THE PSYCHOANALYTIC FIELD » Re-Parenting

Symptom–1

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:25:09 +0000

Interestingly enough, the distinction between fantasying and dreaming and its accompanying language of the “dead end” were not without their parallels for Winnicott. In a series of talks he recorded for the BBC during the 1950s (collected and published under the title of The Child, the Family and the Outside World), and hence from the …

Work – 2

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:34:58 +0000

The following is partly in response to Ktismatics’ comments on a recent post. The method of free association was Freud’s response to one of the most challenging tasks with which psychoanalysis has had to grapple over its history: the elaboration of a system of contact, traversal, and translation between the primary and secondary processes as …

Work

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 14:37:13 +0000

Freud grounded psychoanalysis in terms of a collaborative uncovering of the unconscious as dynamic and over-determined. That such uncovering occurs in a fraction of the time “psychoanalysis” occupies or that it necessitates much preparation does not deny it its status as the core and defining element of the practice; if anything, it reinforces it as …

Parental Ambivalence

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 18:06:14 +0000

The bulk of my discussion has focused on Winnicott’s parental metaphors: the analyst as, on one hand, the fatherly source of truth and discipline and, on the other, the motherly seat of comfort and safety. My choice of Winnicott as focus for a critique here is based in the fact that he occupies a rare …

Psychoanalyst as Child

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 00:22:55 +0000

If, and mine is a highly tentative and provisional “if,” the parental trope is to have any relevance at all in analytic practice, perhaps it would be more consistent and indeed useful to argue that it is precisely the analyst who occupies the role of the “child” that is always on the lookout for opportunities …

Psychoanalyst as Father

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 02:41:57 +0000

There is a side to Winnicott that the advocates of holding environments and good enough mothering would all too gladly see ignored. In his elaborations on the counter-transference, Winnicott distinguishes between three types of responses: a subjective counter-transference routed in the analyst’s un-worked through psychology, and hence an obstacle; a subjective counter-transference rooted in a …

Psychoanalyst as Mother – 2

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 13:06:51 +0000

Clinically, a post-Winnicottian generation of psychoanalysts has taken up the motherly banner and, unknowingly, the double bind attendant to its implicit attitude of “no one is going to tell you how to do it but you’d better do it right; otherwise…” (see Mothers and Psychoanalysts ). At its extreme, this double bind is now sadly …

Psychoanalyst as Mother

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 11:43:22 +0000

It is often held that while Freud had very little by way of infant observation, Winnicott fortified his analytic work with a hefty dose of paediatric observation and insight. Except for the fort-da and Little Hans, Freud had to reconstruct infantile sexuality from the distorted impressions of adult neurotics. Winnicott, for his part, or so …

The Third

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 20:19:32 +0000

This post follows on the heels of Parental Fallacies Winnicott’s most often quoted maxim “there is no such thing as a baby” (“The Theory of The Parent-Infant Relationship,” 39n1) attempts to capture the field of object relations crucial for analytic work. Unfortunately, such a maxim remains stuck, and stubbornly so, in a dyadic position that …

Parental Fallacies

Fadi Abou-Rihan — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:39:03 +0000

Be it the austere father with whom and against whom the oedipal drama is to be completed or the empathic mother remedying infancy and early childhood deficits of nurture, the parental fallacy continues to be one of the most persistent and striking elements in psychoanalytic practice; persistent in its quasi-universality and striking in the uncritical …