Destructiveness, Intersubjectivity and Trauma: The Identity Crisis of Modern Psychoanalysis

264 Pages·2010·1.353 MB·English

by  Werner Bohleber, Peter Fonagy

CHAPTERTITLE I
DESTRUCTIVENESS,
INTERSUBJECTIVITY,
AND TRAUMA
Developments in Psychoanalysis Series
Peter Fonagy, Mary Target, and Liz Allison (Series Editors)
Published and distributed by Karnac Books
Other titles in the Series
Developmental Science and Psychoanalysis: Integration and Innovation.
Celebrating the Renewal of the Collaboration of the Yale Child Study Center
and the Anna Freud Centre in Promoting Psychoanalytic Developmental
Research
Edited by Linda Mayes, Peter Fonagy, and Mary Target
Mentalizing in Child Therapy: Guidelines for Clinical Practitioners
Edited by Annelies J. E. Verheugt-Pleiter, Jolien Zevalkink,
and Marcel G. J. Schmeets
Taboo or Not Taboo? Forbidden Thoughts, Forbidden Acts in
Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy
Edited by Brent Willock, Lori C. Bohm, and Rebecca Curtis
Orders
Tel: [phone]; Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
www.karnac books.com
DESTRUCTIVENESS,
INTERSUBJECTIVITY,
AND TRAUMA
The Identity Crisis of
Modern Psychoanalysis
Werner Bohleber
First published in 2010 by
Karnac Books Ltd
118 Finchley Road, London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 2010 to Werner Bohleber.
The right of Werner Bohleber to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the
prior written permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978 1 85575 672 4
Edited, designed and produced by The Studio Publishing Services Ltd
www.publishingservicesuk.co.uk
e-mail: [email protected]
Printed in Great Britain
www.karnacbooks.com
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
ABOUT THE AUTHOR ix
FOREWORDby Peter Fonagy xi
INTRODUCTION xv
PART I: THE INTERSUBJECTIVE PARADIGM IN 1
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LATE MODERNITY
CHAPTER ONE
Intersubjectivity without a subject? Intersubjective 3
theories and the Other
CHAPTER TWO
From surgeon to team-player: the transformation of guiding 23
metaphors for the analytic relationship within clinical theory
CHAPTER THREE
Psychoanalytic theories of personality, adolescence, 49
and the problem of identity in late modernity
v
vi CONTENTS
PART II: TRAUMA, MEMORY, AND HISTORICAL 73
CONTEXT
CHAPTER FOUR
The development of trauma theory in psychoanalysis 75
CHAPTER FIVE
Remembrance, trauma, and collective memory: 101
the battle for memory in psychoanalysis
CHAPTER SIX
Traumatic memories, dissociative states, and reconstruction 129
PART III: PSYCHOANALYSIS OF 151
IDEOLOGICALDESTRUCTIVITY
CHAPTER SEVEN
Purity, unity, violence: unconscious determinants 153
of anti-Semitism in Germany
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ideality and destructiveness: towards a psychodynamics 179
of fundamentalist terrorist violence
REFERENCES 203
INDEX 227
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The present work includes a selection of papers on conceptual
issues surrounding questions of intersubjectivity and identity,
trauma, and ideological destructiveness. My heartfelt gratitude
goes to Peter Fonagy for his encouragement to collect some of my
papers for book publication in English. He generously accepted it
as a part of the series “Developments in Psychoanalysis”, which he
edits with Mary Target and Liz Allison. The initial impetus and
encouragement for this project came from my wife, Marianne
Leuzinger-Bohleber, whom I thank for her constant support
throughout. I am grateful to my translators: Eric Jarosinski, Andrew
Jenkins, Doris Linda Jones, and Sophie Leighton. They did an excel-
lent job translating the texts and suggesting solutions for specific
German terms and idioms. I also want to thank Liz Allison,
Alexandra Bateman, Alex Bleiberg, and Jeremy Vooght from the
editorial team of the UCLPsychoanalysis Unit for their very skilful
help in editing my manuscript.
Most of the following chapters were first published elsewhere,
as noted and reprinted with permission. I have largely reworked
and revised most of them.
Introduction: translated by Andrew Jenkins.
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Chapter One: this is a slightly abbreviated version of “Inter-
subjektivitismus ohne Subjekt? Der Andere in der psychoanalytis-
chen Tradition” in Die vernetzte Seele. Die intersubjektive Wende in der
Psychoanalyse, edited by M. Altmeyer and H. Thomä. Stuttgart:
Klett-Cotta, 2006, pp. 203–226. Published with permission of Klett-
Cotta. Translated by Eric Jarosinski.
Chapter Two: originally published here. Translated by Eric
Jarosinski.
Chapter Three: some material from this chapter originally appeared
in the paper “Psychoanalyse, Adoleszenz und das Problem der
Identität” in Psyche, Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse und ihre Anwend-
ungen, 53: 1999, pp. 507–529. Translated by Eric Jarosinski.
Chapter Four: a somewhat longer version was originally published
under the title “Die Entwicklung der Traumatheorie in der Psycho-
analyse” in Psyche, Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse und ihre Anwend-
ungen, 54: 2000, pp. 797–839. Ashortened version was published in
Upheaval: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Trauma, edited by S. Varvin
and T. Stajner-Popovic. Belgrade: International Aid Network, 2002,
pp. 207–234. Translated by Doris Linda Jones.
Chapter Five: originally delivered as a keynote address at the 45th
Conference of the International Psychoanalytic Association, 2007 in
Berlin, and published in International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 88:
2007, pp. 329–352. Translated by Sophie Leighton.
Chapter Six: originally published here. Translated by Eric
Jarosinski.
Chapter Seven: a revised version of a paper first published under
the title “Die Konstruktion imaginärer Gemeinschaften und das Bild
von den Juden—unbewusste Determinanten des Antisemitismus in
Deutschland” in Psyche, Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse und ihre
Anwendungen, 51: 1997, pp. 570–605. Translated by Andrew Jenkins.
Chapter Eight: an extended version of a paper published under the
title “Idealität und Destruktivität—Zur Psychodynamik terroristis-
cher Gewalt” in Terrorismus und Rechtsstaatlichkeit. Analysen, Hand-
lungsoptionen, Perspektiven, edited by K.Graulich and D. Simon.
Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2007, pp. 15–28. Published with the per-
mission of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissen-
schaften. Translated by Eric Jarosinski.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Werner Bohleber, PhD, is psychoanalyst in private practice in
Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He is a training and supervising ana-
lyst, and a former President of the German Psychoanalytical
Association (DPV). He is the editor of the German psychoanalytical
journal PSYCHE. He was a member of the Board of Representatives
of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) (2003–2007).
He was Co-chair for Europe of the IPA Research Advisory Board
(2000–2008). He is a member of the Working Party on Theoretical
Issues of the European Psychoanalytical Federation (EPF). In 2007,
he was the winner of the Mary S. Sigourney Award for Psycho-
analysis. He is the author of several books and numerous articles.
His research subjects and main publication themes are: adolescence,
especially late adolescence and young adulthood; identity and the-
ory of the self; psychoanalytic theory; history of psychoanalysis in
Germany; transgenerational consequences of the Nazi period and
the war on the second and third generation; nationalism, xenopho-
bia, racism, and anti-Semitism; trauma and violence; terror and
terrorism. His most recent book as editor, with H. Radbold and
J. Zinnecker, is: Transgenerationelle Weitergabe kriegsbelasteter
Kindheiten -Interdisziplinäre Studien zur Nachhaltigkeit historischer
ix