What's now grouped under the umbrella of "ego psychology" was once called "classical Freudianism." Lacanians also, at times, adopt the position of representing the "true Freudians." I have some questions for Lacanians who oppose "ego psychology"--or, more broadly, the dominant theoretical & technical line in psychoanalysis across continental Europe and the US in the 40s-60s, which was theoretically grounded in Freud's structural model and technically focused on analysis of transference and resistance.

What exactly are the Freudian critiques--not the Lacanian ones--of that theoretical & technical line? The Lacanian critiques I've encountered all use his language and theoretical framework (and so can at times seem to assume their validity as a premise), and I also find many of them seem to argue against strawmen (e.g., the idea that classical analysts had for their patients the treatment aim of normative adaptation to society). I haven't come across critiques grounded in Freud himself--that is, critiques of the claim that midcentury ego psychology represents a conservative fidelity to Freud's thought & technique that lay out the ways it in fact significantly diverges from, misreads, or misrepresents Freud. What are the theoretical concepts and technical principles being argued against, and what is the Freudian case against them?

I would love for any Lacanians to try to respond in your own words, and I'd also welcome links to papers that engage with these questions. In either case, I'm interested only in arguments that narrowly draw on Freud himself for making the case against midcentury "ego psychology"/"classical Freudianism" and don't employ Lacan or Lacanian language or concepts in any way and that have concrete references for ideas or positions they're critiquing and don't build strawmen out of classical/ego psychological thought & technique.

hi everyone!
I'll skip the part about introducing myself and my background, I'll just say that I'm a psychologist and I'm getting my education in my country. I work within a different approach, but I'm EXTREMELY interested in psychoanalysis and the psychodynamic approach in general, and so I have a few questions - they might seem stupid to you, sorry, but I genuinely want to turn to experts for advice. I'll also warn you that English isn't my native language, so sorry if there are any mistakes here.^^

If we don't go into details and if we acknowledge HOW complexly everything is structured, what would you advise someone who is just starting their journey in psychoanalysis, in general? As if you were going back to the very beginning of your own journey: what would you recommend to that version of yourself?

I'm also very concerned about the question of literature — textbooks, manuals, guides, anything on psychoanalysis. Could you recommend must-reads at a basic level, something on various aspects, some SSS+-tier books? And in particular - I'm interested in clinical psychoanalysis/the psychodynamic approach, I would be incredibly grateful for pointers specifically in that direction, because I find it hard to find something on personality disorders/addictions/other clinical situations there.

And the last (but not least) question: I constantly hear that in psychoanalysis and the psychodynamic approach there are a great many different directions and schools, for example, "relationalists," the Lacanian school, and many, many others. Is there some kind of list of all possible directions/modalities/whatever this even is, so that I could choose something for myself? And I'd also be glad for book suggestions for these approaches, if you can recommend something worthwhile on this or that direction…

Thank you so much! You'll be helping me incredibly, good luck <З

My supervisor has me reading stuff by the post-Freudians/psychodynamic therapists and I have to say it's very heavy on phenomenology. Their goal is to describe their concepts with as much detail and variety as possible. It reminds me a lot of academia.

Lacan, and Freud, on the other hand, focus much more on the structures and principles underlying these diverse phenomena. Lacan especially almost never gives case studies but these papers are filled with them.

They both have their place I suppose but I find Lacan's writings much much more inspired.

If a patient with bother BPD and NPD becomes aware of their condition and unconscious material, integrating it, no longer splits, then gradually bolsters their ego functions / capacities - even achieves whole object relations, ability to see others as seperate more often, mentalizing capacities, but regresses under stress and loss. Is this neurotic structure? but still cannot maintain a consistent transference with a therapist? They mostly talk at the therapist and do not absorb what they say, can’t remember sessions. Only family members or “partners”. There is still a fear of self activation , “I can’t do it” out of fear of separation. Fears getting better and maturing because that meant withdrawal and punishment in childhood. A lot of defensive regression.

A lot weird somatic symptoms which I’m guessing related to abandonment depression. Via James Masterson. Does anyone know how the abandonment depression is worked through?

Can Transference Focused Psychotherapy be effective for patients meeting twice a month? Or does it need to be multiple times a week to be intense enough?

Forgive me if this is a silly or redundant question but is there anything more specifically significant about dreaming of being in analysis or in a very clear or stated analytic situation (eg. experiencing a very abrupt moment of transference with someone who is identified as the analyst, experiencing oneself as being the analyst to another), especially if one has never been in or experienced actual analysis, only read about it and studied it? Wish-fulfillment, or something deeper?

pretty much title; looking for some reading on ADHD/ADD from a psychoanalytic view - approaches, ontologies, case examples, etc. not exclusive to any population or age group

Can anyone recommend psychoanalytic literature on how an analyst’s public visibility affects the analytic frame? I’m particularly interested in overlapping social circles and changes in anonymity over the course of a longstanding analysis.
I’d appreciate theoretical or clinical writing on these dynamics and their implications for transference, privacy, and boundaries.

I'm a third year psychology student and I spent all of summer getting into Lacanian theory, I've read books like "how to read Lacan", "introduction to the lacanian clinic", "signifier pointing at the moon", "The queerness of psychoanalysis" and so on...

But I'm having a difficult time in uni applying this lense to the given material cause the material's too reductionistic, methodical and too focused on psychopathology through the lense of books like the DSM-V

I believe diagnosis via a lacanian lense is possible because of Bruce fink's books, but he only talks about hysteria and obsessive compulsion and perversion... is there a way to understand personalities like let's say, narcissistic, schizoid, depressive, hypomanic by Lacan?

Opinion | Therapy Needs Therapy. Neuroscience Can Help. - The New York Times

I feel like this must have already been touched on but -

ADHD as a masculinity inspired disorder where desire is converted into duty and necessisity to cover over a sense of helplessness and dependency.

Like men hide their desire for women by hiding behind their acts. Saying as a man it's my duty to do such an such. Or that it's evolutionary science, it's my instinct that makes me pursue you.

Avoiding revealing their lack and desire.

ADHD as an exaggerated form of creating lots of mini emergencies. You're doign one task, and then your brain says that you actually need to do something else. And you just bounce from need to need.

Then this links to IBS and the connection with ADHD.

Since IBS is an inabiltiy to say i desire to exit this scenario thats converted into a bodily symptom of bowels acting up which then permits you to say "I need to leave"

Then also the relation with omnipotence and time.

Where desire reveals limits, lack. And forces you to exclude other decisions you can make. Which these things reveal you're not a god. and that you're helpless because you can't attend to everything.

I've written an article (though written by AI, I'm not a writer. But still these ideas). I can post it as a comment here if people would like, but on this psychoanalytic sub I guess people get the gist.

Anyway would love to hear your thoughts.

I really enjoyed a lecture of Jessica Benjamin's (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FyqIRk6JLI&t=3937s), and am zeroing in on a small part of it (starts at 1:22:30) in the hope of gaining some insight.

Benjamin starts w/ a Fairbairn quote: “It is better to be a sinner in a world ruled by God, than a saint in a world ruled by the devil (moral defense).”  She goes on to say, “The preoccupation with keeping mother good and repairing the object translates into the need for a world safely ruled by God. This is where we get into all the trouble and this is where understandably the confusion around what is really reparation arises. Now remember that when this happens clinically what you see are people for whom goodness… their worthiness to even live, and their sanity are at stake. If they (the patient) have in some way alienated you (the analyst), then they are really in danger of being not worthy of living, and possibly really crazy. Experiencing that with someone is also extremely painful and difficult; it’s nothing to make light of.”

I know she’s in the Winnicottian territory of the need for the object’s survival of one’s aggression, the need to be able to depend on the object and know that the object won’t retaliate (by withdrawal or attack) or crumble if one ceases being actively preoccupied w/ constantly repairing the object within one’s own mind (alone, anxious, rather than a real interpersonal relationship and exchange; and this being relational theory’s critique of Klein). What I’m interested in is her description of what happens when this paranoid, obsequious preoccupation of needing to always be working on keeping the object good… when it sort of cracks; it strikes me as a sort of spell that suddenly lifts. When one, somehow, can see that the world is not ruled by God, that the thing that kept the object good in one’s eyes was maintained only by one’s own omnipotent and quasi-delusional mental activity… when one glimpses that the reparation going on was actually a pretense… I’m interested in the state of mind that follows from this. It sounds like that patient suddely drops into a no-man’s land, and they don’t know what the fuck is going on; hence the what sounds to me like severe depression and risk of psychosis. I’m interested in this state of mind, and why this situation she describes has such a devastating effect.

If you have any thoughts that would help me understand this a bit better! 

I know the psychoanalytic discourse (not in the lacanian sense) has found it's point of reference in "individual" subjectivity (true subjectivity in the lacanian sense) and it has the ethical standpoint of not interpreting anything beforehand, which is respectable and great. The "questioning" aspect is unique and powerful.

Now, can there not be built some type of discourse of mental health that's psychoanalytic? In my country, Argentina, psychoanalysis (lacanian, hegemonically) has a sort of "I'll tell you how it's cool to live" vibe which I don't really like, it's a self-helpish discourse in it's worse form. (EDIT: particularly, there's a weird "fool! You want the Other to like you but I know he doesn't exist!!") Scientific psych discourse is at least clinically oriented, and concerned with strong suffering. Psychoanalytic discourse here is also very academic and inaccessible conceptually.

I could imagine (I'm still understanding the ideas, I'm a psych student) a discourse with thought tools that are helpful to people who are in pain and don't know what to do about it, like the mental health CBTish kind. Surely they could just go to therapy, but is that all psychoanalysis can offer?

After this rambling. What are your opinions, considerations or knowledge of relevant events related to this?

I am looking for any writing that speaks to an ending that is unexpected and “forced” in analytic treatment, ie, it comes about due to no fault of the analyst or the analysands.
Context may be useful: for example, a client begins training and the analyst doesn’t meet the requirements and the client has to find a new analyst. At the time of choosing to train the client didn’t know that they would have to find a new analyst and now has time make a time sensitive decision. They choose to do the training and leave the analyst.
Any writings on this battle of desire, how the ending might be managed or anything else that feels relevant?

Ive been researching a lot as I used to want to do a phd in "social sciences or the humanities"

So i dug and dug and this is what i think i should be reading:

Donald kalsched

Nathan Schwartz salant

Harry guntrip

Bion

Winnicott

Erich fromm

Melanie Klein

Hanna segal

Piera aulangier

Freud and jung

Anna freud

Jean piaget

Flournoy

Lucien levy brul

Charles Brenner

Heinz kohut

Charles rycroft

Dany nobus

Paul bishop

Daniel n Stern

Ludwig binswanger

R.d. laing

Michael balint

Jean laplanche

Andre green

Carol s Pearson

James hollis

Connie zweig

Edward edinger

Erich Neumann

Marie Louise von franz

Barbara Hannah

Alenka zupancic

Leston havens

David a.s. Garfield

Paul federn

Stanton marlan

Margaret s mahler

Michael Fordham

Thomas b. Kirsch

Donald b rinsley

Luc ciompi

Diego Enrique Londoño-Paredes

Roberto Harare

Stijn vanhuele

Samo tomsic

Stanislov groff

Harriet Lerner

Polly young eisendrath

Sylvia Brenton Pereira

Marion woodman

Peter fonagy

Georgy gergely

Elliot l. Jurist

Mary target

I find these books very fascinating and interconnected as far as tracing generations of therapists and thinkers. Everyone learned from someone. Im interested in pathologies, philosophy, marx, and psychoanalysis. Ill never get a PhD and dont have the stamina to read a book a week. But im trying.

Im also european and like that kind of thing (jung, Hegel, lacan, schelling, konrad lorenz, freud) as living America is very different now as an adult. (Parents were euro proffs, friend groups were international and considered themselves educated, now I'm in Florida hah)

Will this start to make sense if i keep reading and rereading? Is it worth it? (The last date i had me and my date, a novelist, thought it was obvious we should read all of freud together (ended up ghosting me but it was a good idea) Or is all for nothing but traing towards being skilled at reading? I think all these folks except for garfield, some of the lacanians like Harare or jungians like hollis or kalsched, are still alive. So what trends or schools of research could supplement this?

This started back in 2006 or so when I was wanting to followand learn jung. Then I studied anthropology (lead me to some earlier psychoanalysis anthros like gannanath obeyesekere, Gregory bateson, sudhir kakar, and georges devereux. , and pretty cool philosophy and synthesis like iain mcgilchrist and jean gebser)

I know im missing the gestalt school. A lot of the above I guess is like academic psychoanalysis. I have this book called "lost in cognition" by Eric laurent. I have not looked at it yet but its about (i think) the shift from analysis to cognitive psychology.

What should I actually be reading to feel like i learn to understand... whatever "it" is, the object of psychology, it's knowledge, discourses, and ammo for not being "zinged" by other jargons or discursive regimes?

I'm one of those people who love tests. Things like questionnaires, projective tests (Rorschach, etc.). From those more intended to understand the emotional subjectivity of a patient, to those more focused on cognitive functions (memory, attention, etc.).

Have there been psychoanalysts who have developed different tests and structured techniques?

---

For example, I know about Otto Kernberg's STIPO, although I still haven't been able to find the full version.

Part of the reason I'm asking is that I was thinking about the “un-scientific method of psychoanalysis.” I know that's a whole different discussion, but I was thinking, “Hey, I think it might be very possible to create a questionnaire to try to measure and capture psychic phenomena.” For example: ideas of omnipotence, different defense mechanisms, etc.

Because I think that many times we leave these things as “it's unconscious material; we can hypothesize about it, but we can't measure it.” But then I thought, “Wait a minute, maybe something can be done with all this.”

I don't mean being rigid about it, like other bad methods. I don't mean something like, “Okay, your results on the questionnaire were this, so that means this.” I mean it more as an approximation, of course, or as a way to guide the clinician, and even as a way to perhaps try to make at least some parts of psychoanalysis a little more scientific.

I have my own critiques of psychoanalysis, using “psychoanalysis” here to refer broadly to the whole body of literature and school of thought that has accumulated under the term "psychonalysis" over time, but I would like to hear yours.

Is there anything you feel psychoanalysis falls short of describing—or, rather, anything you think that, given the theoretical material currently available, psychoanalysis doesn't quite have the language to put into words?

Or are there aspects of psychoanalytic methodology where you feel it falls short, and that you have had to supplement on your own, outside what is commonly discussed by psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic theorists?

Do you ever feel that, at some point, the model becomes strained or reaches its limits when dealing with certain subjects?

And I don't mean genuine limitations, since obviously there are things we cannot reasonably expect psychoanalysis to address. I mean more whether you sometimes feel that there are “subjects psychoanalysis doesn't touch on” that should be explored further; whether you sometimes feel that the psychoanalytic vocabulary falls short when it comes to naming certain mental phenomena; or whether you feel that it doesn't provide tools you consider necessary for therapeutic work, forcing you to move beyond the psychoanalytic framework.

Of course, I mean topics that warrant psychoanalysis taking an interest in and addressing them.

I'll read your answers.

I admit that I haven’t finished it, but I’m finding myself irked by the self-helpy bent of the book. At the conclusion of each chapter, we get a little run-down of what it takes for that particular “type” to be able to fully love and fully live. It all feels just a bit too pat. I have loved some of her other work, and she seems like a talented clinician. I’m just not loving this new one, but I would be delighted to be convinced otherwise. Does anyone have a different perspective that will help me to see this book differently? Or just any thoughts at all about this book so far?

I was listening to Donald Carveth on YouTube the other night and he mentioned Robert Langs' article Truth Therapy/Lie Therapy. I managed to find a copy and found the article really interesting, and also was impressed by Langs as a theorist and writer.

I'm now down a bit of a rabbit hole reading more of his work, and I feel like he covers a lot of ground and is quite impressive in his scope of thought, but also deviates quite strongly from classical theorists. I'm particularly challenged by his notion of a deep unconscious that is moral/ethical in nature, which I'm finding very hard to reconcile with other psychoanalytic theorists.

I'm curious if others have engaged with Langs and what they make of him. I haven't seen him mentioned at all on the sub since I've joined a few years ago which makes me wonder if he's somewhat of a fringe theorist.

I’m looking for accessible, practice-oriented texts for working psychodynamically with children and their families. I’ve had more behaviorally-based training experiences but now I have an opportunity in my postdoc to work again with children and families. Many thanks.

Guys, if anyone finished reading this, Id like to know your insights and opinions on this. So far I was shocked to see how he’s backtracking everything a person does to their upbringing and their connection with their parents.
I know most of the psychoanalysts simply hate his theories but reading this only makes their reactions valid. Any thoughts?

I'm looking for case studies where one of the partners in the romantic relationship has a narcissistic character structure within the neurotic range. Case studies of individuals that mention their relationships would be very much appreciated too.

Thanks in advance for sharing your perspectives.

For context, I’m an academic in a humanities field (non-psych PhD) in New York State considering training. I know, there are way too many of us making this transition in the last 5-10 years. I’ve been in a personal analysis for 5 years.

My fantasy or hope is to continue teaching a couple of courses per semester while I undertake training, so I can keep my health insurance and library access and all of that, and perhaps continue teaching part time while working clinically. Those of you who are in training or have an LP, does teaching 1-2 days a week seem compatible with the workload of training or practicing after the LP? 

Obviously I know some people do this, and most people in training also have to work, but I’m curious about your perspectives and experiences.

My other thought is that I should get an MSW first. From watching friends move through NYC institutes, it seems like having an MSW lets you get hours faster and maybe insulates you somewhat from the personality cult clusterfuck that is many (all?) NYC institutes. Like if it doesn’t work out at your institute, at least you got some training and can practice psychoanalytically without the LP. Does this make sense? Is it better to get the MSW and then start at an institute? 

I was thinking about somewhere like Smith where I could take courses in the summer and then shoehorn my clinical placement around my teaching schedule. Or else Hunter and trying to carve out some time to teach. But I also don’t know if I could stomach social work school… And I have zero psych or social science coursework, and zero clinical/ social services work experience.

Has anyone else here maintained an active connection to academia/teaching while pursuing an MSW? Most people I know who have done MSWs have taken out loans to live, vs. LP training where you can work alongside the coursework. Those making the switch to an MSW from another field, did you pursue prerequisites first? Are there other programs you’d recommend?

Thank you in advance for your thoughts!