Freud's very brief 1922 paper on the beheading of Medusa by Perseus wisely concludes with a call for a further examination of the sources of the legend. A now widespread interpretation of this legend ...is based (often without acknowledgement) on an addition to traditions concerning Medusa made in Ovid's
. It is argued here that this Ovidian innovation has often been misinterpreted, and that a more careful reading of
supports neither a widely alleged exclusively vengeful portrayal of Medusa, nor Freud's portrayal of Medusa's decapitation as
a pitiable and terrible symbol of castration. Instead, Ovid's complex treatments of myths involving Medusa, Minerva and Perseus present parallels with Kleinian insights into phantasy attacks on fecundity, and into imagined revivals of dead or damaged inside babies. Thus the "displacement upwards" of the fearful castrated maternal genital envisioned in Freud's "Medusa's Head" must stand beside a quite different "displacement upwards" of the life-giving maternal genital. Indeed, tradition holds that Medusa's beheading gives rise to the birth of vigorous twins. Together with allied details, this aligns Ovid's masterwork with theories that modify or displace the so-called "sexual phallic monism" that some believe taints Freud's theories of gender development.
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This book provides an excellent introduction to the theory and technique of communicative psychoanalysis and links it with the growing field of evolutionary psychoanalysis. It provides a clear and ...stimulating account of some of the most recent developments of lang's highly original and contraversial work, which many practitioners continue to find deeply unsettling.
Reviews the books, The Analyst's Reveries: Explorations in Bion's Enigmatic Concept by Busch Fred (see record 2019-13679-000); Dear Candidate: Analysts from Around the World Offer Personal ...Reflections on Psychoanalytic Training, Education, and the Profession by Busch Fred (see record 2020-95859-000); and A Fresh Look at Psychoanalytic Technique: Selected Papers on Psychoanalysis by Fred Busch (see record 2021-80653-000). In three recent books, the American psychoanalyst Fred Busch puts forth a clear, rigorous, open-minded vision of contemporary psychoanalysis and makes a powerful case for its enduring relevance in 21st century life. Firmly grounded in the American Freudian tradition, Busch’s work emphasizes the gradual working through of unconscious conflict and the bolstering of the mind’s self-reflective capacities. Busch is unwavering in certain core principles, such as the importance of symbolic thinking, the mutative role of interpretation, and the need to stay “in the neighborhood” of what a patient is willing and able to hear at any given moment. Yet, he understands on a very basic level that no theoretical orientation or technical apparatus is ever complete and that the stunning mystery of the human mind is inexhaustible. His writing offers the reader a compelling image of an exceptionally skilled, emotionally attuned, intellectually rigorous clinician hard at work, one who remains humble and open in relation to the unknown and deeply committed in his search for psychic truth. With regard to the meaning of contemporary psychoanalytic practice, what he gives us is as much an ethos as a set of powerful and useable ideas. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
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The evidence that antipsychotics improve brain function and reduce symptoms in schizophrenia is unmistakable, but how antipsychotics change brain function is poorly understood, especially within ...neuronal systems. In this review, we investigated the hypothesized normalization of the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) blood oxygen level dependent signal in the context of antipsychotic treatment. First, we conducted a systematic PubMed search to identify eight fMRI investigations that met the following inclusion criteria: case-control, longitudinal design; pre- and post-treatment contrasts with a healthy comparison group; and antipsychotic-free or antipsychotic-naive patients with schizophrenia at the start of the investigation. We hypothesized that aberrant activation patterns or connectivity between patients with schizophrenia and healthy comparisons at the first imaging assessment would no longer be apparent or "normalize" at the second imaging assessment. The included studies differed by analysis method and fMRI task but demonstrated normalization of fMRI activation or connectivity during the treatment interval. Second, we reviewed putative mechanisms from animal studies that support normalization of the BOLD signal in schizophrenia. We provided several neuronal-based interpretations of these changes of the BOLD signal that may be attributable to long-term antipsychotic administration.
Freud's approach toward understanding art is limited to some factors. He overemphasizes the neural aspects of artistic experience. His analysis of artists, to a great extent, depends on his need to ...expand and indicate the psychoanalytic theory he was working on. He confessed that he failed to confront art's official and technical aspects, and psychoanalysis has not yet been able to realize the artist's intrinsic "secret" and "mysterious ability" in creating a work of art. Freud investigated the artist's individual unconscious for the origin of creating a work of art. Freud's view of art can be seen as a continuation of the modern aesthetic view of art and at the same time expresses its criticality. We are faced with a different approach to art and the beginning of a work of art. In this approach, Heidegger sees the beginning of the work of art as separate from the artist and his personal life and tries to connect art with the truth. On this basis, he gives a new interpretation of art. This study explored the foundations, components, and assumptions of psychoanalytic interpretation of art. According to Heidegger, one of the places where truth is realized is in art. Moreover, based on Heideggerian thought on art and poetic thought, this study examined the strengths and weaknesses of psychoanalytic interpretation of art and attempted to explore the relationship between art and truth in psychoanalytic interpretation and Heidegger's interpretation of art.
At a time when many questions are arising about the nexus between psychoanalysis and social justice, the writings of Hans Loewald open an avenue for broadened conceptualizations of psychoanalytic ...activity and the role of interpretation within it. The pursuit of social justice, it is argued, is integral to psychoanalytic ethics, and the relation between activists and society can be formulated in Loewaldian terms. Using Loewald, and considering case examples from social justice informed advocacy, direct action, and protest speech in AIDS activism, social justice activism can be understood as a spontaneously emergent psychoanalytic interpretation delivered by activists to their social surround, effectively accomplishing multiple forms of therapeutic action. The therapeutic action includes a working through in two phases of the negative social transference, a concept proposed here to elaborate a mechanism for the transformation, through the interpretive aspects of activism, of psychic material directed toward marginalized subjects and those expressing marginalized subjective positions. Resistance to social justice activism is examined using the forms of resistance identified by Freud.
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