Not Belonging to one’s Self: Affect on Facebook’s Site Governance page

This article makes a contribution to a growing number of works that discuss affect and social media. I use Freudian affect theory to analyse user posts on the public Site Governance Facebook page. Freud’s work may help us to explore the affectivity within the user narratives and I suggest that they are expressions of alienation, dispossession and powerlessness that relate to the users’ relations with Facebook as well as to their internal and wider social relations. The article thus introduces a new angle on studies of negative user experiences that draws on psychoanalysis and critical theory.

The Subject in the Crowd: A Critical Discussion of Jodi Dean’s “Crowds and Party”

This article presents a critical discussion of Jodi Dean’s (2016) book “Crowds and Party”. I pay particular attention to her discussion of crowds and the Communist Party that is influenced by psychoanalysis. Dean has put forward an important argument for the affectivity within crowds that may be transformed into a Communist Party that is characterised by a similar affective infrastructure. I suggest that Dean’s discussion of affect is slightly vague at times and may be supplemented with Sigmund Freud’s work on affect. In contrast to Dean, who stresses the collectivity and deindividuation of the crowd, I argue that the crowd needs to be thought of as a place where individuality and collectivity come together and remain in tension. Such a tension may then be managed by the Party, as Dean illustrates.

La metáfora en los museos de historia social

Antes de la puesta en práctica de los archivos en papel en el siglo XIX había muchas formas líricas de conocer el pasado, por ejemplo, a través del canto y de la pintura. En la evolución de los museos del siglo XIX, los artefactos ocuparon el lugar del conocimiento correspondiente de la “verdad” que se creía existente en el papel archivado. El trabajo del Museo procedió con la certeza del sentido común de una correspondencia individualizada racional entre un artefacto y su significado. La confianza en la capacidad denotativa del artefacto era así la estrategia para transmitir significado a los visitantes. Los museos están alejándose ahora de la denotación como estrategia de comunicación primaria, y uno de los modos que surge es la metáfora. Así como se entendía antiguamente que el significado fijo de los objetos residía en su pura materialidad, ahora vemos el resurgir de la materialidad en los museos, pero esta vez a través de la metáfora, teóricamente entendida como apoyada en la experiencia material del mundo por parte de nuestros cuerpos humanos.

Crossing the Threshold: Mysticism, Liminality, and Remedios Varo’s Bordando el manto terrestre (1961–2)

In this article we propose to take up the question of the painter’s work in connection with liminality more explicitly. We will argue that the limen Varo’s heroines cross is a psychological one that takes them through a process culminating in a rebirth of the self, and that to the extent they are in-between identities and involved in a process of initiation, they can be considered liminars (Turner). We will also argue that in order to develop this theme, which culminates in her most autobiographical work, the triptych Bordando el manto terrestre (1961–2), the artist needed to find a way conceptually to bridge surrealism and her interest in mysticism. She would have found a sympathetic approach in Jung, one of the founders of psychoanalysis, who turned explicitly to the question of religion in the troubled thirties, though, as we shall see, she revised his androcentric approach. We will suggest that Jung’s writing helped the artist make a transition from surrealism to esoteric spirituality.

Os Efeitos da Avaliação Psicológica em Crianças com Dificuldades de Aprendizagem

O presente estudo de caso agregado teve como objetivo primordial avaliar em que medida os recursos terapêuticos utilizados durante o tempo de avaliação psicodiagnóstica (psicométrica e projetiva) das crianças encaminhadas para o serviço de psicologia escolar, tem impacto positivo na criança em processo de avaliação, no duplo plano comportamental e cognitivo. O protocolo da investigação foi composto por: desenho de família, WISC-III e CAT, com recurso a algumas sessões de ludoterapia. Os meios utilizados no processo de avaliação permitiram a superação de algumas dificuldades apresentadas pelas crianças, tendo sido, muito particularmente, identificados os contributos que a psicanálise e a psicologia psicodinâmica podem oferecer à psicopedagogia. / The main objective of this aggregated case study was the assessment of the impact of psycho-diagnostic evaluation (psychometric and projective testing) on the improvement of the school-aged children oriented to the cabinet of psychology of their school. The research protocol included: family picture test, WISC -III and CAT, plus some play therapy sessions. Some of the children overcame part of the learning and behavioral difficulties after the evaluation period. Such a result proves, most particularly, the contributions of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychology to psycho-pedagogy.

Psychotherapeutic work with Families with Life-threatening Maternal Illness

This exploratory research study describes a child and adolescent psychotherapeutic clinical service offered to children/adolescents and their families with mothers with a life-threatening illness. The clinical service itself was also exploratory in nature. The research objectives of the study were (i) to explore whether this form of clinical work could be beneficial for such families in relieving distress and supporting their development; (ii) to discover the factors at play within and between the family members using an adaptation of Grounded Theory research methodology; and (iii) to add to the knowledge base for adults – family members and professionals – relating to, and dealing with, such children and adolescents. Descriptions and discussion of the therapeutic input and research study are given. Symptoms, which included emotional, behavioural, psychological, learning, and interpersonal difficulties, decreased in all the children/adolescents who were offered clinical treatment within an outpatient multidisciplinary Tier 3 Child and Adolescent Service (CAMHS). Six Themes were identified across the cases and these were named: Engagement, Parental Concern, Impact of Mother’s Illness, Defences, Sustaining Factors and Feeling Different. These Themes are discussed in the light of relevant published research. A literature review was undertaken and focuses on: epidemiological context; children’s understanding of death; impact of parental bereavement in childhood; the mourning process; anticipatory grief; psychoanalysis: mourning and trauma; children’s play and drawings as communication; and psychosocial therapeutic services. The thesis has particular relevance for child and adolescent psychotherapists and other mental health professionals who work within hospital and hospice settings.

Psychotherapeutic work with Families with Life-threatening Maternal Illness

This exploratory research study describes a child and adolescent psychotherapeutic clinical service offered to children/adolescents and their families with mothers with a life-threatening illness. The clinical service itself was also exploratory in nature. The research objectives of the study were (i) to explore whether this form of clinical work could be beneficial for such families in relieving distress and supporting their development; (ii) to discover the factors at play within and between the family members using an adaptation of Grounded Theory research methodology; and (iii) to add to the knowledge base for adults – family members and professionals – relating to, and dealing with, such children and adolescents. Descriptions and discussion of the therapeutic input and research study are given. Symptoms, which included emotional, behavioural, psychological, learning, and interpersonal difficulties, decreased in all the children/adolescents who were offered clinical treatment within an outpatient multidisciplinary Tier 3 Child and Adolescent Service (CAMHS). Six Themes were identified across the cases and these were named: Engagement, Parental Concern, Impact of Mother’s Illness, Defences, Sustaining Factors and Feeling Different. These Themes are discussed in the light of relevant published research. A literature review was undertaken and focuses on: epidemiological context; children’s understanding of death; impact of parental bereavement in childhood; the mourning process; anticipatory grief; psychoanalysis: mourning and trauma; children’s play and drawings as communication; and psychosocial therapeutic services. The thesis has particular relevance for child and adolescent psychotherapists and other mental health professionals who work within hospital and hospice settings.

Grounded Theory methods in child psychotherapy research

This article considers the place of qualitative research in psychoanalysis and child psychotherapy. It discusses why research methodology for many years occupied so small a place in these fields, and examines the cultural and social developments since the 1960s which have changed this situation, giving formal methods of research much greater significance. It reflects on the different pressures to develop formal research methods which arise both from outside the psychoanalytic field, as a condition of its continued professional survival, and from within it, where its main aim is the development of fundamental psychoanalytic knowledge, It suggests that the conduct of mainly quantitative research into treatment outcomes is largely a response to these external pressures, whilst the main benefits to be gained from the development of qualitative research methods, such as Grounded Theory, are in facilitating the knowledge-generating capacities and achievements of child psychotherapists themselves. The paper describes Grounded Theory methods, and explains how they can be valuable in the recognition of hitherto unrecognised meanings and patterns as these are made visible in clinical practice. Finally, it briefly describes five different examples of completed doctoral studies, all of which have added significantly to the knowledge-base of child psychotherapy, and which demonstrate how much can be accomplished using this method of research.

Afrikabilder aus ethnopsychoanalytischer Perspektive

In diesem Beitrag wird diskutiert, welches Potenzial die ethnopsychoanalytische Theorieperspektive für eine Reflexion Globalen Lernens im Kontext oder in Bezug auf Afrika haben kann. Dabei wird zunächst der Ansatz der Ethnopsychoanalyse näher erläutert. Anschließend werden Konsequenzen für afrikabezogenes Globales Lernen gezogen. (DIPF/Orig.)

A culpa inexpugnável e a necessidade de punição no criminoso

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada ao ISPA - Instituto Universitário

Siegfried Bernfeld: Sämtliche Werke in 16 Bänden. Band 1: Theorien des Jugendalters. Hrsg. v. Ulrich Herrmann. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz 1992 [Rezension]

Rezension von: Siegfried Bernfeld: Sämtliche Werke in 16 Bänden. Band 1: Theorien des Jugendalters. Hrsg. v. Ulrich Herrmann. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz 1992, 306 S.

Hysterical inquiry and autoethnography : a Lacanian alternative to institutionalised ethical commandments

Édipo(s): Análise de édipo a partir da obra de Sófocles

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada ao Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada para obtenção de grau de Mestre na especialidade de Psicologia Clínica.

O Eu neuropsíquico : Ensaio sobre a consciência

Tese de Doutoramento em Psicologia Clínica apresentada ao ISPA - Instituto Universitário

O processo psicanalítico: Intrasubjectividade versus intersubjectividade (a partir de uma perspectiva sócio – construtivista)

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada ao Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada para obtenção de grau de Mestre na especialidade de Psicologia Clínica.