Phyllis Greenacre (born 3 May 1894,

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

; died 24 October 1989 Ossining,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

) was an American

psychoanalyst PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: + . is a set of Theory, theories and Therapy, therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a bo ...

and physician who was a supervising and

training analyst A training analysis is a psychoanalysis undergone by a candidate (perhaps a physician with specialty in psychiatry or a psychologist) as a part of her/his training to be a psychoanalyst; the (senior) psychoanalyst who performs such an analysis is c ...

at the

New York Psychoanalytic Institute The New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute — founded in 1911 by Dr. Abraham A. Brill — is the oldest psychoanalytic organization in the United States. The charter members were: Louis Edward Bisch, Brill, Horace Westlake Frink, Frede ...

Education and life

After taking a BS from Chicago in 1913 and an MD in 1916, Greenacre worked for some years under Adolf Meyer on experimental psychology. During this period she married and divorced her one husband, after having two children with him in 1921-2. She began psychoanalytic training in 1937, and thereafter rose to high prominence within the ranks of the American psychoanalytic establishment, before finally retiring at the age of ninety.

Contributions

In an early publication from 1939, Greenacre explored the role of a severe sense of (unconscious) guilt in fueling surgical addiction. Two years later she published her once controversial but now classic study of childhood anxiety as manifested preverbally. In the fifties, a study of

fetishism A fetish (derived from the French , which comes from the Portuguese , and this in turn from Latin , 'artificial' and , 'to make') is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a human-made object that has power over oth ...

in relation to

body image Body image is a person's thoughts, feelings and perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their own body. The concept of body image is used in a number of disciplines, including neuroscience, psychology, medicine, psychiatry, ps ...

launched her at fifty-nine into a two-decade long exploration of aggression, creativity and early childhood development. She also wrote on the family background of the

imposter An impostor (also spelled imposter) is a person who pretends to be somebody else, often through means of disguise. Their objective is usually to try to gain financial or social advantages through social engineering, but also often for purposes ...

. Her continuing interest in psychoanalytic training led her to a powerful warning against the dangers of boundary transgressions in relation to the transference: “The carrying through into a relationship in life of the incestuous fantasy of the patient may be more grave in its subsequent distortion of the patient's life than any actual incestuous seduction in childhood”.

Cultural explorations

Greenacre highlighted the

voyeuristic Voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of watching other people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions of a private nature. The term comes from the French ''voir'' which means "to see". A ...

elements in the writing of

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...

, as well as distortions of body image with respect to Lemuel Gulliver.E. Berman ed., ''Essential Papers on Literature and Psychoanalysis'' (1993) p. 167 She viewed Swift as essentially a neurotic inhibited by coprophilia who came close to achieving adult, genital satisfaction. Carroll, on the other hand, she argues, is closer to psychotic and psychically more deeply blocked.

Education and life

Contributions

Cultural explorations

See also

References

Further reading