Lewis Aron

The book, dedicated to the memory of Lewis Aron and Jeremy Safran, explores the subject of enactment in relation to boundaries in psychoanalysis, referring to a series of viewpoints that lead to many crucial areas. In her foreword, Galit Atlas writes that enactment has become a widely-employed term in contemporary psychoanalysis across schools, a term that speaks to the unique way in which the analyst is affectively pulled into and discovers himself/herself as a participant in the patient's relational matrix in ways that the analyst had not predicted and might not recognize until later. Moreover, she analyzes the concept of "generative enactment", suggesting that enactments in the analytic dyad are not only restrictive and repetitive, with therapeutic benefit resulting from their resolution, but that enactments themselves may also be generative and growth-enhancing. Giuseppe Leo, one of the editors of the book, examines the concept of enactment from the following points of view: intra-psychic, inter-psychic, intra-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary, inter-cultural, and trans- generational. Jeremy Safran's and Jessica Kraus's chapter deals with alliance ruptures, impasses, and transference-countertransference enactments which are inevitable in therapy. Since a growing body of evidence suggests that repairing ruptures in the alliance is related to positive outcome, the authors promote the development of training methods to enhance therapists' abilities to detect and work constructively with alliance ruptures and negative therapeutic process. In his chapter Jay Greenberg emphasizes how, despite the relational approach opens the possibility of tailoring technique to individual analysands, so that it is easier to negotiate the best way of working within each unique analytic dyad, many clinical vignettes in the recent literature underline the analyst's risk-taking, engaging patients in a highly personal way that breaks the traditional analytic frame. The author discusses various implications of the tendency of relational analysts to emphasize this sort of intervention, and questions raised about the way this may affect how relational thinking is received. Efrat Ginot in her chapter shows how, in spite of the seeming experiential incongruity between enactments and empathy, neuroscience has started to delineate neuropsychological processes that similarly shape and underpin both enactments and therapeutic empathy, illuminating what mechanisms they have in common. Finally, Giuseppe Riefolo, the other editor of the book, suggests that the analytic dialogue develops as a continuous movement called "Dissociative Process", and that this process is the continuous oscillation between defensive positions (repression) and creative positions. Dissociation, as a defense, is a Freudian theoretical stance, while Dissociation, as a possibility for new and creative solutions, is a theory emanating from Janet and was adopted, especially, by relational and inter-subjective psychoanalysis. The analyst has to respect the Defensive Dissociations of the patient, but, at the same time, he has to be particularly careful to support potential solutions, never made real before, that emerge as new associative aggregates deriving from the dissociation of the frustrating or traumatic experience, which he proposes calling "Creative Dissociations". The dissociative solutions (defensive and creative) are not sequential but simultaneous.

In Dramatic Dialogue, Atlas and Aron develop the metaphors of drama and theatre to introduce a new way of thinking about therapeutic action and therapeutic traction. This model invites the patient’s many self-states and the numerous versions of the therapist’s self onto the analytic stage to dream a mutual dream and live together the past and the future, as they appear in the present moment. The book brings together the relational emphasis on multiple self-states and enactment with the Bionian conceptions of reverie and dreaming-up the patient. The term Dramatic Dialogue originated in Ferenczi’s clinical innovations and refers to the patient and therapist dramatizing and dreaming-up the full range of their multiple selves. Along with Atlas and Aron, readers will become immersed in a Dramatic Dialogue, which the authors elaborate and enact, using the contemporary language of multiple self-states, waking dreaming, dissociation, generative enactment, and the prospective function. The book provides a rich description of contemporary clinical practice, illustrated with numerous clinical tales and detailed examination of clinical moments. Inspired by Bion’s concept of "becoming-at-one" and "at-one-ment," the authors call for a return of the soul or spirit to psychoanalysis and the generative use of the analyst’s subjectivity, including a passionate use of mind, body and soul in the pursuit of psychoanalytic truth. Dramatic Dialogue will be of great interest to all psychoanalysts and psychotherapists.

In Dramatic Dialogue, Atlas and Aron develop the metaphors of drama and theatre to introduce a new way of thinking about therapeutic action and therapeutic traction. This model invites the patient’s many self-states and the numerous versions of the therapist’s self onto the analytic stage to dream a mutual dream and live together the past and the future, as they appear in the present moment. The book brings together the relational emphasis on multiple self-states and enactment with the Bionian conceptions of reverie and dreaming-up the patient. The term Dramatic Dialogue originated in Ferenczi’s clinical innovations and refers to the patient and therapist dramatizing and dreaming-up the full range of their multiple selves. Along with Atlas and Aron, readers will become immersed in a Dramatic Dialogue, which the authors elaborate and enact, using the contemporary language of multiple self-states, waking dreaming, dissociation, generative enactment, and the prospective function. The book provides a rich description of contemporary clinical practice, illustrated with numerous clinical tales and detailed examination of clinical moments. Inspired by Bion’s concept of "becoming-at-one" and "at-one-ment," the authors call for a return of the soul or spirit to psychoanalysis and the generative use of the analyst’s subjectivity, including a passionate use of mind, body and soul in the pursuit of psychoanalytic truth. Dramatic Dialogue will be of great interest to all psychoanalysts and psychotherapists.

Inquiry, questioning, and wonder are defining features of both psychoanalysis and the Jewish tradition. The question invites inquiry, analysis, discussion, debate, multiple meanings, and interpretation that continues across the generations. If questions and inquiry are the mainstay of Jewish scholarship, then it should not be surprising that they would be central to the psychoanalytic method developed by Sigmund Freud. The themes taken up in this book are universal: trauma, traumatic reenactment, intergenerational transmission of trauma, love, loss, mourning, ritual these subjects are of particular relevance and concern within Jewish thought and the history of the Jewish people, and they raise questions of great relevance to psychoanalysis both theoretically and clinically. In Answering a Question with a Question: Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Jewish Thought: A Tradition of Inquiry, Editors, Aron and Henik, have brought together an international collection of contemporary scholars and clinicians to address the interface and mutual influence of Jewish thought and modern psychoanalysis, two traditions of inquiry.

In this richly nuanced assessment of the various dimensions of mutuality in psychoanalysis, Aron shows that the relational approach to psychoanalysis is a powerful guide to issues of technique and therapeutic strategy. From his reappraisal of the concepts of interaction and enactment, to his examination of the issue of analyst self-disclosure, to his concluding remarks on the relational import of the analyst's ethics and values, Aron squarely accepts the clinical responsibilities attendant to a postmodern critique of psychoanalytic foundations.

Inquiry, questioning, and wonder are defining features of both psychoanalysis and the Jewish tradition. The question invites inquiry, analysis, discussion, debate, multiple meanings, and interpretation that continues across the generations. If questions and inquiry are the mainstay of Jewish scholarship, then it should not be surprising that they would be central to the psychoanalytic method developed by Sigmund Freud. The themes taken up in this book are universal: trauma, traumatic re-enactment, intergenerational transmission of trauma, love, loss, mourning, ritual—these subjects are of particular relevance and concern within Jewish thought and the history of the Jewish people, and they raise questions of great relevance to psychoanalysis both theoretically and clinically. In Answering a Question with a Question: Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Jewish Thought (Vol. II). A Tradition of Inquiry, Editors, Aron and Henik, have brought together an international collection of contemporary scholars and clinicians to address the interface and mutual influence of Jewish thought and modern psychoanalysis, two traditions of inquiry.

El enfoque relacional en el psicoan lisis se desarroll a partir del quiebre de la hegemon a de la teor a cl sica, y aunque a n est creciendo y todav a hay una gran diversidad y un animado debate dentro de su comunidad, el paradigma relacional se presenta como una nueva integraci n de conceptos y perspectivas psicoanal ticas que ofrece una alternativa formidable a la teorizaci n psicoanal tica cl sica. Aunque en los ltimos a os la teor a cl sica o convencional se ha movido hacia una direcci n relacional creciente, hay diferencias significativas entre versiones actuales de la teor a cl sica y lo que es referido como psicoan lisis relacional. Pero qu es la teor a relacional? Qu es un analista relacional? Cu l es la sustancia? Tras un resumen de la esencia de la teor a relacional, se documenta la formaci n de la orientaci n relacional y de c mo fue influenciada por un n mero de fuerzas sociales y culturales extra-anal ticas. El psicoan lisis relacional no es una escuela de pensamiento uni-ficada o integrada, no posee una posici n te rica singular, sino que se refiere a un grupo diverso de teor as que se enfocan en las relaciones personales, intrapersonales e interpersonales. El nfasis en las dimensiones relacionales del desarrollo y del tratamiento atraviesa todas las escuelas contempor neas de psicoan lisis.

How did psychoanalysis come to define itself as being different from psychotherapy? How have racism, homophobia, misogyny and anti-Semitism converged in the creation of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis? Is psychoanalysis psychotherapy? Is psychoanalysis a "Jewish science"? Inspired by the progressive and humanistic origins of psychoanalysis, Lewis Aron and Karen Starr pursue Freud's call for psychoanalysis to be a "psychotherapy for the people." They present a cultural history focusing on how psychoanalysis has always defined itself in relation to an "other." At first, that other was hypnosis and suggestion; later it was psychotherapy. The authors trace a series of binary oppositions, each defined hierarchically, which have plagued the history of psychoanalysis. Tracing reverberations of racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and homophobia, they show that psychoanalysis, associated with phallic masculinity, penetration, heterosexuality, autonomy, and culture, was defined in opposition to suggestion and psychotherapy, which were seen as promoting dependence, feminine passivity, and relationality. Aron and Starr deconstruct these dichotomies, leading the way for a return to Freud's progressive vision, in which psychoanalysis, defined broadly and flexibly, is revitalized for a new era. A Psychotherapy for the People will be of interest to psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists--and their patients--and to those studying feminism, cultural studies and Judaism.

How did psychoanalysis come to define itself as being different from psychotherapy? How have racism, homophobia, misogyny and anti-Semitism converged in the creation of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis? Is psychoanalysis psychotherapy? Is psychoanalysis a "Jewish science"? Inspired by the progressive and humanistic origins of psychoanalysis, Lewis Aron and Karen Starr pursue Freud's call for psychoanalysis to be a "psychotherapy for the people." They present a cultural history focusing on how psychoanalysis has always defined itself in relation to an "other." At first, that other was hypnosis and suggestion; later it was psychotherapy. The authors trace a series of binary oppositions, each defined hierarchically, which have plagued the history of psychoanalysis. Tracing reverberations of racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and homophobia, they show that psychoanalysis, associated with phallic masculinity, penetration, heterosexuality, autonomy, and culture, was defined in opposition to suggestion and psychotherapy, which were seen as promoting dependence, feminine passivity, and relationality. Aron and Starr deconstruct these dichotomies, leading the way for a return to Freud's progressive vision, in which psychoanalysis, defined broadly and flexibly, is revitalized for a new era. A Psychotherapy for the People will be of interest to psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists--and their patients--and to those studying feminism, cultural studies and Judaism.

In this richly nuanced assessment of the various dimensions of mutuality in psychoanalysis, Aron shows that the relational approach to psychoanalysis is a powerful guide to issues of technique and therapeutic strategy. From his reappraisal of the concepts of interaction and enactment, to his examination of the issue of analyst self-disclosure, to his concluding remarks on the relational import of the analyst's ethics and values, Aron squarely accepts the clinical responsibilities attendant to a postmodern critique of psychoanalytic foundations.