r/psychoanalysis

I have the intuition that in psychoanalysis someone should have written about a desire for recognition. i am not sure if the terminology i choose is correct or helpful.
When i look for writing on desire it is usually clear that the object is usually someone else. When i look for writing on recognition it is associated with a clear claim of identity and seems to be formulated as a demand and not as a desire. Both don't describe what i think is a "desire for recognition".
Which i would rather describe as having the shape where the desire shapes what one accepts as recognition. And the object of desire is the other as it sees one self.
Any suggestions what to look at?

I would love to deepen my practice through a one-year program that I can do virtually and is relational in orientation. What program(s) would you recommend?

I need this for my thesis

Hey I'm a graduate from NYU in mental health counseling and have been getting mentored on psychoanalysis since undergrad. I came across a post here about people disliking Freud and even calling a fraud which I find very perplexing.

I've read The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry by Henri F. Ellenberger, C. G. Jung Psychology of the Unconscious, Pierre Janet Psychological Automatism 2 Volume Set: Total Automatism and Partial Automatism. With a bunch of articles that my mentor whom is a Freudian.

So, yes I am still a novice but I'd like to hear from the community why some people believe he's a fraud?

Psychoanalysis seems to have very little to say about the conditions of inspiration or enthusiasm that lead to extraordinary creativity. It also seems to have very little to say about the conditions of flow or “the zone” that musicians, actors, athletes, and other creative people experience from time to time.

These sets of experiences seem to have been entirely the province of humanistic, new age, or “scientific” psychological thinkers. Why is it that psychoanalysis has nothing to say about these things?

Hi everyone, I'm a new-ish therapist looking for group consultation/peer support. Does anyone know where I can look/anyone interested in forming a group?

Thanks :)

I wrote a short article/summary based on part of a lecture series by a psychiatrist from Spain. The seminar is called Ten Clinical Rules for Beginners. The article is about Rule 9, The Triple Diagnosis.

Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Schizotypal/comments/1ulykog/rule_9_the_triple_diagnosis_by_dr_jos%C3%A9_mar%C3%ADa/

This psychiatrist has a very unique approach because he is neither a mainstream DSM-oriented psychiatrist nor a rigid psychoanalyst. He draws heavily on psychopathologists from the early 1900s, mentioning authors such as Griesinger, Schüle, Schneider, Minkowski, Kraepelin, Blankenburg, Bleuler, among others. At the same time, he also takes into account concepts from Freud, Lacan, Klein, and the psychoanalytic tradition, while remaining critical of them, especially when their theories become overly categorical—for example, rigid Lacanian structures, or the idea that if repression is operating, then foreclosure cannot operate at the same level, and vice versa.

It's amazing to listen to him. He seems to be able to read German and appears to have read extensively from many pre-psychoanalytic authors. Now YouTube has the option to change the audio to different languages. This option is available for some of his videos, in case anyone wants to listen to his lectures.

I'm currently working on a summary of Rule 8, Clinical Categories Are Our Own Inventions, where he discusses, among other things, unitary psychosis and the early history of this concept. He asays that psychosis was initially considered a form of neurosis, and that the separation between neurosis and psychosis came later. More than that, says that psychosis was once thought of as the most extreme form of neurosis.

The Žižekian analysis of films through Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory is probably old hat here, but I’m just getting started.

I have a theory about the backrooms. Part of what makes the backrooms so terrifying is that there is no “Big Other” there. The symbolic order of the backrooms (if it even exists) defies all understanding.

That’s why the scenes in the found-footage videos where the scientists are together are so much less creepy. In those moments, a tiny bit of symbolic order from our reality spills over into the Backrooms.

The more I think about psychology and how people think and react, the more I feel like we can’t really choose our personalities. We don’t choose to be good or bad; a lot of it comes from our brains, nervous systems, and life experiences.
Because of that, it’s hard for me to get mad at selfish or angry people. They’re reacting the way they’re wired and with time it became hard for me because u just hurt ur self, i’m good with bad people just because i feel they didnt choose to be like this.
Sometimes I feel that being deeply aware of psychology isn’t easy to live with.
Has anyone else felt like this? I need people with same experience.

As per title, I’ve always been interested in mental health/therapy having been a recipient of it myself, picked up an introductory collection of Freuds works and have been thoroughly enjoying the learning (as an autodidact), however, routes to professional study and practice in Australia are incredibly cost and time prohibitive.

Up to 5 years of 3-5x a week intensive analysis whilst working full time, parenting children and mortgage, impossible, to top it off it costs an absurd amount of money (potentially over 100k), and then once you’ve done that you’ll end up just analysing other analysts and not the public because it’s so niche in my country.

What’s a person to do? Is there any route for just private theoretical study? It’s not like Freud was analysed himself.

Repost as I didn’t have enough karma!

Does anyone know of training programmes (standalone modules, PGCerts or even full MSc's) that cover research methods in the psychoanalytic and psychodynamic therapies?

I'd be particularly interested in any training programmes covering research into group analytic methods.

The London reading group post that I came across here recently inspired me - I was wondering if anyone around the Oxford area would be interested in meeting up once monthly (or more, potentially) to establish a psychoanalysis reading group?

I'm coming up to the end of my foundation course in psychodynamic psychotherapy at the BPF in London and not quite ready to take on a clinical training, but will severely miss in-person discussions with like-minded folks and continuing my learning. However, I don't live in London. Is there anyone near the Oxford or Warwickshire area?

Let me know if this sounds interesting and I'll see about setting up a first meeting in August/September. I can DM you with information if you respond with interest.

If it matters, I am 36F.

And how hard is it to see them / get accepted? I have the money, just not sure if they would accept me even if they had the availability. Just a layperson not analyst in training.

I’m interested in a specific tradition and want to reach out to the well-known scholars who have private practices.

I’m wondering if I’m barking up the wrong tree, or wasting my time trying? Is there a benefit? Would I be lucky to see them?

I read somewhere that in every dysfunctional family, look to the person with no symptoms to find the source of the problems. Can any of the therapists out there boost its credibility with a citation? I’ve found it to be very accurate in my own family.

I was wondering if anyone here has actually attended this course and could shares their thoughts on it? how the teaching was, how informative it was and potenially the praical application of it.

https://cfar.org.uk/introductory-course/

I’m considering making the commitment to apply to adult psychoanalytic training in NYC. I’ve been in analysis already for a few years - however, my analyst is associated with and teaches at a well regarded out of state institute. Anyone know if any programs in NYC consider you continuing analysis with a non-training analyst from their institute? Or any advice if anyone has been in the same situation?

Hello there, I am new in this thread.

I am interested in materials that could help out a Cluster B personality disorder person (mainly talking about Borderline and Narcissistic personality disorder).

So far I’ve heard about projective identification, and object relations.

What other material could be helpfull for one?

I bought this book. I wanted to learn Lacan but I'm just an average Joe (smart but not philosophy-literate). Is this book a good start?

To preface, I'm specifically talking about theoretical psychoanalysis and not clinical as I'm currently writing a comparative literature thesis. I'm looking for psychoanalytical theories that discuss the concept of catharsis; mainly in the Greek Tragedy, but it could be in a broader sense too. So far I'm looking into the PhD of Judy Gammelgård, but I'd greatly appreciate it if any of you have any further recommendations.

I'm also very curious about sadomasochism; I'm currently reading Deleuze's Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty, which I find hugely fascinating. A point in my thesis is that catharsis can be viewed as a sadomasochistic climax in which one can approach the Real through the careful cultic construction of the Symbolic (in my case, the Greek Tragedy). If anyone could point me in the right direction concerning relevant theories/analysts, I'd be very grateful.

I'm looking to read about dissociative experiences in psychoanalysis, mainly derealization and depersonalization.

I already know about these experiences, but I've never read about them through the lens of psychoanalytic authors.

I guess many of these experiences are described while discussing schizoid personalities. I think Laing talks a lot about this in The Divided Self.

I was reading Some Forms of Emotional Disturbance and Their Relationship to Schizophrenia (1942), the text in which Helene Deutsch describes the as-if personality, and she says:

"Those forms of the disturbance in which the individual himself is conscious of his defect and complains of it belong to the picture of “depersonalization.” This disturbance has been described by many authors. In the analytic literature the reader is especially referred to the studies of Oberndorf, Schilder, and Bergler and Eidelberg. (...)

Most of the psychoanalytic observations in this paper deal with conditions bearing a close relationship to depersonalization but differing from it in that they were not perceived as disturbances by the patient himself."

And she gives these sources:

_ Oberndorf, C. P. (1934). Depersonalization in relation to erotization of thought. Int. J. Psychoanal., 15: 271-295; (1935) Genesis of feeling of unreality. Int. J. Psychoanal., 16:296-306.

_ Schilder, P. (1939). Treatment of depersonalization. Bull. NY Acad. Med., 15: 258-272

_ Bergler, E. & Eidelberg, L. (1935). Der Mechanismus der Depersonalization. Int. Ztschr. f. Psa., 21: 258-285.

So these are on my reading list.

I'm mostly looking for authors who discuss experiences involving a disconnection from the body, as well as experiences in which the external world feels unreal or uncanny. I don't care very much about dissociative amnesia.

Thanks.