British Psychoanalysis
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British Psychoanalysis British Psychoanalysis: New Perspectives in the Independent Tradition is a new and extended edition of The British School of Psychoanalysis: The Independent Tradition, which explored the successes and failures of the early environment; transference and counter-transference in the psychoanalytic encounter; regression in the situation of treatment, and female sexuality. Published in the mid-1980s, it had an important influence on the development of psychoanalysis both in Great Britain and abroad, was translated into several languages and became a central textbook in academic and professional courses. This new, updated book includes not only many of the original papers, but also new chapters written for this volume by Hannah Browne, Josh Cohen, Steven Groarke, Gregorio Kohon, Rosine Perelberg and Megan Virtue. Addressing and reflecting on the four main themes of the first collection, the new papers discuss such subjects as: • a new focus on earliest infancy • new directions in Independent clinical thinking • the question of therapeutic regression • the centrality of sexual difference in Freud. They also highlight the connections between and the mutual influence of British and French psychoanalysis, now a critical subject in contem- porary psychoanalytic debates. British Psychoanalysis: New Perspectives in the Independent Tradition will be important not only to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psycho- therapists and the full spectrum of professionals involved in mental health. It will be of great value in psychotherapy and counselling training and an important resource for teaching and academic activities. Gregorio Kohon is a Training Analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society. His psychoanalytic publications include Reflections on the Aesthetic Experience: Psychoanalysis and the Uncanny, published by Routledge in 2016. THE NEW LIBRARY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS General Editor: Alessandra Lemma The New Library of Psychoanalysis was launched in 1987 in association with the Institute of Psychoanalysis, London. It took over from the International Psychoanalytical Library which published many of the early translations of the works of Freud and the writings of most of the leading British and Continental psychoanalysts. The purpose of the New Library of Psychoanalysis is to facilitate a greater and more widespread appreciation of psychoanalysis and to provide a forum for increasing mutual understanding between psychoanalysts and those working in other disciplines such as the social sciences, medicine, philosophy, history, linguistics, literature and the arts. It aims to represent different trends both in British psychoanalysis and in psychoanalysis generally. The New Library of Psychoanalysis is well placed to make available to the English-speaking world psychoanalytic writings from other European countries and to increase the interchange of ideas between British and American psychoanalysts. Through the Teaching Series, the New Library of Psychoanalysis now also publishes books that provide comprehensive, yet accessible, overviews of selected subject areas aimed at those studying psychoanalysis and related fields such as the social sciences, philosophy, litera - ture and the arts. The Institute, together with the British Psychoanalytical Society, runs a low-fee psychoanalytic clinic, organizes lectures and scientific events concerned with psycho- analysis and publishes the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. It runs a training course in psychoanalysis which leads to membership of the International Psychoanalytical Association – the body which preserves internationally agreed standards of training, of professional entry, and of professional ethics and practice for psychoanalysis as initiated and developed by Sigmund Freud. Distinguished members of the Institute have included Michael Balint, Wilfred Bion, Ronald Fairbairn, Anna Freud, Ernest Jones, Melanie Klein, John Rickman and Donald Winnicott. Previous general editors have included David Tuckett, who played a very active role in the establishment of the New Library. He was followed as general editor by Elizabeth Bott Spillius, who was in turn followed by Susan Budd and then by Dana Birksted-Breen. Current members of the Advisory Board include Giovanna Di Ceglie, Liz Allison, Anne Patterson, Josh Cohen and Daniel Pick. Previous members of the Advisory Board include Christopher Bollas, Ronald Britton, Catalina Bronstein, Donald Campbell, Rosemary Davies, Sara Flanders, Stephen Grosz, John Keene, Eglé Laufer, Alessandra Lemma, Juliet Mitchell, Michael Parsons, Rosine Jozef Perelberg, Richard Rusbridger, Mary Target and David Taylor. For a full list of all the titles in the New Library of Psychoanalysis main series as well as both the New Library of Psychoanalysis ‘Teaching’ and ‘Beyond the Couch’ subseries, please visit the Routledge website. THE NEW LIBRARY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS General Editor: Alessandra Lemma British Psychoanalysis New Perspectives in the Independent Tradition Edited by Gregorio Kohon First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 selection and editorial matter, Gregorio Kohon; individual chapters, the contributors The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kohon, Gregorio, 1943– editor. Title: British psychoanalysis: new perspectives in the independent tradition /edited by Gregorio Kohon. Description: New and extended edition. | New York: Routledge, 2018. | Series: New library of psychoanalysis | Revised edition of The British school of psychoanalysis, c1986. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017036621 (print) | LCCN 2017038178 (ebook) | ISBN 9781351262880 (Master) | ISBN 9781351262873 (Web PDF) | ISBN 9781351262866 (ePub) | ISBN 9781351262859 (Mobipocket/Kindle) | ISBN 9781138579040 (hardback: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138579057 (pbk.: alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Psychoanalysis – Great Britain – History. | Psychoanalysis – Great Britain. Classification: LCC RC503 (ebook) | LCC RC503.B75 2018 (print) | DDC 616.89/1700941 – dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017036621 ISBN: 978-1-138-57904-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-57905-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-26288-0 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK To the memory of my psychoanalytic teachers: Enid Balint, Nina Coltart, André Green, Paula Heimann, Adam Limentani and Harold Stewart, all of them truly independent people. Contents Biographical notes xi Acknowledgements xvii PART I AN INDEPENDENT TRADITION 1 1 Thirty years later: looking back into the future3 Gregorio Kohon 2 A multi-dimensional frame of reference: the Independent tradition 14 Rosine Jozef Perelberg PART II INTRODUCTION 19 3 Prefatory remarks 21 Gregorio Kohon 4 Notes on the history of the psychoanalytic movement in Great Britain 25 Gregorio Kohon 5 Countertransference: an Independent view 50 Gregorio Kohon 6 Concluding remarks 70 Gregorio Kohon Contents PART III EARLY ENVIRONMENT: SUCCESS AND FAILURE 73 7 Psychic life: a new focus on earliest infancy 75 Josh Cohen 8 The transformational object 88 Christopher Bollas 9 The concept of cumulative trauma 104 M. Masud R. Khan 10 Fear of breakdown 121 Donald W. Winnicott PART IV THE PSYCHOANALYTIC ENCOUNTER: TRANSFERENCE AND COUNTERTRANSFERENCE 131 11 Making sense together: new directions in Independent clinical thinking 133 Steven Groarke 12 ‘Slouching towards Bethlehem . .’: or thinking the unthinkable in psychoanalysis 148 Nina E.C. Coltart 13 Elements of the psychoanalytic relationship and their therapeutic implications 161 John Klauber 14 Affects and the psychoanalytic situation 173 Adam Limentani 15 The analyst’s act of freedom as agent of therapeutic change 192 Neville Symington viii Contents PART V REGRESSION AND THE PSYCHOANALYTIC SITUATION 207 16 Regression: allowing the future to be re-imagined 209 Hannah Browne 17 The unobtrusive analyst 224 Michael Balint 18 Some pressures on the analyst for physical contact during the reliving of an early trauma 232 Patrick J. Casement 19 Problems of management in the analysis of a hallucinating hysteric 244 Harold Stewart PART VI FEMALE SEXUALITY 261 20 The centrality of sexual difference in Freud: the work of Gregorio Kohon and Juliet Mitchell 263 Megan Virtue 21 Reflections on Dora: the case of hysteria 274 Gregorio Kohon 22 The question of femininity and the theory of psychoanalysis 290 Juliet Mitchell References 307 Index 333 ix Biographical notes Michael Balint (1896–1970). Born in Budapest. He moved to Berlin to escape anti-Semitism in Hungary, where he started