From Soma to Symbol: Psychosomatic Conditions and Transformative Experience

289 Pages·2016·5.422 MB·English

by  Phyllis L. Sloate

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CHAPTERTITLE I
FROM SOMA TO SYMBOL
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Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies
Boundaries of Psychoanalysis Series
Series editor: Fredric Perlman
When Theories Touch: A Historical and Theoretical Integration of
Psychoanalytic Thought
Steven J. Ellman
Another Kind of Evidence: Studies on Internalization, Annihilation Anxiety,
and Progressive Symbolization in the Psychoanalytic Process
Norbert Freedman, Marvin Hurich, Rhonda Ward, Jesse D. Geller, and
Joan Hoffenberg
A New Freudian Synthesis: Clinical Process in the Next Generation
Edited by Andrew B. Druck, Carolyn S. Ellman, Norbert Freedman, and
Aaron Thaler
The Second Century of Psychoanalysis: Evolving Perspectives on
Therapeutic Action
Edited by Michael J. Diamond and Christopher Christian
Absolute Truth and Unbearable Psychic Pain: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on
Concrete Experience
Edited by Allan Frosch
Battling the Life and Death Forces of Sadomasochism: Clinical Perspectives
Edited by Harriet I. Basseches, Paula L. Ellman, and Nancy R. Goodman
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FROM SOMA
TO SYMBOL
Psychomatic Conditions and
Transformative Experience
edited by
Phyllis L. Sloate
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First published in 2016 by
Karnac Books Ltd
118 Finchley Road, London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 2016 to Phyllis L. Sloate for the edited collection and to
the individual authors for their contributions.
The rights of the contributors to be identified as the authors of this work
have 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 78220 127 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
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CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
ABOUT THE EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ix
SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE xiii
Fredric Perlman
CHAPTER ONE
A tale of two theories 1
Phyllis L. Sloate
CHAPTER TWO
Non-mentalizing and non-symbolizing psychic 53
functions and central sensitization in psychosomatic
disorders
W. Scott Griffies
CHAPTER THREE
Just do it! Surgery as psychosomatic action 99
M. Ann Simmons
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vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER FOUR
Psychosomatic events: self-care as technology of the self 131
Isaac Tylim
CHAPTER FIVE
When words are unspeakable: a bridge beyond the silence 139
Randi E. Wirth
CHAPTER SIX
Psychosomatic illness in a claustro-agoraphobic patient 173
Susan N. Finkelstein
CHAPTER SEVEN
Plight of the imposter: the embodied transference and 197
countertransference in the analysis of a woman
with a congenital deformity
Marilyn Rifkin
CHAPTER EIGHT
The realization of meaning: superego analysis 223
and psychosomatic symptoms
Phyllis L. Sloate
INDEX 255
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Much gratitude and a heartfelt thank you to the contributors to this
book, whose time and energy was unstintingly available for its
creation. In clinical situations fraught with uncertainty and ambiguity,
you have thoughtfully and sensitively sought out the transformative
processes by which psychoanalysis may facilitate a patient’s move-
ment from the concrete and external to a more developed and
enlivened capacity for symbolic and metaphoric thinking. All who
participated in this endeavor are grateful to our patients, who shared
so much of who they are with us, facilitating our understanding both
of them and of ourselves. Eve Golden, MD, who leads the CIPS
Writing Workshop, contributed invaluable editorial comments and
has my deep appreciation for her special skills. We are immensely
grateful to the Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies
(CIPS), for the opportunity to participate in this outstanding Book
Series, “The Boundaries of Psychoanalysis”,and for the deep pleasure
of being part of this warmly collegial and vibrant psychoanalytic
community. Rick Perlman, our Book Series Editor, has been an unfail-
ingly generous source of intellectual commentary and encouragement
for us and for the entire book series. We thank our publisher, Karnac,
for its help in bringing this volume to fruition.
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viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are most deeply grateful to our dear ones for their patience and
loving support throughout this process.
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ABOUT THE EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS
Susan N. Finkelstein, LCSW, FIPA, is a training and supervising
analyst at the Contemporary Freudian Society, where she is also a
faculty member. She is on the faculty of the Institute for Psycho -
analytic Training and Research, and a member of the American and
International Psychoanalytic Associations. She has written and
presented work on the claustro-agoraphobic dilemma, schizoid–
narcissistic phenomena, and the internal world and its objects. She is
the founder of Understanding Primitive Mental States, an ongoing
Contemporary Kleinian study group. She is in the private practice of
psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and couples therapy in New York
City.
W. Scott Griffies, MD, DFAPA is a psychoanalytic psychotherapy
supervisor and member of faculty at the New Orleans Psychoanalytic
Center. He is also a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at
Louisiana State University Health Science Center and a member of
faculty with the LSU Psychosomatic Medicine Fellowship. While at
LSU, he won numerous teaching awards and worked and directed
services predominantly focused on psychiatric aspects of medical and
surgical patients. He was the LSU Psychiatry Residency Director for
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