„Misterium bólu”. Dzieciństwo w prozie Gézy Csátha

Artykuł jest próbą opisania dzieciństwa, którego niepokojący obraz, zaprzeczający nowożytnym wyobrażeniom o sielankowości najmłodszych lat życia, wyłania się z opowiadań Gézy Csátha (1887–1919), węgierskiego modernistycznego pisarza. Sięgając po prace najważniejszych psychoanalityków i psychoanalityczek – m.in. Zygmunta Freuda i Jacques’a Lacana, ale przede wszystkim Melanie Klein – autor dowodzi, że literatura Csátha poświęcona dzieciom i dzieciństwu silnie czerpie z myśli psychoanalitycznej, a poszczególne prozy wydają się niekiedy zaskakująco zbieżne z opisami klinicznych przypadków. Interpretując opowiadania takie, jak: Czarna cisza, Matkobójstwo czy Mała Emma, autor pokazuje też, że zdaniem Csátha dzieci narażone są na takie samo cierpienie jak dorośli, a w człowieku, szczególnie tym najmłodszym, jeszcze nieuformowanym, widzi siedlisko zła.

Fantasmorphoses and Hybrid Becomings of Identities

Deleuze and Guattari crafted the concept of “becoming” as a way of theorizing the rampant chimerization and polymorphism of identities in today's world. They used Kafka's work to show how the frequent use of metamorphosis in his stories prefigures this widespread phenomenon of hybridization of identities. The frequency of such hybrid becomings raises questions about the very foundations of modernity's subjective construct. Does this proliferation reflect new configurations of desiring activities, or is it the result of early interference in what Melanie Klein conceptualized as “primary confusion”? The author will use Klein's notion to show how, early in life, envy of the breast and primary confusion can blur the organization of binary logic essential to establishing the ability to judge and the activity of primal symbolization.

Is the Death Instinct Silent or Clinically Relevant? From Freud’s Concept of a Silent Death Instinct to Understanding Its Clinical Manifestations

When Freud introduced his concept of the death instinct in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) he solved three theoretical problems which could not be explained by the one drive theory: masochism, repetition compulsion and the negative therapeutic reaction. The concept of two inherently opposed instincts remained one of the most controversial parts of Freud’s theory. For Melanie Klein, Freud’s idea of the death instinct was a powerful instrument in solving her greatest problems of integrating her clinical evidence of an earlier, very harsh superego. In Freud’s account, the superego was the manifestation at birth of the death instinct operating in destructiveness towards the person, as he had argued. In this way, Klein put – as Hinshelwood claims – clinical “flesh on the bones of Freud’s theory of the death instinct.” I will describe the development of Freud’s theory and how this was elaborated by Klein and her followers Bion, Esther Bick, Segal and Rosenfeld. With three clinical vignettes--from an Infant Observation, a child analysis and an adult analysis--the clinical use of the concept will be illustrated.

Criticizing Phallocentrism in Interwar Britain: Psychoanalyst Sylvia M. Payne's Kleinian Challenge to Freud

Sylvia M. Payne was one of the first women to practice psychoanalysis in Britain. Though she became president of the British Psychoanalytical Society, not a single scholarly work is dedicated to Payne's intellectual ideas—a substantial historical lacuna, especially when compared with the research on Ernest Jones, one of Sigmund Freud's early disciples and the president who preceded her. This essay presents the first exploration of her early work. It focuses on her belonging to a group of British analysts who challenged Sigmund Freud's thinking on sexual difference. The full scope of this challenge, I argue, as it emerged in interwar Britain, has remained unexamined until today. Adding to the scholarship on the prominent and lesser-known roles of women in psychoanalysis, the article shows that Payne made significant contributions to the field; she also developed the work of Melanie Klein, on whom we also need more research. The study describes the life and work of a woman who has been neglected in the historiography of twentieth-century intellectual history. It engages with broader methodological questions of how to define the political, historical role of female psychoanalysts of her generation.

Reformulated Object Relations Theory: A Bridge Between Clinical Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy Integration, and the Understanding and Treatment of Suicidal Depression

In contrast to the fruitful relationship between psychoanalysis/psychoanalysts and the humanities, institutionalized psychoanalysis has been largely resistant to the integration of psychoanalysis with other empirical branches of knowledge (infant observation, psychotherapy research, psychological and neurobiological sciences), as well as clinical ones [primarily cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)]. Drawing from two decades of theoretical and empirical work on psychopathology, psychotherapy, and psychoanalysis, the author aims to show how a reformulation of object relations theory (RORT) using (neuro-)psychological science may enhance a clinical-psychoanalytic understanding and treatment of suicidal depression, which constitutes one of the most formidable health challenges of our time. Specifically, he rewrote the notion of Melanie Klein positions—primarily the depressive position—using extant knowledge of structure of emotions, the centrality of mental representations of the future (“prospection”) and the toxic nature of criticism-based emotions. This reformulation enables a dialog between clinical psychoanalysis and other therapeutic schools of thought and sheds light on the understanding and treatment of suicidal depression.

FORMAÇÃO EM PSICOLOGIA CLÍNICA NO CONTEXTO PANDÊMICO: POSSIBILIDADES DA EXTENSÃO POR MEIO DE UM GRUPO DE ESTUDOS

The objective of the present study was to describe the realization of the study group aimed at training in clinical psychology during the COVID-19 pandemic and to analyze its contributions to the theoretical and practical improvement of the members. This is an experience report of the activities developed between the months of april to december 2020 in a group offered through an extension project of a public university in the interior of Paraná. In total, 28 meetings were held, with about 7 participants. The materials inherent to group discussions will be portrayed and discussed in the light of the scientific literature and the perceptions of three students who were part of the group, through the systematizationof three theoretical axes: (1) Specificities of the Psychology School Service and its contributions to practice professional; (2) Medicalization and Psychoanalysis; (3) Psychoanalysis with children and adolescents: the theories of Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott, Anna Freud and Françoise Dolto. The analysis of the discussions showed that the potential of the group referred not only to the development of theoretical knowledge, given that the group had a plurality of knowledge, but also to the deepening of that knowledge and exchange of experiences, which, in a context of uncertainties and difficulties, also made it possible to accommodate the evidenced demands.