Individualizing Gender and Sexuality

The Unhappy Divorce of Sociology and Psychoanalysis

Diverse Perspectives on the Psychosocial

Lynn Chancer, John Andrews

A collection of 18 contributions by well-known scholars in and outside the US, The Unhappy Divorce of Sociology and Psychoanalysis shows how sociology has much to gain from incorporating rather than overlooking or marginalizing psychoanalysis and psychosocial approaches to a wide range of social topics.

The Psychoanalytic Ear and the Sociological Eye

Toward an American Independent Tradition

Nancy Chodorow

In The Psychoanalytic Ear and the Sociological Eye: Toward an American Independent Tradition, Nancy J. Chodorow brings together her two professional identities, psychoanalyst and sociologist, as she also brings together and moves beyond two traditions within American psychoanalysis, naming for the first time an American independent tradition. The book's chapters move inward, toward fine-tuned discussions of the theory and epistemology of the American independent tradition, which Chodorow locates originally in the writings of Erik Erikson and Hans Loewald, and outward toward what Chodorow sees as a missing but necessary connection between psychoanalysis, the social sciences, and the social world. Chodorow suggests that Hans Loewald and Erik Erikson, self-defined ego psychologists, each brings in the intersubjective, attending to the fine-tuned interactions of mother and child, analyst and patient, and individual and social surround. She calls them intersubjective ego psychologists—for Chodorow, the basic theory and clinical epistemology of the American independent tradition. Chodorow describes intrinsic contradictions in psychoanalytic theory and practice that these authors and later American independents address, and she points to similarities between the American and British independent traditions. The American independent tradition, especially through the writings of Erikson, points the analyst and the scholar to individuality and society. Moving back in time, Chodorow suggests that from his earliest writings to his last works, Freud was interested in society and culture, both as these are lived by individuals and as psychoanalysis can help us to understand the fundamental processes that create them. Chodorow advocates for a return to these sociocultural interests for psychoanalysts. At the same time, she rues the lack of attention within the social sciences to the serious study of individuals and individuality and advocates for a field of individuology in the university.

Applied Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytically Informed Research

David Titelman, Henrik Enckell, Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber

The principal method of psychoanalytic inquiries into conscious and unconscious aspects of human experience and mental functioning is to listen psychoanalytically to the patient or, in applied research, other research subjects. Based on Freud’s and later theorists’ hypotheses on the transference of patterns of personal relatedness to others – including unconscious wishes, anxiety and psychological defense – a focus on the relationship between psychoanalyst and analysand or between individual members of groups and their leaders is a near-mandatory feature of psychoanalytic research. That this methodology is qualitative and inevitably lacks quantification has, historically, impelled some non-psychoanalytic researchers to reject it as unscientific. The editors of this issue in Frontiers in Psychology all combine their vocation as practicing psychoanalysts with being academic researchers in psychiatry, neuroscience, or psychology. Our experience of psychoanalytically grounded research in different fields (studies of political and ethnic conflicts and their resolution, suicide research, psychotherapy research, epistemological studies, and more) is that it is sometimes appropriate to extend one’s methodological arsenal beyond the limits of the clinical encounter. This holds true even as we acknowledge the power of psychoanalytic, including transference-based, explorations of subjective experience. We invite authors to make use of this issue as a platform for publishing different types of studies whose findings are relevant to psychoanalytic elaboration, and for disseminating psychoanalytically derived knowledge in the understanding of man. Contributions may range from empirical studies on clinical questions and neuroscientific topics to studies of the adaptation of individuals or groups in potentially traumatizing historical, psychosocial, medical, or other crises. Psychoanalytically well-informed contributions by writers in the history of literature or the arts are welcomed, as are similarly knowledgeable philosophical or historical discussions of psychoanalysis itself.

Arbitramento da Pensão Alimentícia

um estudo à luz do cuidado

Gracielle Carrijo Vilela

Gracielle investiga o teto tácito de pensão alimentícia, mostrando como as decisões judiciais desvalorizam o trabalho de cuidado realizado majoritariamente pelas mulheres e são influenciadas por constructos preconceituosos contra as mulheres.

The Psychoanalytic Quarterly

Dorian Feigenbaum, Bertram David Lewin, Gregory Zilboorg, Frankwood Earl Williams

"Primitive high gods, by Gʹeza Rʹoheim": v. 3, no. 1, pt. 2 (133 p.).

Hard to Get

Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom

Leslie C. Bell

Examines the love lives of twenty-something American women in the San Francisco Bay Area, revealing that young women have more opportunities and information than previous generations, but that unsatisfying sex and relationships tend to stem from sexual freedom.