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Symbolic Equation
Symbolic equation is the term used in Kleinian psychoanalysis for states of thinking which equate current objects with those of the past, rather than finding a ''resemblance'' between the two sets. Origins Hanna Segal developed the concept of the symbolic equation in the 1950s, during her examination of concrete thinking in the schizophrenic. Its roots however have been traced back as far as Freud's ''Studies on Hysteria'' of 1895, where he noted how a phrase like a 'stab in the heart' could be concretised in terms of the original physical sensations behind it, so that "we find a symbolic version in concrete images and sensations of more artificial turns of speech". Themes Symbolic equations have been connected to the splitting of the paranoid-schizoid position; alternatively they can be seen as the result of a failure to make distinctions between self and others, or between real and idealised objects. Examples *Psychological trauma can lead to a collapse of the boundaries betwee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melanie Klein
Melanie Klein (née Reizes; 30 March 1882 – 22 September 1960) was an Austrian-British author and psychoanalyst known for her work in child analysis. She was the primary figure in the development of object relations theory. Klein suggested that pre-verbal existential anxiety in infancy catalyzed the formation of the unconscious, resulting in the unconscious splitting of the world into good and bad idealizations. In her theory, how the child resolves that split depends on the constitution of the child and the character of nurturing the child experiences; the quality of resolution can inform the presence, absence, and/or type of distresses a person experiences later in life. Life Melanie Klein was born into a Jewish family and spent most of her early life in Vienna. She was the fourth and final child of parents Moriz, a doctor, and Libussa Reizes. Educated at the Gymnasium, Klein planned to study medicine. Her family's loss of wealth caused her to change her plans. At the age ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hanna Segal
Hanna Segal (born Hanna Poznańska; 20 August 1918 – 5 July 2011) was a British psychoanalyst of Polish descent and a follower of Melanie Klein. She was president of the British Psychoanalytical Society, vice-president of the International Psychoanalytical Association, and was appointed to the Freud Memorial Chair at University College, London (UCL) in 1987. The American psychoanalyst James Grotstein considered that "received wisdom suggests that she is the doyen of "classical" Kleinian thinking and technique." The BBC broadcaster Sue Lawley introduced her as "one of the most distinguished psychological theorists of our time," Life Hanna Segal was born into a middle class Jewish family in Łódź, Poland. She had begun her medical studies at Warsaw University where the family had moved. She was politically involved with the Polish Socialist Party. When Hitler invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, she was fortuitously on holiday in France from where she had to flee arriving in Gre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Studies On Hysteria
''Studies on Hysteria'' () is an 1895 book by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, and the physician Josef Breuer. It consists of a joint introductory paper (reprinted from 1893); followed by five individual studies of hysterics – Breuer's famous case of Anna O. (real name: Bertha Pappenheim), seminal for the development of psychoanalysis, and four more by Freud— including his evaluation of Emmy von N— and finishing with a theoretical essay by Breuer and a more practice-oriented one on therapy by Freud. Summary Freud sees symptomology as stratified in an almost geological way, with the outermost strata being easily remembered and accepted, while “the deeper one goes the more difficult it is to recognize the recollections that are surfacing”. Reception and influence Breuer's work with Bertha Pappenheim provided the founding impetus for psychoanalysis, as Freud himself would acknowledge. In their preliminary (1893) paper, both men agreed that “the hysteric suff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Splitting (psychology)
Splitting (also called black-and-white thinking or all-or-nothing thinking) is the failure in a person's thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both perceived positive and negative qualities of something into a cohesive, realistic whole. It is a common defense mechanism wherein the individual tends to think in extremes (e.g., an individual's actions and motivations are ''all'' good or ''all'' bad with no middle ground). This kind of dichotomous interpretation is contrasted by an acknowledgement of certain nuances known as "shades of gray". Splitting was first described by Ronald Fairbairn in his formulation of object relations theory; it begins as the inability of the infant to combine the fulfilling aspects of the parents (the good object) and their unresponsive aspects (the unsatisfying object) into the same individuals, instead seeing the good and bad as separate. In psychoanalytic theory this functions as a defense mechanism. Relationships Splitting creates instability i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paranoid-schizoid And Depressive Positions
In development psychology, Melanie Klein proposed a "(psychic) position theory" instead of a " (psychic) stage theory". Paranoid-schizoid position In object relations theory, the paranoid-schizoid position is a state of mind of children, from birth to four or six months of age. Melanie Klein has described the earliest stages of infantile psychic life in terms of a successful completion of development through certain ''positions''. A position, for Klein, is a set of psychic functions that correspond to a given phase of development, always appearing during the first year of life, but which are present at all times thereafter and can be reactivated at any time. There are two major positions: the paranoid-schizoid position and the subsequent depressive position. The earlier more primitive position is the paranoid-schizoid position and if an individual's environment and up-bringing are satisfactory, she or he will progress through the depressive position. The paranoid-schizoid posit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psychological Trauma
Psychological trauma, mental trauma or psychotrauma is an emotional response to a distressing event or series of events, such as accidents, rape, or natural disasters. Reactions such as psychological shock and psychological denial are typical. Longer-term reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, difficulties with interpersonal relationships and sometimes physical symptoms including headaches or nausea. Trauma is not the same as mental distress or suffering, both of which are universal human experiences. Given that subjective experiences differ between individuals, people will react to similar events differently. In other words, not all people who experience a potentially traumatic event will actually become psychologically traumatized (although they may be distressed and experience suffering). Some people will develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after being exposed to a major traumatic event (or series of events). This discrepancy in risk rate can be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grandiosity
In the field of psychology, the term grandiosity refers to an unrealistic sense of superiority, characterized by a sustained view of one's self as better than others, which is expressed by disdainfully criticising them (contempt), overinflating one's own capability and belittling them as inferior; and refers to a sense of personal uniqueness, the belief that few other people have anything in common with oneself, and that one can only be understood by a few, very special people. The personality trait of grandiosity is principally associated with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), but also is a feature in the occurrence and expression of antisocial personality disorder, and the manic and hypomanic episodes of bipolar disorder. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) American Psychiatric Association (2000) Narcissist-Grandiose (oblivious) Subtype Pathological grandiosity has been associated with one of the two subtype ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otto Fenichel
Otto Fenichel (2 December 1897 in Vienna – 22 January 1946 in Los Angeles) was a psychoanalyst of the so-called "second generation". Education and psychoanalytic affiliations Otto Fenichel started studying medicine in 1915 in Vienna. Already as a very young man, when still in school, he was attracted by the circle of psychoanalysts around Freud. During the years 1915 and 1919, he attended lectures by Freud, and as early as 1920, aged 23, he became a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. In 1922 Fenichel moved to Berlin. During his Berlin time, until 1934, he was a member of a group of Socialist and/or Marxist psychoanalysts (with Siegfried Bernfeld, Erich Fromm, Wilhelm Reich, Ernst Simmel, Frances Deri and others). After his emigration – 1934 to Oslo, 1935 to Prague, 1938 to Los Angeles – he organized the contact between the worldwide scattered Marxist psychoanalysts by means of top secret "Rundbriefe", i.e. circular letters. Those Rundbriefe, which became public ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and published papers that were later collected in the book ''Écrits''. His work made a significant impact on continental philosophy and cultural theory in areas such as post-structuralism, critical theory, feminist theory and film theory, as well as on the practice of psychoanalysis itself. Lacan took up and discussed the whole range of Freudian concepts, emphasizing the philosophical dimension of Freud's thought and applying concepts derived from structuralism in linguistics and anthropology to its development in his own work, which he would further augment by employing formulae from predicate logic and topology. Taking this new direction, and introducing controversial innovations in clinical practice, led to expulsion for Lacan and his foll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symbolic Order
The Symbolic (or Symbolic Order of the Borromean knot) is the order in the unconscious that gives rise to subjectivity and bridges intersubjectivity between two subjects; an example is Jacques Lacan's idea of desire as the desire of the Other, maintained by the Symbolic's subjectification of the Other into speech. In the later psychoanalytic theory of Lacan, it is linked by the '' sinthome'' to the Imaginary and the Real. Overview In Lacan's theory, the unconscious is the discourse of the Other and thus belongs to the Symbolic. It is also the realm of the Law that regulates desire in the Oedipus complex, and is determinant of subjectivity. A formative moment in the development of the Symbolic in a subject is the Other giving rise to the ''objet petit (a)utre'', establishing lack, demand and need. However, when it becomes an empty signifier, psychosis, which Freud had failed to tackle in theory, develops from an unstable metonymic sliding of the signified (i.e., for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elliott Jaques
Elliott Jaques (January 18, 1917 – March 8, 2003) was a Canadian psychoanalyst, social scientist and management consultant known as the originator of concepts such as corporate culture, midlife crisis, fair pay, maturation curves, time span of discretion (level of work) and requisite organization, as a total system of managerial organization. Biography Born in Toronto, Ontario, Jaques was educated at the University of Toronto and studied medicine at Johns Hopkins University, then received his Ph.D in social relations from Harvard University, and qualification as psychoanalyst at the British Psychoanalytical Society. He was a founding fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Britain and was a visiting professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and honorary professor of the University of Buenos Aires. During the Second World War, Jaques served as a major in the Canadian Army where in collaboration with Henry Murray of Harvard University using h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
