Dear readers,
My editor colleagues and myself are pleased to present the next issue of the Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review. As you may have noticed, it is a double issue for the entire year of 2023 and all the articles have already been published online during recent months. Even though production of the printed version of the journal has taken some time, we can state that we, as editors, have managed to bring the journal back on track. We are now working on the first issue for 2024, which will be published in the spring. I would like to thank all reviewers, editors and the entire production team for their hard work and for making this possible. I would also like to express my gratitude for the trust and support of all those authors who decided to publish their articles in our journal.
Currently, within the group of editors, we discuss how to develop and improve the journal, covering whether it will be continued in digital form, topics of special issues, guest editorships and new types of publications such as Discussions. We would also like to attract new groups of subscribers, such as those who are interested in psychoanalytic topics but are not psychoanalysts themselves. We believe that we have good suggestions for the development and future perspectives of the journal and we want to encourage discussions within the different societies.
After this short update, I would like to warmly recommend reading the articles of this issue. With it being a double issue, there are plenty of interesting topics covering the relation between psychoanalytic theory and neurosciences, as well as the problems of adequate psychoanalytic research, the relation between psychoanalytic theory and philosophical approaches or the advantages and disadvantages of a phenomenological perspective on psychological disorders. With an article on the influence of Heidegger’s philosophical phenomenological ontology on psychoanalytic theory, we start a new format in the journal. The article has been commented on by a colleague, with the authors of the original article having the opportunity to reply to this comment. Thus, we hope to initiate more lively and hopefully controversial debates on certain topics of relevance. We would like to encourage all readers to send comments or discussions of the articles published.
In his article ‘Freud and the mind–brain problem’, Ståle Gundersen discusses the problem of how to study the neurophysiological foundations of mental processes. Freud took it for granted that there is an identity between both sides. However, today we have a more sophisticated view of the mind–brain problem and Ståle Gundersen draws a clear picture of Freud’s outdated ideas and hypotheses and also where his contributions enrich current debates (e.g. on consciousness or the mind–brain problem).
Another text in the field of psychoanalysis and neuroscience is John Dall’Aglio’s article ‘Jouissance and affective neuroscience: A critical neuropsychoanalytic integration’. As the title already suggests, the concept of jouissance as described by Lacan is taken as a starting point to apply it in the neuropsychoanalytic context of affective neuroscience. The author considers the consequences that this approach might have for the concept of homeostasis but also demonstrates how the Lacanian concept becomes more concise and appears with more theoretical rigour.
Silvia Cimino investigates the consequences when not only individual but also environmental factors are taken into consideration for explaining the development of psychological disorders. Her article ‘Some notes on the phenomenology of psychological disorders: From the birth of Freudian psychoanalysis to the possible contribution of multiple etiopathogenic factors’ is a good example of how important it is to consider the complexity of different factors and influences – neurobiological, individual and societal – when trying to better understand the circumstances for the development of a mental disorder. In a thorough case description, these complex interactions between inner and relational (‘environmental’) factors are highlighted. A better understanding of these interactive processes influences the interventions that a therapist may give during the therapeutic process.
Münevver Zuhal Baydar offers a special perspective on anxieties in connection with the oedipal situation. In the article ‘Oedipus’ anxiety from past to the present: A case study’, the reader is confronted with an interpretation that is rooted in Lacanian theory. Baydar argues that it is the question ‘What does the Other want from me?’ that makes the oedipal situation so conflictive and anxiety laden. The subject becomes the object of the Other’s desire, which causes anxiety. Baydar not only tries to find proof for this interpretation in the clinical case material, which is thoroughly described, but also builds on Lacan’s theory of anxiety and investigates possible connections with obsessional neuroses.
Emil Dalsgaard Larsen and Bent Rosenbaum investigate how the psychoanalytic concept of deferred action (‘Nachträglichkeit’) could be used to understand positive and curative transformations in the psychoanalytic process. The text ‘Nachträglichkeit and psychoanalytic creativity’ describes a much broader approach for the concept than just focusing on explanations in the context of the emergence of trauma. In their clinical examples, the authors demonstrate how a creative psychoanalyst may influence the process of psychoanalytic work by including new aspects and perspectives in the psychoanalytic process, which leads to what Dalsgaard and Rosenbaum describe as a ‘complex dynamic causality of proactive and retroactive processes’.
In their article ‘Containment, affirmation and structural deficiency – revisiting an issue in psychoanalytic method’, Anders Zachrisson and Mek Wong explore those interventions added to the psychoanalytic intervention techniques that do not address unconscious material but rather the relationship between patient and therapist. The main aim here is not to reveal hidden meanings but to create new ones. Special interest is placed on affirmative ways in which new meaning is produced while also considering the differences to what Bion described as ‘containment’. In their clinical vignettes, the authors elucidate these interventions, which might be seen as a preparative step followed by interpretations that uncover hidden meaning.
Batya Shoshani, Naama Shoshani-Breda and Michael Shoshani‘s article on ‘Truth, anxiety and the contribution of Heidegger’s phenomenological ontology to psychoanalytic conceptualization and practice’ raises an interesting question: To what extent is there an overlap between Martin Heidegger’s philosophical approach and psychoanalytic thinking when it comes to the two relevant and interconnected concepts of ‘truth’ and ‘anxiety’? The authors confirm that psychoanalytic thinking has become more influenced by ontological and phenomenological ways of conceptualizing the individual. This is interpreted as a method of approaching the patient ‘in a more open and accepting manner’.
Johannes Lehtonen has written a comment on the paper ‘Truth, anxiety and the contribution of Heidegger’s phenomenological ontology to psychoanalytic conceptualization and practice’ by Shoshani et al. Lehtonen discusses a couple of problems: the unresolved question of the demarcation between external and internal reality; and the concept of truth, which is mirrored in self-experience as an internal perception even though it is created in a relational context. This subjective truth extracted in a relational situation may be distinguished and compared to a philosophical concept of ultimate truth. Even though Lehtonen develops some critical perspectives, he emphasizes the importance of this kind of critical dialogue.
Dietmut Niedecken, in his article on ‘Psychosexuality and thinking’, explores how the relations and interactions of an individual with others are influenced and shaped by the individual’s sexual identity. The text takes on how the development of psychosexuality is influenced by ‘enigmatic messages’ of the adults, how subjective experiences can be explained and how physical sexual desires are transformed into ‘mental activity’. The author makes it clear that the thinking and experiencing Ego is inescapably influenced by its sexual identity and rooting in the body.
Performing adequate psychoanalytic research is a difficult endeavour but not impossible, as demonstrated by Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber, Marielle Donié, Julia Wichelmann, Gilles Ambresin and Tamara Fischmann in their article ‘Changes in dreams – the development of a dream-transformation scale in psychoanalyses with chronically depressed, early traumatized patients’. The authors summarize the research on changes in manifest dreams during psychotherapies and what can be deduced in order to learn more about changes of the object- and self-representations of a patient; a clinical case is used as a clarifying example. The authors suggest developing a special dream transformation scale for further investigation of these inner change processes of psychic transformations, which are made visible through the manifest dream content.
Mark Goldblatt, Elsa Ronningstam, Stephen Briggs, Reinhard Lindner and Martin Teising write about ‘The experience of trauma that converts to destruction of the self: A consideration of suicidal attack during times of global distress’. They discuss how the risk of acting in a self-destructive way may be a defensive reaction against the ‘unbearable suffering’ in times of global traumatic stress (e.g. war, Covid pandemic). They advocate an integration of psychoanalytic and social perspectives when working clinically with these unbearable external and internal states.
Two book reviews conclude this issue. In the first, David Maroti reviews Siktprövningar. Essäer om psykoanalys och skapande by Catharina Engström; in the second, Lillian Döllinger reviews Tales from the Unconscious by Christopher Gibson.
Finally, the scientific activities in the different psychoanalytic societies throughout 2023 are listed and documented.
I wish the reader an interesting and thought-provoking experience.
Stephan Hau
Editor-in-Chief