310: Inside and Out: Mutual Influences of Psychic and Social Realities
Instructors
Donald Moss, M.D.
Lynne Zeavin, Psy.D.
March 22 – May 24, 2023
Wednesdays, 8:35 – 10:00 pm
No class: 4/5
Co-requisites
Candidates must have or have had at least two cases in supervised psychoanalysis to be eligible for upper level courses.
Course Description
Typically in our work we maintain an exclusive focus on the determining power of psychic reality. Psychic reality is thought to be the foundation of all our psychoanalytic understanding. This course will examine the undertheorized contributions of External Reality to individual experience and psychic development. We will discuss a variety of social formations and their impact on psychic life. In addition to taking on such pathological structures as racism, misogyny and homophobia, the course will explore ideology and false consciousness, the formation of our beliefs, and various forms of violence, including to the natural world. This course aims to uncover the multiple determinants of each of these phenomena, not only in unconscious fantasy, but also in unrecognized social forces. Embedded in this course will be a critique of our usual exclusive emphasis on psychic reality and individual development. Third and Fourth Year students combined.
Educational Objectives
Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:
- describe how social realities impact the development of our minds.
- discuss the interplay between the psyche and society, including the impact of race,
homophobia and our place in the natural world
Evaluation Method
Each student’s participation in class discussion and demonstration of understanding of the course objectives, readings and clinical material is assessed in a written evaluation by the instructor(s).
These articles are protected under relevant copyright regulations. They are available in the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute Electronic Reserve for your convenience, and for your personal use.
READINGS ARE CONFIRMED.
Session I. Neurosis & Ideology: Two Forms of False Consciousness
CLASS 1: March 22, 2023
REQUIRED READINGS
Ferenczi, S. (1952). The Ontogenesis of the Interest in Money. First Contributions to Psycho-Analysis, 45:319-331.
Fenichel, O. (1938). The Drive to Amass Wealth. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 7:69-95.
Session II.
CLASS 2: March 29, 2023
REQUIRED READINGS
Baranger, W. (1958). The Ego and the Function of Ideology. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 39:191-195.
Cornfield, H. (Director). (1962). Pressure Point [Film]. Larcas Productions.
(PLEASE WATCH on your streaming service.)
Session III.
CLASS 3: April 12, 2023
REQUIRED READINGS
Feldman, M. (1993). Aspects of Reality, and the Focus of Interpretation. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 13:274-295.
Young-Bruehl, E. (2003). The Interpretation of an Architect’s Dream: Relational Trauma and its Prevention. Psychoanalysis Culture and Society, 8:51-56.
Session IV.
CLASS 4: April 19, 2023
REQUIRED READINGS
Douglass, F. (1852). What to a Slave is the Fourth of July?.
Carby, H. (2020, July). Peine forte et dure. London Review of Books.
ACCESS HERE: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n15/hazel-v.-carby/peine-forte-et-dure
Carby, H. (2022, May). We must burn them. London Review of Books.
ACCESS HERE: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n10/hazel-v.-carby/we-must-burn-them
Session V.
CLASS 5: April 29, 2023 (Saturday, 11 AM – 12:30 PM)
Guest Instructor: Daniel Pick (from London)
REQUIRED READINGS
Schafer, R. (2005). Caring and Coercive Aspects of the Psychoanalytic Situation. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 53:771-787.
Faruqi, N. (Director). (2017). David Hawkins: A Battle of the Mind [Film]. Hidden Persuaders.
PLEASE WATCH HERE: http://www7.bbk.ac.uk/hiddenpersuaders/documentaries/david-hawkins-battle-mind/
Session VI. The More and More of Gender
CLASS 6: May 3, 2023
Guest Instructor: Ann Pellegrini
Please read the following chapters from Christina Crosby’s A Body, Undone: Living On After Great Pain (NYU Press, 2016). Total number of pages = 62. But I highly recommend the entire book!
REQUIRED READINGS
Crosby, C. (2016). A Body Undone: Living On After Great Pain. New York, NY: New York University Press. [In Chapters 1-3, read pp. 3-21]
Crosby, C. (2016). A Body Undone: Living On After Great Pain. New York, NY: New York University Press. [In Chapter 7, read pp. 53-62]
Crosby, C. (2016). A Body Undone: Living On After Great Pain. New York, NY: New York University Press. [In Chapter 11, read pp. 103-116]
Crosby, C. (2016). A Body Undone: Living On After Great Pain. New York, NY: New York University Press. [In Chapters 17 and 18, read pp. 184-202]
Crosby, C. (2016). A Body Undone: Living On After Great Pain. New York, NY: New York University Press. [In Notes, read pp. 209-213]
For Crosby’s direct engagement with psychoanalytic — and queer — accounts of mourning and melancholia, please read her short 2017 essay:
Crosby, C. “My Lost Body: The Radical Claim of Militancy and Mourning,” Guernica, 2017.
ACCESS HERE: https://www.guernicamag.com/my-lost-body/
Session VII.
CLASS 7: May 10, 2023
Guest Instructor: Ann Pellegrini
REQUIRED READINGS
Hansbury, G., & Saketopoulou, A. (2022). Sissy Dance $1: The More and More of Gender. Psychoanalytic Review, 109(3): 227–256.
Preciado, P.B. & Wynne, F. (2021). Can the Monster Speak?: A report to an academy of psychoanalysts. Semiotext(e)/MIT Press.
(Students are asked to purchase book – proceeds are donated.)
Session VIII. The Ideology of the Maternal
CLASS 8: May 17, 2023
REQUIRED READINGS
Gumbs, A.P. (2022, December) Mothering Not Motherhood. Parapraxis.
Session IX. On Racism
CLASS 9: May 24, 2023
REQUIRED READINGS
Keval. N. (2016). Racist States of Mind: Understanding the Perversion of Curiosity and Concern. London: Karnac. [Read Chapters TBD]
DOWNLOAD THE PDF
Shah, D. (2020). Dangerous territory: Racist moments in the psychoanalytic space. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 89(3): 399-413.
SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS
Dajani, K.G. (2022). The social unconscious: Then and now. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 19: 179-186.