Sue Grand

Unsexed and Ungendered Bodies The Violated Self

I propose that rape/incest potentiates a dual rendering of its history. There is a narrative cast in gendered and sexual states and enactments. And there is a thing narrative told by an unsexed and ungendered self (or “thing-self”). This splitting of trauma narratives ensues because the perpetrator is engaged simply not in humanized malignance, but also in an it-it encounter devoid of all desire. In the wake of sexual violation, there are traumatized sexed and gendered human selves. And there are traumatized unsexed, ungendered thing selves. The former seek an audience with a human recipient. But the latter are in search of a form of disembodied witnessing located in the thing dimension of the analysts consciousness. My speculation about the thing-self originated with a female patient who had endured childhood incest. I begin with an extensive clinical presentation of that treatment, with an emphasis on a persecuted disembodied thing-self. That self was revealed through a peculiar form of analytic theater and an attendant hallucinatory process in the countertransference.

Lies and Body Cruelties in the Analytic Hour

Discussing an intensive case study of female sexual dysfunction, this paper studies mutual deregulation and disintegration as it unfolds in the transference–countertransference dyad. I propose that ethical transgressions are potentiated in analytic dyads in which the analysts hope for either solitude or mutuality is foreclosed. This hope can be foreclosed by the particulars of the therapeutic interaction as well as by the theoretical and clinical aspects of analytic training. The deregulation that both precipitates and follows such transgression can be healed (in the analyst, in the analysis) only by the restitution of the therapists agency, the reduction of paranoid-schizoid guilt and shame, and the location (in the analyst) of depressive, “I-Thou” remorse.

The paradox of innocence dissociative “adhesive”; states in perpetrators of incest

This paper attempts to develop a phenomenology of the perpetrators conviction of innocence in a condition of actual guilt. This phenomenology is developed through the investigation of dissociative states in a certain type of incestuous perpetrator: one who is herself a survivor of sexual abuse, physical abuse, or both. Clinical material suggests that certain types of schizoid perpetrators can genuinely experience the incestuous act as not really real not really sex, not really mine. This clinical phenomenon is examined from the perspective of two contemporary theoretical trends: the new view of the self as multiple (Bromberg, 1993; Mitchell, 1993), and the neo‐Kleinian formulation of “adhesive”; (Mitrani, 1994) or “autistic‐contiguous”; (Ogden, 1989, 1990) modes of pseudo‐object relatedness. Incestuous acts are conceived as occurring within a prelinguistic modality, and are therefore not encoded in discursive, autobiographical memory. The coexistence of dissociated, multiple self states and modalities ac...

Sacrificial Bodies: Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, Torture

In this paper, I illuminate the underlying demonology of religious terrorism. I argue that counter-terrorist practices mirror the demonology that they are designed to resist. This argument focuses on our system of detention and torture. I suggest that the terrorism–counter-terrorism discourse relies on sacrificial bodies: the bombed body, and the tortured body. To find a creative response to terrorism, and to restore human rights, we need an alternate narrative for global violence. I suggest that this alternate narrative exists. I trace it through citizen resistance and a case study.

Skin memories: On race, love and loss

During African-American slavery, the rape of slave women by their masters was ubiquitous. This unrecognized atrocity shaped the US economy and has informed race relations. This history is written into the skin of US analysts, but it has not penetrated psychoanalytic theory, practice, or consciousness. My article traces the historical abuse of slave women’s bodies and the transgenerational effects of the exploitation. This tracing proceeds through an intimate look at the author’s personal analysis, in which she, a Russian-Jewish patient, is treated by a light-skinned African-American analyst. In the transference, the history of slavery emerges: the analyst’s apparent whiteness echoes with rape on the plantation. Racial guilt and conflict is worked through motifs of loss, forced separation, and internalized racism.

Termination as Necessary Madness

The author offers an intensive clinical study, in which the paradox of termination is illuminated. For this patient, termination repeats the schizoid problem for which he arrived in treatment. The fear of closeness is confirmed by the knowledge that closeness will inevitably lead to loneliness and loss. This treatment dilemma opens up an inquiry into the original formulation of the analytic situation. The author proposes that the structure of psychoanalysis—intimacy entwined with the severing of intimacy—may conceal a need-fear dilemma which lies at the heart of our practice. I propose that this dilemma has always been gendered. Resistance to termination has been “feminized,” and a willingness to terminate has been “masculinized.”

God at an Impasse: Devotion, Social Justice, and the Psychoanalytic Subject

In this paper, a clinical impasse is used to study the philosophical premises and culture biases that inform the foundations of psychoanalytic theory. In his childhood, the patient was a migrant laborer, in a large Christian fundamentalist family. He survived through forming bonds with other children, in shared conditions of abjection. In adulthood, he has fulfilled the American Dream. And yet he suffers. He feels like anyone and no one, and is without individual subjectivity. Through his illness narrative, his devotional practices, and a near-death clinical impasse, he confronts the analyst with questions. What is missing from our psychoanalytic vision of the “family”? Can we recognize this patient in our current models of attachment? If psychoanalysis extrudes politics and culture and spirit and ethics, can we “mentalize” this patient? What happens when a patient has a collectivized self, and no individual psychology? What happens when a patients Christian worldview is radically disjunctive with the Jewish ethos of psychoanalysis? Who is the psychoanalytic subject? Ultimately, the treatment argues for this: that we need to rewrite our understanding of the psychoanalytic subject.

Keeping faith with the other: A commentary on Mario

Haydée Faimbergs case of Mario is investigated through the lens of Kleinian and relational theory as well as trauma studies. We revisit Marios bodily communications in the analysis, when he is narrating money and history. Massive trauma ruptures human bonds. In my view, Marios madness is restorative of these human bonds. It functions as protest and sacrifice, love and loyalty. In the analysis, his body testifies to the covert resistance strategies that love enlists during genocide.

Uncertainty and Incest—Beyond True and False Commentary on Janice Haaken's Pillar of Salt

In this discussion of Pillar of Salt, I address the ambiguous location of truth within the false-memory controversy. Proposing a vision of traumatic history and knowledge as inherently confusional with regard to truth, I share with the author a repudiation of simple true-false dichotomies. Arguing for a new epistemological paradigm, I examine the nature of traumatic truth (and falsehood) and the way confusional history is manifest in this controversy.

Guest editors’ introduction to special section on cultural shifts in pedagogy: Controversy, safe spaces, and trigger warnings

Widespread concerns regarding classroom safe spaces and trigger warnings have generated much media attention. This collection of materials from an APCS conference workshop on the topic reflects an attempt by scholars in the clinical community to understand and manage the often affectively charged divisions that are generated by such discussions. Our experience suggests that significant additional time is needed to work though conflicts while social bonds are maintained, even in the presence of emotional pain. Even for experienced clinicians, this material suggests, the containment of divisive encounters remains a challenge.