Human Nature through Freudian Lenses. A Reading of Ordinary People (Robert Redford, 1980)

"The article highlights the Freudian approach applied in depicting the events ensuing in a family after a tragic accident – and the related psychoanalysis case, determined by a case of traumatic neurosis – as illustrated in Robert Redford’s movie Ordinary People. The elder son in the family dies in a boat accident, while his brother survives, unable to save him. Ridden with unconscious guilt, the brother tries to commit suicide. Later, he eventually starts an analysis that will bring to the surface his interpretation of the accident, unknown to himself, as the actual traumatic event. The emphasis is placed on a suggestion-free direction of the cure, as promoted by both Freud and Lacan, where the analyzand finds his own words and brings the trauma to memory, moving from a traumatic and compulsory reliving in the present to a remembering of something in the past which liberates the present. Keywords: traumatic neurosis, Freudian analysis, Jacques Lacan, direction of the cure, suggestion, variable-length session. "

An Austrian Haus der Geschichte?: The Drama Continues

This chapter exposes the defense mechanisms in the heated public debates about establishing a house of history in Vienna, from the time period from 2015 until the present, because such a museum would also display Austria’s Nazi past. The defense mechanisms underline the continuing inability of contemporary Austrians to live up to guilt, and that they advance any reason, no matter how ridiculous, to keep unconscious guilt feelings repressed. As a result, we are confronted with flawed judgments and the continuing failure of Austrians to work through their past. The debate around establishing a house of history in which scientists, university professors and politicians participate exposes that we find the lack of embodied reflective judgment particularly in the educated class.

Guilty Minds

This chapter examines the puzzling question of why an otherwise rational person would voluntarily confess to a crime, knowing full well that the state will punish in return. Even more puzzling is the phenomenon of false confessions, where an individual inexplicably confesses to a crime she did not commit, in some cases believing in her own guilt. Psychoanalysis gives us important insights into these irrational phenomena. The focus in this chapter is on the ways in which certain deceptive and degrading police interrogation tactics may override a suspect’s conscious rational decision-making powers by enlisting unconscious needs, aggressions, and guilt. Three interrogation tactics are of greatest concern: false sympathy, degradation, and trickery. As this chapter shows, false sympathy and degradation exploit deep-seated, unconscious desires for absolution and punishment that undermine the voluntariness of a suspect’s self-incriminating statements. Similarly, police trickery can take unfair advantage of a suspect’s need to rationalize unconscious guilt for a crime he did not commit. By drawing attention to the risks associated with these methods, psychoanalysis ensures that the most egregious practices can be eliminated from our criminal justice system. Psychoanalytic insights into unconscious processes advances the law’s own best ideals of fundamental fairness in the criminal law.

The Psychoanalytic Tradition in American Law

This chapter surveys the long and important tradition of law and psychoanalysis in the United States beginning with the work of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., up to the mid-twentieth century. While “tradition” may seem too strong a term for the diverse collection of psychoanalytic writings carried out by legal thinkers over the course of more than a half-century, what ties this work together is a shared recognition of the unconscious depths of the human psyche and the common questions that a psychoanalytic perspective on human behavior raises for law. As this chapter details, many early- to midcentury legal thinkers and judges turned to psychoanalytic ideas for help in addressing a broad set of concerns, including the value of free speech in a democracy, the processes of judicial decision-making, degrees of criminal responsibility, and child custody. The chapter focuses on those legal thinkers in this period whose attention was captured by the unconventional, sometimes even shocking, psychoanalytic ideas about the unconscious, guilt, free will, conflict, instinctual drives, sexuality, and early childhood experience. A study of the psychoanalytic tradition in American law is essential for understanding the vital contribution that contemporary psychoanalysis can make to law today.

Notes on the General Implications of Leucotomy

In these notes for an address to a conference on leucotomy at the London School of Economics, Winnicott defines leucotomy as the mutilation of normal, healthy brain tissue for the treatment of disorders of the psyche, that is, to alter an individual’s behaviour, to lessen suffering, to make nursing easier, and to restore functional efficiency. Winnicott makes a link between mutilation of brain vis-à-vis castration and anxiety about each, as brain mutilation is symbolic of castration. Winnicott refers also to the effect on the general public, and the fear generated by the threat of leucotomy, including the wish to be mutilated (bringing up masochism and unconscious guilt), a fear of suicide, and the question of the soul and its relation to the psyche-soma.

Reparation in Respect of Mother’s Organized Defence Against Depression

In this paper Winnicott discusses how false reparation can appear through a patient’s identification with the mother, where the dominating factor is the mother’s organized defence against depression and unconscious guilt. He states that the attainment of a capacity for making reparation in respect of personal guilt is one of the most important steps in the development of the healthy human being. While Winnicott’s experience tells him that a children’s out-patient department demonstrates the extent of hypochondria in mothers, he admits that there is no sharp dividing line between the hypochondria of a depressed woman and a mother’s genuine concern for her child. The task for the child is to deal with the parent’s mood, after which they can start their own lives. Winnicott discusses the task of the analyst with this sort of patient to not be experienced as depressed - and notes the importance of this relationship between the patient and the environmental mood in group work.

Guilt is Soluble in Alcohol: An Ego Analytic View

Ego analysis, a version of Freudian theory, maintains that guilt is a sufficient cause of substance abuse. A cultural analysis reveals that self-negation is powerfully reinforced in technologically advanced societies by an unexamined moralistic belief system. In the field of alcoholism, the psychoanalytic perspective is opposed primarily by two arguments. First, researchers argue that psychodynamic factors cannot account for abuse because longitudinal studies demonstrate that symptoms of mental illness are not evident either before or after the abuse careers of many sufferers. Second, cognitive behaviorists maintain that the concept “maladaptive expectancies” explains addictions more adequately than psychodynamic theories. Freud's discovery that unconscious guilt can drive even normal people to antisocial behavior is the basis for disputing both arguments. The ego analyst's therapeutic alternative is contrasted with the conventional, abstinence-only approach and cognitive-behavioral treatment.