{"title":"Structural stability in the analytic process.","authors":"Didier Houzel","doi":"10.1080/00207578.2024.2441913","DOIUrl":"10.1080/00207578.2024.2441913","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The notion of stability is present in Freud's work. However, the libido theory model limited its use. Kleinian authors have explored this theme in more depth, describing the risks of the loss of ego stability or defensive systems protecting against chaos and mental turbulence. Dynamic systems theory has interested several psychoanalysts since the 1990s, as it seemed to offer a non-deterministic and non-linear model of the human mind. For some, it has a heuristic value as a metaphor for mental functioning; for others it offers the hope of a real formal modelling of metapsychological theories. The author focuses his attention on the forms of stability described in this theory: simple, periodic and structural. He puts forward the hypothesis of transitions from one type of stability to another in the psychoanalytic process, allowing access to the structural stability of representations that retain self-similarity. The analytic situation must offer an open dynamic system between two poles, maternal and paternal, which constitute the strange attractor necessary for the transition from a form of archaic stability to structural stability. Extracts from a child psychoanalysis are used by way of illustration.</p>","PeriodicalId":48022,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Psychoanalysis","volume":"106 4","pages":"714-732"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145042044","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Becoming <i>raced</i>: Psychic consequences of transgenerational racial trauma.","authors":"Dionne R Powell","doi":"10.1080/00207578.2025.2518592","DOIUrl":"10.1080/00207578.2025.2518592","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Race, including racism, racial trauma, and racial anxieties, remains contentious for psychoanalysts to consider as a psychic phenomenon. Unlike aggression and sexuality, racism is held in silence and resistance, inhibiting exploration of this aspect of mind. This paper describes how we become raced by exploring the transgenerational transmission of racial trauma, writ large, and its intrapsychic, structuralizing components. By examining how and where the analyst locates themselves racially and working through our resistance and countertransference to this type of exploration, this paper invites us to include these aspects of mind for our analytic use. Using examples from the creative arts and clinical vignettes to demonstrate how being raced is embodied and symbolized in mind as a universal phenomenon opens a therapeutic aperture for clinicians who may benefit from a psychoanalytic, intrapsychic perspective on this aspect of our shared humanity.</p>","PeriodicalId":48022,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Psychoanalysis","volume":"106 4","pages":"733-749"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145041955","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Injury, grievance, and revenge, in the wrath of Achilles.","authors":"John Steiner","doi":"10.1080/00207578.2025.2455641","DOIUrl":"10.1080/00207578.2025.2455641","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In this paper I want to trace the complex relationship between grievance and revenge. Both are expressions of the rage that arises in response to feelings of injustice and humiliation, but they differ in the direction that the rage is expressed. In revenge it is outwardly directed, usually as a violent attack, while in grievance the violence is inhibited and the rage is held inwardly in a state of withdrawal. I will use characters and episodes from Richard Holmes' life of Coleridge and from Homer's Iliad to explore this theme, especially with respect to Achilles, whose rage is the chief subject of the Iliad. It is initially expressed as a withdrawal into grievance and subsequently as an active rampage of violent revenge. I will look at the consequences of these different forms of expression of anger and also try to explore what factors enabled the direction of his rage to be so dramatically reversed.</p>","PeriodicalId":48022,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Psychoanalysis","volume":"106 4","pages":"784-798"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145042020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Response to Moss: Correspondence concerning the Psychoanalytic Controversies section on the Israel-Palestine conflict (issue 1, 2025).","authors":"Shmuel Erlich","doi":"10.1080/00207578.2025.2527463","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00207578.2025.2527463","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48022,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Psychoanalysis","volume":"106 4","pages":"861-862"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145042087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correspondence covering the psychoanalytic controversies section on the Israel-Palestine conflict (issue 1, 2025).","authors":"Donald Moss","doi":"10.1080/00207578.2025.2527461","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00207578.2025.2527461","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48022,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Psychoanalysis","volume":"106 4","pages":"858-860"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145042013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A reading of stereotypy in autism through the concept of iteration.","authors":"Leandro Jofré","doi":"10.1080/00207578.2024.2394076","DOIUrl":"10.1080/00207578.2024.2394076","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Stereotypies currently occupy an important place in the clinical profile of <i>autism spectrum disorder</i> (ASD). Since they are usually described with the notions of <i>sameness</i>, <i>resistance to change,</i> or <i>lack of variation</i>, it would seem as if <i>everything</i> were repeated, and <i>nothing</i> could change. In this context, the following question arises: What is it that is repeated in stereotypical repetition? To answer this question, one must turn to clinical vignettes of patients diagnosed with ASD and to the concept of <i>iteration</i> stemming from two different epistemic fields (psychiatry and fractal geometry). Firstly, it is suggested that what is repeated in stereotypies, in particular, is the <i>initial figure</i>, since the elements that are unconnected to it change or may change. Secondly, specifically in the context of autism, it is suggested that what is repeated in a stereotypy is <i>the very fact of repeating</i>.</p>","PeriodicalId":48022,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Psychoanalysis","volume":"106 4","pages":"680-695"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145041923","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Avoiding a repetition of past mistakes: Response to Gozlan's critique of \"Do we want to know?\"","authors":"Roberto D'Angelo","doi":"10.1080/00207578.2025.2507488","DOIUrl":"10.1080/00207578.2025.2507488","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>D'Angelo, the author of \"Do We Want To Know\" responds to Gozlan's critique of his paper. He argues that Gozlan recruits psychoanalytic elitism to discredit his work, rather than engaging with the paper's central concerns. The first issue that Gozlan avoids addressing is the misuse of academic writing to discredit those with whom we disagree, extensively documented in \"Do We Want To Know\". The second is the refusal to acknowledge the weak evidence base for gender-affirming interventions for youth increasingly embraced by the prevailing psychoanalytic zeitgeist. D'Angelo suggests that this is a repetition of psychoanalysis' rejection of empirical science, which in the past has led to patient harm and which has contributed to the increasing marginalisation of our profession.</p>","PeriodicalId":48022,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Psychoanalysis","volume":"106 4","pages":"851-853"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145041987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sunflowers don't always seek the sun.","authors":"Maria Inês Neuenschwander Escosteguy Carneiro","doi":"10.1080/00207578.2024.2402291","DOIUrl":"10.1080/00207578.2024.2402291","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The following text addresses atypical eating, building upon previously discussed ideas and enhanced with clinical observations from the analytical process of a young man. Currently twenty years old, he was referred at sixteen by the paediatrician who had delivered him and continued to care for him, and was suspecting \"anorexia.\" The term is within inverted commas as it was not conclusively diagnosed by the doctor or the author of this text. The patient's limited food intake was part of a broader picture of cessation in emotional development. The author proposes significant differences in the primitive relational trajectory at the origins of atypical eating habits of both men and women. Viewing these habits as communications of previously compromised mental states rather than an isolated \"disease,\" the author emphasises the importance of the transferential relationship as a general guiding thread in analytical processes, particularly as a sine qua non condition for augmenting the possibility of favourable evolution of these generally severe and challenging patients. This clinical case thus highlights the analytical relationship as the main modifying factor in Fred's life. The analysis continues uninterrupted, with three sessions per week, during the pandemic online, and again in-person as soon as it was possible to return to the office.</p>","PeriodicalId":48022,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Psychoanalysis","volume":"106 4","pages":"696-713"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145042031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"In memory of Harold P. Blum, MD (1929-2024).","authors":"Rosemary H Balsam","doi":"10.1080/00207578.2025.2514339","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00207578.2025.2514339","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48022,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Psychoanalysis","volume":"106 4","pages":"843-848"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145070948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tales of the triangle. Thoughts on essentials of psychoanalysis across cultures.","authors":"Tomas Plaenkers","doi":"10.1080/00207578.2025.2511321","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00207578.2025.2511321","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The paper explores the universal validity of the Oedipus complex in different cultures, particularly in Asia, and discusses the role of psychoanalysis as an anchor in chaotic times. The author delves into the objections raised by Asian cultures to the universal validity of the Oedipus complex. They provide examples from Indian, Chinese, and Japanese myths that challenge Freud's concept. The author argues that these myths and cultural variations are not antipodes to the Oedipus complex but rather cultural variants of a universal triangularity. The Eastern myths suggest that the early mother-child relationship plays a central role in cultural development and assigns women a significant role, contrary to Freud's views. Furthermore, the author challenges the notion of cultural identity between the West and the East as incommensurable. The paper concludes by discussing the need for psychoanalysis to address the individual and social turns against triangularity.</p>","PeriodicalId":48022,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Psychoanalysis","volume":"106 3","pages":"575-587"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144754891","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}