408: Critical Thinking II
Instructors
Robert Smith, M.D.
Piergiuseppe Fedele, M.D.
May 6 – June 3, 2024
Mondays, 7:00 – 8:25 pm
No class: 5/27
Co-requisites
Candidates must have or have had at least two cases in supervised psychoanalysis to be eligible for upper level courses.
Course Description
This course will examine the status of psychoanalysis in the context of the perennial disputes that have attended its development since Freud’s anchoring of psychoanalysis in neuroscience and the general dissatisfaction with Freudian metapsychology. We will start with current manifestations of this dispute – is psychoanalysis best regarded as a branch of natural science or as a hermeneutic discipline? This will engage us with the following questions: What is science? Can psychoanalysis be scientific? What are the advantages and disadvantages associated with this connection? We will discuss the consequences of detaching from natural science and the challenges involved in the current attempts to integrate psychoanalysis with the natural sciences. Third and fourth year students combined.
Syllabus
In the class assignments please bear in mind that the topics are highly interrelated and are most meaningfully grappled with if they are not kept in separate compartments. Thus the class delineations are more for organizational than heuristic purposes and are not meant to be intellectually watertight.
Educational Objectives
Upon completion of this course, participants should be able to:
1. explain the epistemological dispute – is psychoanalysis a branch of natural science or a hermeneutic discipline.
2. describe the advantages and disadvantages attendant on these positions and the challenges involved in integration with the natural sciences.
Evaluation Method
Each student’s participation in class discussion and his or her demonstration of understanding of the course objectives and reading 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.
I. A Critique of Assumptions about the Etiology of Psychopathology by Psychoanalytic Theorists
CLASS 1: May 6, 2024
Willick reviews the incorrect and damaging theory of the “schizophrenogenic mother” as the cause of schizophrenia
as a cautionary tale about the problems with psychoanalytic theories of etiology, especially in relation to borderline pathology.
He describes three conceptual sources of this error:
– The more serious the disorder, the earlier its etiological roots.
– Inferring that transference-countertransference interactions reflect early pathological object relationships.
– Data derived from infant and child observation explains adult psychopathology.
Questions:
- In which way did Willick change his clinical approach after he realized the mistake analysts had made in their theory of the etiology of schizophrenia?
- Do you think that analysts continue to make the kinds of errors that Willick describes?
- In which ways does Willick qualify his views?
REQUIRED READINGS
Willick, M. S. (2001). Psychoanalysis and Schizophrenia: A Cautionary Tale. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 49:27-56.
SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS
Auchincloss, E. L. & Vaughan, S. C. (2001). Psychoanalysis and Homosexuality: Do We Need a New Theory?. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 49:1157-1186.
Grossman, W., & Kaplan, D. (1986). Three commentaries on gender in Freud’s thought: Prologue to the Psychoanalytic Theory of sexuality. In: Fantasy, Myth and Reality: Essays in Honor of Jacob A. Arlow, ed H. Blum, Y. Kramer, A.K. Richards, & A.D. Richards. New York: International Universities Press, 1988, pp 339-370.
II. On the Ultimate Goal of Psychoanalysis and a Way for Differing Theories to be Seen as Compatible
CLASS 2: May 13, 2024
Lear raises two questions that he feels are fundamental in understanding psychoanalysis:
- On what basis do we decide what to do in clinical moments?
- What is psychoanalysis for?
He argues that one cannot respond effectively to either question without having knowledge of the other one.
The article examines four approaches (those of Gray, Loewald, the contemporary Kleinians, and Lacan) to the same clinical moment and tries to show how each is intended to expand the freedom of the analysand’s mind.
- Do you think that Lear succeed in demonstrating this?
- Why does Lear think that it is important to link clinical technique to final cause?
- What do you think are the ultimate goals of psychoanalysis?
- Does Lear convince you that “philosophical inquiry lies at the heart of psychoanalytic technique”?
REQUIRED READINGS
Lear, J. (2017). Technique and Final Cause in Psychoanalysis. In: Wisdom Won from Illness. Cambridge Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press, pp 138-158.
III. A New Method for Comparing and Contrasting Different Analytic Theories and Simultaneously Elucidating What Analysts Actually do Clinically Without Dismissing any Approach
CLASS 3: May 20, 2024
Tuckett summarizes the findings of the European Psychoanalytic Federation (EPF) Working Party on Comparative Clinical Methods, a group created to address the “anything goes” approach to technique that some analysts fear has developed with the profusion of theoretical psychoanalytic models. The group includes analysts from a variety of psychoanalytic schools, each of whom employs their own clinical method. The group focuses on examining the psychoanalytic theory as instantiated in the clinical situation at a granular level. (Please note that Figure 1, which helps describe step 1 of their approach, is confusing because “Step 1” written above the vertical rectangle on the top left but actually refers to the entire diagram. In this diagram, A stands for analyst.) The group developed their own method of evaluating process material in attempting to perform a relatively value-free form of comparison. Tuckett states that this method allows each analyst to discover the strengths and weaknesses of their technique and identify and reflect on its consistency and coherence. In addition, it enables analysts to see what they actually do in practice separate from what they think they do based on theory.
Questions:
- How does the EPF Group arrive at an understanding of the presenting analyst’s theoretical and technical approach.
- Can you identify the model or models being utilized in the case examples?
- In what way can the approach taken by Michael in his treatment of Giovanni be seen as a demonstration of the kind of genetic fallacy that Willick criticizes in the paper we read in week 1?
- Tuckett describes nine core elements which he feels can be used to distinguish different analytic approaches. The first is conceptions of new experience and he states that, in practice, the clinical examples demonstrate that analysts very often emphasize either the centrality of interpretation and understanding or the new experience with the analyst (corrective emotional experience). Do you agree that the examples demonstrate that this is true?
Please keep in mind that some of the clinical examples might be difficult for you to understand because it is unlikely that you will have learned about all of the approaches being utilized. (This is the case for all analysts.) Don’t get stuck if you are struggling with one or more of the case examples. Be prepared to review the nine core concepts which divide psychoanalysts today.
REQUIRED READINGS
Tuckett, D. (2012). Some Reflections on Psychoanalytic Technique: In Need of Core Concepts or an Archaic Ritual. Psychoanal. Inq., 32:87-108.
SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS
Cooper, S. (2015). Clinical Theory at the Border(s): Emerging and Unintended Crossings in the Development of Clinical Theory. Int. J. Psychoanal, 96:273-292.
IV. Thomas Ogden and Psychoanalytic Field Theory
CLASS 4: June 3, 2024
Field theory was first defined by Baranger and Baranger in 1961. It has now evolved in a number of ways. Ferro defines it as “an approach constructed around the centrality of equidistant attention to the internal and external worlds of each of the participants in the treatment process and around the analyst’s willingness to cocreatively join in the patient’s mental activity, within a co-mingled dream space.” It has influenced some of the most original analysts writing today including Ferro, Civitarese, Grotstein, Botella and Botella, and Ogden. Ogden describes his conception of doing analysis as “that of dreaming with the patient aspects of his experience that have been too painful for him to dream on his own”. He has been influenced by the ideas of many psychoanalytic theorists and also by literature, poetry, plays and his previous analysts. While Ogden relies on reverie and metaphor in a creative way, he manages to do this while maintaining a disciplined technique. Following Bion, he views analysis as an “opportunity for dreaming” by which he means a type of unconscious thought (termed alpha function) which is contrasted with proto emotions and sensations (termed beta elements) which cannot be symbolized or thought about.) We will study his report on how he works as an example of how our field continues to evolve and transform.
REQUIRED READINGS
Ogden, T. H. (2016). Some Thoughts on Practicing Psychoanalysis. Fort Da, 22:21-36.
SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS
Baranger, M. and Baranger, W. (2008). The Analytic Situation as a Dynamic Field. Int. J. Psychoanal., (89): 795-826.
Civitarese, G. (2021). Intersubjectivity And Analytic Field Theory. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 69(5): 853–893.
Grotstein, J. (2009). Dreaming as a ‘curtain of illusion’: Revisiting the ‘royal road’ with Bion as our guide. Int J. Psychoanal., (90): 733-752.
Grotstein, J. S. (2004). The seventh servant: The implications of a truth drive in Bion’s theory of ‘O’. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 85:1081-1101.