Upcoming International Psychoanalytic Conferences

Journal of Analytical Psychology 12th International Conference: The Varieties of Jungian Clinical Experience: Complex, Identity, Intersubjectivity 
29 May to June 2014, Berlin, Germany
http://www.thesap.org.uk/conference

The 7th International Conference on the Work of Frances Tustin: Spilling, Falling, Dissolving: Engaging Primitive Anxieties of the Emerging Self
July 24-27, 2014, Boston, MA
Boston, MA
Organized by the Frances Tustin Memorial Trust
http://www.frances-tustin-autism.org/

International Psychoanalytic Association International Congress: Changing the World: The Shape and Use of Psychoanalytic Tools Today 
July 22 thru July 25, 2015, Boston, MA - -
http://www.ipa.org.uk/en/Boston_2015.aspx

Psychoanalysis Under Attack in Belguim - Act Now!

Dear Colleague,

The Belgian legislature is putting forward a proposal on the practice of psychotherapy in general and of psychoanalysis in particular. All the analytic associations organized under the umbrella of the FABEP (Belgian Psychoanalytic Federation) agreed on Sunday, October 20, on an "Appeal to the Belgian Parliament," and to circulate this document in the form of a petition for which... the signatures of analysts and friends of analysis would be solicited.

The major points of the proposed legislation are that:

 * Psychoanalysis be assimilated into psychotherapy;
* Psychoanalysis only be performed by physicians and psychologists
   following a 5400-hour training that will only be provided by universities;
* A High Council of Psychotherapy be created;
* The psychoanalyst and/or therapist who is not a physician establish a
   dossier for each patient and inform the treating physician of
   the "development of his/her health."

Psychoanalysis is in danger. If this legislation goes forward, psychoanalysis as such will become extinct. Every threat to psychoanalysis in another country or state is a threat to the independence and integrity of psychoanalysis everywhere.

This is why we are asking each of you to sign, and to get as many colleagues as possible to sign, this "Appeal to Parliament." It is for the future of psychoanalysis not only in Belgium but everywhere. We must get as many signatures as possible, as rapidly as possible.

Douglas F. Maxwell
NAAP President
80 Eighth Ave #1501
New York, NY 10011
212-741-0515

Click below or paste the link below into your browser to sign the petition today! Make sure you check your inbox for a confirmation email afterward (which will be in Dutch). You must click on the confirmation link in the email otherwise your signature will not count.

http://www.forumpsy.be/phpPetitions/index.php?petition=3&signe=oui

Emerging Evidence for Long-Term Psychodynamic Therapy

The Emerging Evidence for Long-Term Psychodynamic Therapy.
Leichsenring F, Abbass A, Luyten P, Hilsenroth M, Rabung S.
Psychodynamic Psychiatry, 2013 Fall;41(3):361-84.

ABSTRACT:There is growing evidence from RCTs supporting the efficacy of both short-term (STPP) and long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (LTPP) for specific mental disorders. In a first series of meta-analyses, LTPP was shown to be superior to shorter forms of psychotherapy, especially in complex mental disorders. However, the evidence for LTPP has not gone unchallenged. After several responses have addressed the raised concerns, a recent meta-analysis by Smit and colleagues (2012) again challenges the efficacy of LTPP.

METHOD: From a methodological perspective, a critical analysis of the Smit et al. meta-analysis was performed. Furthermore, we conducted two new meta-analyses adding studies not included in previous meta-analyses. The purpose was to examine whether the results of the previous meta-analyses are stable.

RESULTS: Due to differing inclusion criteria, the meta-analysis by Smit et al. actually compared LTPP to other forms of long-term psychotherapy. Thus, they essentially showed that LTPP was as efficacious as other forms of long-term therapy. For this reason the meta-analysis by Smit et al. does not question the results of previous meta-analyses showing that LTPP is superior to shorter forms of psychotherapy. In addition, the Smit et al. meta-analysis was shown to suffer from several methodological shortcomings. The new meta-analyses we performed did not find significant deviations from previous results. In complex mental disorders LTPP proved to be significantly superior to shorter forms of therapy corroborating results of previous meta-analyses.

CONCLUSIONS: Data on dose-effect relations suggest that for many patients with complex mental disorders, including chronic mental disorders and personality disorders, short-term psychotherapy is not sufficient. For these patients, long-term treatments may be indicated. The meta-analyses presented here provide further support for LTPP in these populations. Nevertheless, there is a need for more research in LTPP and other long-term psychotherapies.

Jon Sletvold - The Neuroscience of Freud's Body Ego

Abstract: Freud’s statement in The Ego and the Id (1923) that the ego is first and foremost a bodily ego is well known. This paper tempts to clarify the premises underlying Freud’s thesis. Particular attention is paid to Freud’s investigation of internal perceptions. Freud argued that internal perceptions are more primordial than perceptions arising externally. In Freud’s opinion the roots of the ego, the id, are to be found in body sensations and feelings, but he had to admit that very little was known about these sensations and feelings. Only much later was neuroscience in a position to offer evidence that feelings can be the direct perception of the internal state of the body. Antonio Damasio (2010) has recently suggested that the core of the self might be found in what he, like Freud, terms primordial feelings. Not only was Freud able to conceive of the ego as the perception and feeling of our own body but also to conceive of knowing the mental life of another by means of recreating the bodily state of another through imitation.

Jon Sletvold (2013) The ego and the id revisited: Freud and Damasio on the body ego/self. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 94, pp. 1019-1032 

 

 

Jean Knox - The Analyst's Capacity for Empathy

"So for the psychotherapist, empathy in its widest sense requires us to develop four different skills at the same time:

• to allow emotional contagion, to share, through the countertransference, the shame and humiliation of the patient as a victim;
• to be able to distance ourselves from that contagion, to take our own perspective and ‘feel for’ the patient, drawing on a range of affect-regulating approaches—an appropriate rescuer stance;
• to bear and so contain the experience of being seen as and sometimes becoming an abuser without a defensive escape into a defensive and unhelpful rescuer position, and
• finally to co-create a new relational experience in which both therapist and patient collaborate to ‘toggle’ between self and other perspectives, and in doing so, co-construct the intersubjective third.

All of these contribute to processes of rupture and repair that constitute the therapeutic conversation when working with early relational trauma." (p. 504-505)

 

 

Jean Knox (2013) ‘Feeling for’ and ‘feeling with’: developmental and neuroscientific perspectives on intersubjectivity and empathy.  Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2013, Vol. 58, pp. 491-509.