Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse: Band 36

Theoretische Beiträge:

• William I. Grossman: Technischer Gebrauch und psychische Funktionen der Theorie in der klinischen Arbeit. Das Beispiel des »analysierenden Instruments«
  Abstract

  The author discusses the ways in which psychoanalytic theories, like other theories, attempt to systematise the understanding of observations. Freud remarked that systems also have unconscious meanings. The author discusses these unconscious vicissitudes of psychoanalytic theories of both clinical and more abstract kinds, at various levels of psychological function. Learning psychoanalysis repeats in some respects the developmental processes of learning about ›reality‹. The role of authority and superego function in learning and utilising theories is emphasised. The enduring unconscious relationship of theory t o authority contributes to adherence to, misapplications of, and rejection of theories, as well as to anti-theoretical attitudes. The concept of an ›analysing instrument‹ illustrates the way in which a useful exploratory idea may acquire prescriptive and constrictive implications. Analysis of the analyst’s attitudes towards theory and its applications is an aspect of countertransference analysis.
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• Wulf Hübner: Die Entstehung des Selbst im Dialog. Eine sprachanalytische Begründung des anthropologischen Fundaments der analytischen Therapie
  Abstract

  The linguistic-analytic reflection of Freud’s distinction between conscious and unconscious mental states may give the reason for the anthropological foundation of analytical therapy. The significance of linguistic expressions for mental states is from the ego-perspective (from which they are directly known, their consciousness exists in the expression spoken in words) and from the observer-perspective (from which the existence of the actual state can only be concluded indirectly due to the person’s behaviour expressed in his body language) is identical. In case of unconscious mental states no spoken utterance in words of the person corresponds to these from the ego-perspective; quite the contrary: what the person says about his mental state is not covered by what others may perceive. The difference between unconscious self representation using body language and conscious self representation using words constitutes as a human condition the analytic situation as a dialogue. In it the attempt is made to join what had to be separated in the early dialogue of words and body language between mother, father and child, between expression (message) and perception (feeling addressed). For on the way to gradually finding (words) language, a process of becoming conscious, mental states whose becoming conscious would be to much for the mental organisation for the child may not be expressed with the appropiate words, they remain repressed in the unconscious, may reveal themselves as a symptom in behaviour. Because of the asymmetry between the mental capability of the child and the conscious and unconscious mental ability of the adults repression as the reaction of the child to the »mysterious message of the adults« (Laplanche), is a human condition too.
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Klinische Beiträge:

• Samir Stephanos: Das Schicksal der Frühtraumatisierten – ein altägyptischer Mythos als psychoanalytisch-ethischer Rahmen
  Abstract

  We treat patients who carry sustained traces of traumatizations from their early life histories in themselves. They are marked by a specific contact disturbance which is produced by the convergence of the patient’s isolation and the environment’s indifference. The pathognomic clinical picture (Befund) of these patients is introduced as »devitalisation in the object relationship«. At the centre of our therapeutic concept stands the »conference on episodes«. The psychoanalyst tries, on the basis of an episode - a seemingly minor event on the therapeutic encounter - to emphasize with the patient’s life history and starts to outline it. The psychosomatic pathology and the construction of the life history are exemplified by means of a clinical vignette. The therapeutic process, following a pattern of five steps, is started by the construction, continued and carried by the creative narrative of the patient. Dealing with early traumatized patients requires an attitude on the part of the therapist which is marked by sensitivity and inner strength. The ancient Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris serves us as a constructive frame work of therapeutic ethics. The five steps of its course correspond with the steps of the therapy.
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• Joachim Küchenhoff: Trauer, Melancholie und das Schicksal der Objektbeziehungen. Eine Relektüre von S. Freuds ›Trauer und Melancholie‹
  Abstract

  Freud’s »Mourning and Melancholia« is a transitional text, leading from drive to object relations psychology. In the present paper it is argued that Freud’s concept of mourning stays within the limits of drive psychology where as the concept of melancholia already considers the vicissitudes of object relations, esp. of introjective processes. Applying the method of immanent criticism, the concept of mourning is critized by the concept of melancholia and is reformulated. The concept of melancholia is important not only for the understanding of depressive illnesses, but also of other severe psychic diseases; this is illustrated by two case reports on the therapy of a phobic and a psychosomatic patient. Concluding the paper, the relevance of »Mourning and Melancholia« for sociological analysis is considered by commenting on the latest debate on Mitscherlich’s book on »The incapacity to mourn«.
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Beiträge zur angewandten Psychoanalyse:

• Sieglind Schröder / Konrad Hößler: »Ich will euch trösten, wie einen seine Mutter tröstet.« Überlegungen zum Trost durch Musik am Beispiel von J. Brahms’ ›Alt-Rhapsodie‹
  Abstract

  Brahms composed his op. 53 in a time of deep discord between him and Clara Schumann. For his composition he used a part from Goethe’s »Harzreise im Winter«, a poem, that shows the author’s recovery from a psychic crisis. As a mediator of consolation music is mentioned in the poem. We try to show, by which ways of consolation the poet and the composer let participate reader and listener in the psychic calming down.
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• Peter Dettmering: »Wie eine große Schwammfamilie…«. Psychoanalytische Anmerkungen zu Goethes ›Faust‹
  Abstract

  Goethe’s »Faust« with its span of nearly sixty years between its beginnings and its accomplishment contains strong contrasts, polarities and contradictions which have made this work one of the favourite targets of interpretation. Among other things the article tries to show that the intrapsychic complementarity of Faust and Mephisto is of stronger importance than the dualism of God and Devil. Faust’s self-appreciation as a »destroyer« - which also extends to the character of his father and his son
• can be traced into a deep layer of the work in which the contrasts of envy and gratitude (Melanie Klein) are of foremost importance.