Siegfried Zepf

Trauma and traumatic neurosis : Freud's concepts revisited

The authors examine Freud ’s concepts of ‘trauma’, ‘protective shield against stimuli ’ and ‘traumatic neurosis’ in the light of recent findings. ‘Protective shield against stimuli’ is regarded as a biological concept which appears in mental life as the striving to avoid unpleasant affects. ‘Trauma’ is a twofold concept in that it relates to mental experience and links an external event with the specific after‐effects on an individual ’s psychic reality. A distinction needs to be made between mentally destructive trauma and affective trauma. A destructive trauma does not break through the protective shield but does breach the pleasure–unpleasure principle, so that in the course of its subsequent mastery it leads to a traumatic neurosis. An affective trauma can be warded off under the rule of the pleasure–unpleasure principle and leads to a psychoneurosis.

Some Thoughts on Empathy and Countertransference

Two aspects of countertransference—namely, the countertransference reaction and empathic understanding—must be distinguished. The term countertransference should be reserved exclusively for the conscious reactions of the analyst emerging from the preconscious by virtue of the patients current transferences; the term empathy should be used to denote a perspective whereby the analyst employs current countertransference reactions for an understanding of the patients inner life.

Commentary on Kernberg's "suicide prevention for psychoanalytic institutes and societies".

D riven by concern that psychoanalytic institutes and societies will drift into self-inflicted ruin, Otto Kernberg (2012) has offered in this journal (JAPA 60/4, pp. 707–719) some proposals that, if put into practice, he believes would help prevent that suicide. His proposals include recommendations for changes in the organization of psychoanalytic institutes and suggestions for transforming their external contacts and presentation. We will first discuss Kernberg’s proposals for reorganizing psychoanalytic institutes.

Freud's concepts of transference and transference neurosis: reassessed

The authors investigate Freuds concepts of transference, transference neurosis and their mutual relationships. They discuss the current criticism made on the concept of transference neurosis and pose the question of why patients accept the analysts interpretation. They suggest understanding transference neurosis in the sense of conscious transference manifestations, referring to the analyst, which are the outcome of his successive interpretations of the type “just-like” followed up, changed, and removed again by “just-like-it-was- then “-interpretations. The authors conclude that the patient does not accept these interpretations for rational reasons, but rather for reasons pertaining to the transference situation itself

Naturalistic studies of psychoanalytic treatments: some epistemological and methodological remarks

The author discusses the extent to which psychoanalytic treatments can be tested nomologically. He concludes that nomologically oriented research operates from assumptions for which no empiricalfoundation is possible. He further claims that findings of naturalistic studies obtained with the nomological conception of science merely suggest that psychoanalytic treatments are effective and that the specificity of these treatments is overlooked in such research. To resolve this dilemma, the author suggests that naturalistic studies be separated from the nomological conception of science and that the structures of the course of treatments are examined and systematized within psychoanalytic treatment theory relative to their outcomes. A conclusion is that psychoanalytic treatments will be successful if the thus articulated theoretical sequences are actually realized in treatments that also take into account the patients individuality. This approach, however, requires that the treatment theory is based on a psychoanalytic conceptual common ground.

The relations between language, consciousness, the preconscious, and the unconscious

The author critically discusses Freuds conceptualization of the relations of consciousness, the preconscious, and the unconscious and demonstrates that the generation of consciousness cannot be explained by the mere addition of words and mental representations. He concludes that consciousness arises from the linkage of words and concepts in conceptual realms which yield specific content and meaning to what is experienced, whereas “preconscious” relates to a state in which presentations are without linguistic signs. On the other hand, “unconscious” (in the dynamic sense) indicates representations falling within the realms of concepts whose internal contents do not belong to them in terms of the individuals life history; such material may appear in consciousness with “false” names.

Oedipus and the Oedipus complex: A revision.

Translations of summary The authors consider whether those aspects of the Oedipus myths that have been ignored by Freud could improve our knowledge of how the Oedipus complex develops. They conclude that the myths can provide an answer to Freuds question posed on the 25 February 1914 (Nunberg and Federn, 1975, p. 234) concerning “the extent to which the Oedipus complex is a reflection of the sexual behavior of the parents” with Fenichels (1931, p. 421) view that the “childs Oedipus complex reflects that of his parents”.

MODES OF IDENTIFICATION: FREUD'S CONCEPTS REORGANIZED

The author examines Freuds conceptualizations of identification, Melanie Kleins projective identification, and Anna Freuds identification with the aggressor and altruistic surrender of ones own instinctual impulses. After demonstrating that Freuds concept primary identification refers not to a process but to the state of being identified, he suggests the substitution of it with Sandlers term “oneness”. He notes that hysterical identification, narcissistic identification, and introjection are unconscious processes that lead to a state of oneness and that they can be distinguished clinically in terms of the emotional meaning that an object holds for the individual. Furthermore, it is shown that the concept of identification with the aggressor represents a defense mechanism of its own and a specific mode of narcissistic identification, which together with projections and hysterical re-identification play a decisive rôle in projective identification and altruistic surrender of ones own instinctual impulses.

Abwehr, Verdrängung und Ersatzbildung

ZusammenfassungDer Autor untersucht die Beziehung von Abwehr, Verdrängung und Ersatzbildung, wie sie sich in den Schriften Freuds darstellt. Er zeigt, dass Freud den Ausdruck „Verdrängung“ in mehrfacher Bedeutung verwendet. Verdrängung wird synonym mit Abwehr benutzt, bezeichnet ein bewusst intendiertes Vergessen, einen unbewussten Abwehrmechanismus und das Resultat von Abwehrmechanismen, die zu Ersatzbildungen führen. Neben einer, die Widersprüche in diesem Verhältnis klärenden Diskussion, werden Freuds ökonomische und linguistische Begründung der Verdrängung und die Annahme einer Urverdrängung als notwendige Voraussetzung der eigentlichen Verdrängung kritisch erörtert. In Weiterführung der Freud’schen linguistischen Begründung der Verdrängung wird Abwehr als eine unbewusste semantische Verschiebung vorgestellt, bei der Vorstellungen aus den Extensionen der ihnen lebensgeschichtlich zugehörigen Begriffe entfernt, das heißt, verdrängt und in die Extensionen von Begriffen verschoben werden, die ihnen lebensgeschichtlich fremd sind. Dank der intentionalen Bestimmungen dieser Begriffe können die verschobenen Vorstellungen in Gestalt von Ersatzbildungen wieder ein, wenn auch falsches Bewusstsein gewinnen.Vorgeschlagen wird, die Verdrängung nicht länger als einen eigenständigen Abwehrmechanismus zu betrachten, die Freud-These, die Verdrängung schafft in der Regel eine Ersatzbildung, umzukehren und davon auszugehen, dass die Mechanismen, die zu Ersatzbildungen führen, in der Regel eine Verdrängung schaffen.AbstractThe author investigates the relationship of defence, repression and substitutive formation as it presents itself in Freud’s writings. He shows that Freud gives at least four different meanings to the term “repression”: Freud uses it interchangeably with defence, as a consciously intended forgetting, as a specific unconscious mechanism of defence and to describe the consequence of defence mechanisms leading to substitutive formations. The inconsistencies in this relationship are discussed and clarified and Freud’s economic and linguistic attempts to justify repression are subjected to critique as well as the need of a primal repression as a necessary condition for repression proper. In developing Freud’s linguistic justification of repression further, the author presents defence as a semantic displacement. Ideas are excluded from the realm of the concepts which belong to them historically. These presentations become unconscious, i.e. repressed, in that they can no longer be identified as “cases” of these conceptual internal contents. At the same time they are displaced into the extensions of concepts whose internal contents do not belong to them originally. It is by virtue of the internal contents of these concepts that the displaced elements as substitutive formations once again attain consciousness, albeit a false one.It is suggested that repression as a specific defence mechanism of its own should be dismissed, to reverse Freud’s thesis that repression as a rule creates a substitutive formation into its opposite and to understand that the mechanisms used to build substitutes as a rule create repression.

Do we need the concept of “splitting” to understand borderline structures?

The author questions whether Kernbergs suggestion that the interaction between splitting and other defence mechanisms—such as primitive idealization, omnipotence, devaluation and denial [disavowal]—gives an adequate psychodynamic explanation of borderline personality structures. The author shows that the assumption of a splitting mechanism provokes contradictions and that primitive idealization, omnipotence, devaluation and disavowal cannot be seen as genuine defence mechanisms. He argues that primitive idealization is a type of reaction formation and that the omnipotence of these patients can be put down to identification with the idealized ego-functions of their objects. He also maintains that the clinical phenomena can be understood as the outcome of a combination of an “equiparant” and “disequiparant” isolation, displacement, projection and primitive idealization, making the concept of splitting as an explanatory device superfluous.