To be or not to be three: a clinical narrative, an unanswered question

The psychoanalytic literature deals with parenthood as a developmental stage but barely addresses the couple's preconception of fertility intentions. The author reviews the available literature from social research and psychoanalytic writing. Working with a couple over family of origin conflicts, she uncovers the hidden conflict over the wish to have or not have a child, reveals unconscious fantasies about the potential child, and deals with conflict in the otherwise compatible couple relationship itself. The author offers this clinical vignette to extend psychoanalytic understanding of the unconscious fantasies involved. She concludes with a discussion of transference towards the couple therapist as an infection to be avoided, an annoying parent to speed away from, and a disturbing child about whom the couple was ambivalent.

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.

Rio De Janeiro Workshops

The following three papers were presented in September 2019 at the Simposio Psicanalise e Envelhecimento convened by the Sociedade Brasileira de Psicanálise de Rio de Janeiro. They are the result of the internal production of the Travesía Foundation of Buenos Aires, institution devoted to the meta-psychological study of midlife transition and crisis since 1989. We would like to thank the SBPRJ for its invitation and the cordiality with which we were received. The fact that the three workshops were written especially for the Symposium led us to select narratives from Brazilian authors so that our words would resonate in the auditorium as something familiar. Likewise, we have allowed ourselves to disseminate psychoanalytic understanding towards other ends, contributing to the universality of the discipline. Furthermore, the workshops have been written in a way that makes previous readings of the narratives under consideration unnecessary.

Childism: A Review of Falih Koksal’s Article on “Needs, Habits and Children’s Wellbeing” Alongside an Exploration of the Film “System Crasher”

In this review I will focus on societies mistreating children in order to fulfil certain needs through them, to project internal conflicts and self-hatred outward, or to assert themselves when they feel their authority has been questioned. Regardless of their individual motivations, they all rely upon a societal prejudice against children to justify themselves and legitimate their behaviour. We are all familiar of prejudice against people of colour, women, LGBTQ in Western society. Sadly, prejudice against children – “childism” (Young-Bruehl, 2012) is not acknowledged. Incarcerating children, sending victims of abuse and neglect to juvenile detention centers (juvies) is unethical and unacceptable. We all know that many children who have spent years of their lives in and out of juvies will join the adult prison population. The word “childism” is not in the political discourse or our dictionaries, and no subfield of Prejudice Studies has been dedicated to it. In this review I invite readers to understand how our (Western) society is failing to support the development and well-being of its children to combat such a prejudice. Childism is a prejudice that rationalizes and legitimates the maltreatment of children and as professionals we have a responsibility to fight it. We (all of us) must learn not to project our self hatred onto our children in the form of a prejudice. With psychoanalytic understanding and guidance an abusing system can give up abusing. The “intergenerational transmission of trauma” can be interrupted.

From negation to negationism: the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil

Even beyond the dramatic social and health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, one can affirm that the manner in which the pandemic was and is being handled in Brazil involves more than mere questions of public health. This article focuses on the negationist discourse that emerged in Brazil, and proposes that its roots are to be found in a previous process of dismantling established knowledge and identifications. This process is observed in the government’s handling of the pandemic. To support this idea, we refer to two main clinical and theoretical frameworks, the first of which involves a psychoanalytic understanding of the place of truth in discursivity and in identification processes; this will be employed to shed light on a particular functioning of negationist discourses. Second, the idea of historical ontology is introduced from the philosophy of science to gain a further understanding of the effects of this process on identification.

Hunger strike in H-Block: the disavowal of passivity

The hunger strikes in prison in Northern Ireland took place forty years ago. Since then, much has changed in the politics of Northern Ireland. The hunger strikes of 1980 and 1981 were formative in the progress from violence, and the use of the body as a weapon, to inclusion and participation in democratic political institutions. This article, first published, in longer form, twenty years ago (Maynes, 2000) places the hunger strikes within a psychoanalytic understanding in order to more fully understand some of the dynamics of violence towards others and towards the self.