concept serf, which is now very much in theoretical vogue, and the free-floating concept slyle or “neurotic style” as elaborated by Shapiro (1 965). But conceptualizations of self and sfyle, in turn, usually overlap those of the ego. For these reasons alone, one remains uncertain of one’s theoretical ground when referring to character. One feels better positioned with respect to character when the discussion turns to clinical or technical matters and centers on such issues as resistance, defense analysis, conflict resolution, ego-syntonicity, and subtle expressions of maladaptiveness. It is, however, questionable whether this security is any more warranted than theoretical security in regard to the concept of character. This is so because for some time there have been at hand the theoretical and technical concepts of ego analysis, defense, intersystemic and intrasystemic conflict, acting out, multiple function, the synthetic function of the ego, secondary autonomy, and others of that order, and these, far more than character, have an established place in

Cordelia, Lear, and Forgiveness:

Painful human interactions are often followed by urges to forgive, be forgiving, or seek forgiveness. The insight analysands develop into their transferences highlights their finding gratification in constantly reenacting painful interactions. Their new understanding can make forgiveness seem irrelevant; waiving the question of forgiveness might then seem the wiser course to follow. Also thrown into question is whether total forgiveness of self and others can ever be achieved. Shakespeares The Tragedy of King Lear raises these questions. There we encounter, first, the painful interaction of Cordelia and Lear and, finally, Cordelias response, “No cause, no cause,” to a dying Lears begging her forgiveness for having initially treated her cruelly. Cordelias response seems to be waiving the question of guilt and forgiveness, but could it be whole-hearted? In a search for answers, a reading of Cordelias and Lears lines is interwoven with interpretations of unconscious conflict that might be considered were one to encounter clinically a “Cordelia” abused by an aging and failing father at a turning point in her womanly development. Unconsciously, it is concluded, unforgivingness persists alongside the loving, insightful waiving of forgiveness made possible by higher-level ego functioning. Methodological reflections on reading and interpretation are included.

THE CLINICAL ANALYSIS OF AFFECTS.

HE RICH PSYCHOANALYTIC literature on affects is beset by three problems: heterogeneity of theoretical formulation; overemT phasis on abstract metapsychological formulation-particularly economic formulation; and insufficient rigor in developing the connections between theory and observations made in the psychoanalytic situation. As a result, it is difficult to decide objectively in favor of any one of the conflicting points of view or to unify the points of view that are simply uncoordinated. This in the face of the fact that so much analytic effort is expended investigating affective experience. It seems urgent, therefore, that ~ v e re-examine the means by which we learn about affects in the clinical situation. This paper is concerned with one set of these means. In analytic work with affects we have in mind certain categories, and questions associated with these categories. I have sorted out eight such categories: (1) affect existence; (2) affect formation: (3) affect strength; (4) affect stimuli; (5) affect complexity and paradox; (6) affect location; (7) affect communication; and (8) affect history. These categories implicitly and explicitly guide our investigations and organize our observations. They are the downto-earth, common-sense foundations on which the abstract metapsychology of affects should be built. Before discussing these categories, the guidelines for this presentation should be made plain. Not attempt will be made to arrive at a comprehensive and unified theory of affects: this would be premature. Nor will the terms, aflect, emotion, and feeling be

Reflections on 'thinking in the presence of the other'.

The author argues that as analysis progresses, mutual processes of projective and introjective identification result in an interpretation of analyst and patient such that the contributions that each participant makes to the analytic dialogue are to a significant degree imbued with the prior contributions of the other. This consideration renders the concepts of evidence and confirmation ambiguous and applicable only with a certain amount of caution. Further complexity is added to analytic protocols by the limited regulation of interpretation by the general guidelines of the theoretical orientation in play. This understanding of the analytic process contrasts sharply with that put forward by those who place particular emphasis on the centrality of the so-called real relationship in bringing about change.

Disappointment and disappointedness

The author argues that the widespread affective experience of disappointment has not received the analytic attention it deserves, and that this is particularly the case for disappointedness as an outstanding feature of a way of life. Disappointedness is presented as a pathological organisation or character disorder that expresses specific unconscious fantasies and gives rise to disruptive transference-countertransference manifestations. The author singles out disappointedness as a special problem rather than, in the usual way, subsuming it under depressiveness or masochism and then assigning it a subsidiary or merely descriptive role. With the help of a case example, he attempts to illustrate the benefits of heightened clinical awareness of disappointment and disappointedness. These benefits include increased access to the compromise formations that can stand in the way of effective analytic work.

Curse and consequence: King Lear's destructive narcissism

Shock, pain and antipathy are common audience responses to King Lear’s violent abuse of Cordelia in Scene 1 of King Lear; however, the play then shifts so rapidly to other dramatic relationships and events that it tends to push these feelings out of mind. This shift is here regarded as a seduction to repress the fear and antipathy aroused by Lear. This effect opens the way to sympathetic identification with him in his subsequent humiliation, suffering and madness. These contrasting responses help build a tragic structure in which a more complex Lear becomes the victim of his curse on Cordelia. The seductive design resembles efforts by analytic patients to induce the analyst into repressively neglecting significant aspects of transference that require analytic attention. And Lear’s bearing the consequences of his curse is likened to aspects of the decompensations of severely narcissistic patients. Additionally, to the extent that the audience has unconsciously identified with Lear’s violence and participated emotionally in other painful scenes, as is likely to be the case, it has been unconsciously reacting as well with guilt and depressive anxiety. These reactions increase readiness to be diverted from destructive narcissism and responses to it.

Reply To Madelon Sprengnether

By “waiving of forgiveness” I intended to convey the rational action one would take upon realizing that he or she had been active in provoking the painful situation in which another person seemed to be the sole perpetrator. Lear might seem to be the sole perpetrator were one to interpret Cordelias “Nothing, my lord” in any way other than her expressing anger and a desire to be hurtful at the time of the love contest, and her doing so ambivalently, that is, despite her loving, dutiful, and protective feelings for Lear, feelings all the more intense in view of his mental and emotional decline. I tried to point to a number of lines throughout the plays first scene that, taken together, seem to show that Shakespeare was preparing the ground for Cordelias ultimate “No cause, no cause.” A complex, multiple view of responsibility for pain and disaster often, as here, precludes any one participants feeling it appropriate to assume a forgiving attitude toward the other(s). In this case, forgiveness is no longer at issue, though, unconsciously, unforgiving feelings may persist. I have tried to show that Shakespeare carefully constructed act I, scene i, to prepare his audience to realize that both Lear and Cordelia, loving as they were but each being in a complex developmental and emotional situation, jointly brought about a tragic course of events that culminated in their both perishing.

Rorschach interpretation of Freud's “Wolf Man” at age 69

This Rorschach test seems to have been well administered in the manner originally laid out by Herman Rorschach (1942). However, from the vantage point of what modern Rorschach administration and recording requires (Schafer, 1954), this document lacks essential features. The recording is not verbatim; it includes neither behavioral notes nor the verbal formulations and transactions between tester and subject. Also, there is no location sheet that outlines responses clearly, no account of the patient’s understanding of the purpose of the testing, and no context provided by the results of a battery of other tests. Nevertheless, the existing record seems to allow a significant amount of reasonably confident interpretation. An additional question must be raised about my interpretation: has my familiarity with the case of the Wolf Man through my studies and teaching guided my analysis of this Rorschach record to such an extent that it could be thought that I was simply finding what I was looking for? The question becomes only slightly less pressing if I declare that with an age-appropriate, somewhat spotty memory and with my not having studied, taught or kept up with ‘the latest’ on the Wolf Man, I consciously recall only scraps of what was once thoroughly familiar; yet I do know I would instantly recognize the details were they presented to me. Offsetting the implications of these considerations is the fact that the patterning of content and formal features of his Rorschach responses point in a very obvious way to the realm of interpretations that includes the very ones I put forward. So much is this so that I felt compelled in drafting the following report (see below) to question whether, to some extent, the subject was responding in a contrived, preconceived manner. Also, the interpretations I developed are not altogether in the direction that I, knowing that the Wolf Man was the subject, had expected: there were surprises.