Dear Dr. D’Amour: Relational Psychoanalysis at the Heart of Teaching and Learning

Dr. Lissa D’Amour brings together relational psychoanalysis and developmental theory to offer practitioners of education an opportunity to unify theories of learning into a cohesive “dialectic model of learning and of learning’s refusal” (D’Amour, 2020, p. 142), a unification sorely needed in mathematics education as educators in Alberta feud over ‘back-to-basics’. Dr. D’Amour’s (2020) book, entitled Relational Psychoanalysis at the Heart of Teaching and Learning: How and Why It Matters, attempts to kick-start conversations about the relationships present in classrooms and offers respite from, and an alternative perspective of, the educational behemoth I have become a part of, one that increasingly ignores us humans, the relationships we have and our affective attunement with all that is around us.

En torno a la ética y la trascendencia en psicoanálisis, el deseo que siempre es deseo

Relational psychoanalysis is firmly rooted in ethics, but not in ethics in its formal sense, that which we commonly call moralism, but in the response to the patient's demands and needs, an ethics that is linked to the yearning for transcendence that always nests in the human spirit and which, moreover, must always preside over patient-therapist relationships. Men and women are beings in whom desire constantly throbs, an inextinguishable desire to which they give different names and expressions, desire for pleasure in its various forms, for contact with others, for friendship, for love and also for power, for mastery of nature, of time, of space and of the course of their own existence. In this work it is emphasized that the most cursory investigation of the course of the history of humanity shows us that it is always driven by the desire for something to which it has been given different names and forms, goals, purposes and achievements, variegated and constantly contradictory to each other, but with a common denominator that, finally, links and unites them, the fact that the desire is never completely satiated, and this, in the end, pushes to a search that never rests, and in this search one reaches the most sublime of the human spirit, and also the most degrading of its nature. The different orientations of relational psychoanalysis, some of which are shown in the pages of this paper, highlight the different means by which we therapists try to help those who suffer and demand our help, and the conclusion is that most of them are entirely valid as long as they are accompanied by the love they have lacked in the early stages of their existence.

Cellos in the dark: managing attachment bonds in the time of Covid-19

This article is essentially a narrative about deeply troubled people who are searching for hope. People who are struggling to find ways to feel and function better in both their close relationships and in the larger world. The coronavirus pandemic has collided with some core concepts of relational psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, challenging accepted theoretical conventions, such as the analytic frame, and impacting the attachment systems of both therapists and clients, individually and together. In these vignettes, each client is at a different stage of therapy, and I have described how the pandemic restrictions have either disturbed, or enhanced, our connection. Their stories are moving, and finding the essence of each one of them, even in this brief vignette format, has been a labour of love. I have written about their predicaments, but also about their impact on me, not only as a psychotherapist, but also as a human being.

Teoría del campo y el sentido del sueño: Continuando la comparación de la teoría interpersonal y la teoría del campo Bioniana

This paper is a continuation of the comparison of interpersonal/relational theory and Bionian field theory that I began in two articles that appeared in Psychoanalytic Dialoguesin 2013 (Stern, 2013a,b). The paper has two sections. In the first, I discuss differences between Bionian field theory and interpersonal and relational psychoanalysis. In the second, I turn to what the two schools of field theory share.