PSYCHOANALYST Quarterly Magazine of the American Psychoanalytic Association

the WINTER/SPRING 2014 AMERICAN Volume 48, No. 1 PSYCHOANALYST Quarterly Magazine of The American Psychoanalytic Association Story Tellers INSIDE TAP… Bob Pyles Election Results ....... 4 Once upon a very, very long time in human The answer is none. If you want to know history, the storyteller was “the keeper of the what this is all about, go find the sickest per- National Meeting keys” in terms of human culture and expe- son on the ward and sit with him or her for rience. We have gradually departed from as long as you can stand it.” Semrad went on, in NYC ......... 8 –13 those roots and in so doing have certainly “What you have to understand is that what lost our “mind” and perhaps our soul as well. may seem to be bizarre symptoms to you Sixth Annual My first experience in the art of the mas- do not seem at all bizarre to them. In fact, Art Exhibit ........ 14 ter storyteller was when I had the good they have evolved these symptoms as a way fortune to have William Faulkner as a writer- of coping with impossible family situations. Sovereign Right in-residence during my years at the Uni- These symptoms represent a creative adap- to Privacy ........ 21 versity of Virginia. The first book we were tive endeavor. They are a work of art as assigned was The Sound and the Fury. The first much as any other work of art. Your job, and 90 pages of this remarkable book consist of your only job, is to appreciate all these won- Annual Meeting what is quite literally free association in the derful stories you are going to be hearing.” in Chicago ....... 24 mind of a retarded young man. I struggled Those words of wisdom have never left me. with reading and re-reading it, knowing I was At the 2013 National Meet- going to be tested on it. However, after dis- ing of our Association we had cussing it with Faulkner, I finally got the idea. a double treat that I am sharing I re-read it once again and just let the affect with you in this issue of TAP. and the wonderful words flow over me like a We had our own Newell warm wave, and I understood. Fischer, past president of our A few years later when I started my psy- Association and a supervising chiatric residency at Mass Mental Health in and training analyst at the Boston, we were greeted by a legendary Center for Psychoanalysis in teacher of national fame, Elvin Semrad. On the Philadelphia. Newell has writ- first day Semrad gathered all 22 of us resi- ten a marvelous book, entitled dents in his office. We had been to our wards Nine Lives, about nine of his and knew that we were going to be taking psychotherapy patients. Full of care of 50 of what were certainly the most compassion, he recounts the disturbed people I had ever seen. Semrad stories of his patients and the smiled his Buddha-like smile and said, “Well I psychodynamic process that guess you’re all wondering what articles you helped to heal them. The book should be reading to help you in this work. has been very well received by the public, the media, and was certainly well received in his presentation. [See “Nine Lives: Bob Pyles, M.D., is president of the American A View from Within,” page 3.] Psychoanalytic Association. Continued on page 3 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 48, No. 1 • Winter/Spring 2014 1 CONTENTS: Winter/Spring 2014 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYTIC ASSOCIATION President: Robert L. Pyles Nine Lives: A View from Within Newell Fischer President-Elect: Mark Smaller 3 Secretary: Ralph E. Fishkin Treasurer: William A. Myerson Executive Director: Dean K. Stein 4 APsaA Elections THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST 5 Can We Survive? Lee I. Ascherman and Elizabeth Brett Magazine of the American Psychoanalytic Association Editor 7 How We Can Be Possessed By A Story That Cannot Be Told Janis Chester Stephen Grosz Film Editor Bruce H. Sklarew Special Section Editor 8 2014 National Meeting Michael Slevin Editorial Board Brenda Bauer, Vera J. Camden, The Psychoanalyst As Artist: Sixth Annual Psychoanalytic Leslie Cummins, Phillip S. Freeman, 14 Maxine Fenton Gann, Noreen Honeycutt, Art Show Robert L. Welker Sheri Butler Hunt, Laura Jensen, Navah Kaplan, Nadine Levinson, A. Michele Morgan, Julie Jaffee Nagel, Marie Rudden, Hinda Simon, Vaia Tsolas, Poetry: From the Unconscious Sheri Butler Hunt 19 Dean K. Stein, ex officio Senior Correspondent Jane Walvoord APsaA Awards Third Annual Undergraduate Essay Prize: 20 Photographer Caroline Beaton “To the Lighthouse and the Oedipal Triangle” Mervin Stewart Manuscript and Production Editors Michael and Helene Wolff, 21 Politics and Public Policy: Sovereign Right to Privacy Technology Management Communications of Americans, Patients and Clinicians Graham L. Spruiell The American Psychoanalyst is published quarterly. Subscriptions are provided automatically to members of The American Psychoanalytic Asso- 22 Candidates’ Council: A Fresh View Navah C. Kaplan ciation. For non-members, domestic and Cana- dian subscription rates are $36 for individuals and $80 for institutions. Outside the U.S. and Canada, rates are $56 for individuals and $100 for institu- 23 COPE: Candidates’ COPE Study Group: tions. To subscribe to The American Psychoanalyst, Challenges of Training Navah C. Kaplan and Phoebe A. Cirio visit http://www.apsa.org/TAPSUB, or write TAP Subscriptions, The American Psychoanalytic Association, 309 East 49th Street, New York, New York 10017; call 212-752-0450 x18 or 24 Come to Chicago: APsaA 103rd Annual Meeting e-mail [email protected]. June 6–8, 2014 Kimberlyn Leary Copyright © 2014 The American Psychoanalytic Association. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by 25 Lots to Do and See in Chicago in June Kathleen Carroll any means without the written permission of The American Psychoanalytic Association, 309 East 49th Street, New York, New York 10017. Film: Must the Artist Fall in Love with Death? 27 ISSN 1052-7958 Jean Cocteau’s Orphée Lissa Weinstein and Bruce H. Sklarew, Film Column Editor The American Psychoanalytic Association does not hold itself responsible for statements made in The American Psychoanalyst by contributors or advertisers. Unless otherwise stated, material in The American Psychoanalyst does not reflect the endorsement, official attitude, or position of The Correspondence and letters to the editor should be sent to TAP editor, American Psychoanalytic Association or The Janis Chester, at [email protected]. American Psychoanalyst. 2 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 48, No. 1 • Winter/Spring 2014 narratives, but I will tell you about the most Nine Lives: A View from Within vivid moments and hours I spent with these Newell Fischer people and the times that were most alive and real for me. Though their past histories A reporter condition and to shed light on the process and surrounding life events helped me came to my and the struggle we confront daily in psy- understand the moments we shared, such office a year ago choanalytic treatments. background was once removed from my to interview me Below is an excerpt from the Introduction immediate experience. It was my contact for an article in to Nine Lives. with these nine people that was intense, the Philadelphia I have worked as a psychiatrist and psycho- rewarding, and unforgettable. City Paper. This analyst for nearly 50 years and I have con- Reflecting the human condition, these indi- young woman sulted on and treated hundreds of patients. viduals struggled in life, largely with painful seemed sophis- I have never met an Alien—someone who inner conflicts and battles with childhood ticated and intel- was beyond the boundaries of human under- fantasies and traumata. However, the resolu- Newell Fischer ligent. She knew standing. Every person is unique, every case tions they came to did not work for them. I was a psychoanalyst and despite the many offers mysteries and surprises, but the com- They were left with emotional pain and pat- pithy New Yorker magazine cartoons, she was mon thread reflecting the human condition terns that were self-defeating and compro- amazed and bewildered when she saw my has always been visible. Some presentations mised their potential for living a fuller life. analytic couch. She thought psychoanalysis at first appear extreme or even bizarre, but Continued on page 6 and the use of the couch were abandoned the underlying conflicts and the haunting around 1940. demons my patients bring, I know “in my I wrote my book Nine Lives: A View from bones” because they reflect shared human Story Tellers Within in an attempt to convey to the lay- conundrums. Unfortunately, for some, these Continued from page 1 person some of our therapeutic work as challenges lead to emotional dysfunction, analysts and to underscore the profound great pain, and suffering. The second value of intensive psychoanalytic treatment. treat was by I did not want to write “fairy tales”—that is, IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF HARRY STACK Stephen Grosz that all our patients gain insight and live hap- SULLIVAN AND WALT C. KELLY who discussed pily ever after—but to convey some of the The well-known American psychiatrist, his book as part experiences, pain, and struggles that unfold Harry Stack Sullivan, worked with very ill psy- of the Presiden- in our offices. chotic patients for many years and emerged tial Symposium, Mystification, idealization, and derision from the experience observing, “Man is more also telling the have often characterized the view of our human than otherwise.” Stated less elegantly stories of his efforts. Whereas some of these attitudes and paraphrasing the comic POGO, “We patients.

Load more