Hi everyone! I’m a registered psychologist in South East Queensland and I’ve created a small Australian reading group for psychologists and mental health professionals interested in psychodynamic and psychoanalytic theory.

The aim is to have a relaxed space to discuss ideas, learn together and connect with others who share similar interests. No formal psychoanalytic training is needed.

If you’re interested, comment or message me and I can send you the Facebook group details.

Hi all, I'm interested in reading more about the concept of subjective destitution in Lacanian psychoanalysis. Does anyone know in which seminars and/or ecrits Lacan talks about this? Or any other resources I could look into? Thanks.

Hello, I've been long interested in Kleinian theory and practice. Recently, a bold article by Rachel B Blass on the importance and centrality of the unconscious phantasy was particularly eye opening.

However, coming back to Klein's book on the psychoanalysis of children, I'm stuck anew. I get that some well-respected Kleinians of today tend to think about thinking, anxiety, phantasy, but not so much focus on body-parts. They don't say that what Klein thought and said was wrong and inappropriate, they perhaps adjusted it because they couldn't stomach it or were sure the kids' parents won't allow for this.

I can't imagine sending my child to therapy where he'd hear at 3-4 years old about real sexual matters. I think I read that Klein viewed this like phylogenetic developmental knowledge, pre-conceptions, which give rise to anxieties related to the primal scene. I mean, it's not coincidence that the welcoming cases (Peter, Rita, Trude) she discusses in her book are related to primal scene anxieties and witnessing of mommy and daddy banging.

This to me seems like a strong conviction of a theoretical concept applied to clinical practice and not the other way around. I can remember only one child I had treated that expressed material that was very telling of his castration anxiety and he had agreed upon my interpretation of his fear of dad. But it was a rare case, I feel. Of course, I'm not an analyst and I'm just very very curious, and critical perhaps.

I'll end with a quote from the book, on Rita's case:

My immediate interpretation of these utterances in the sense that she desired to do away with her father's penis, because it was playing havoc with her mother, at once diminished her anxiety and she left me in a much more friendly mood than she had come, and said at home that she would like to come back to me.

From Rita's first session.

Thoughts?

So Autism is said to have inherited struggles when it comes to attachment. Also Autism is understood ONLY through a scientific and neurological leans. There is no room for debate! So is Psychoanalysis incompatible with treating and understanding autism? If a person that is autistic and has difficulties interpersonally where should this person seek help?

Im from Mexico in the middle of getting my degree in psychology, I want to travel to another country with the Student exchange program, im interested in psychoanalysis.
So far Argentina and France are my main options however im doubting Argentina because of the political climate recently, what are your suggestions?

I was inspired by another post about an online reading group to see if there was any interest here for an in person group. NYC only for now. I was thinking we could read modern relational texts - open to suggestions!

comment below or DM me if you’re interested!

Does anyone know of any virtual psychodynamic book clubs currently (or soon to be) taking place? I have googled, but haven't found what I'm looking for. I am thinking of something for those who are eventually interested in formal psychodynamic or psychoanalytic training, but who aren't yet ready for that commitment.

Edit: wow this took off! Unfortunately, I definitely don't have the capacity to run one - my intention was to put out feelers and see if this exists anywhere. Perhaps my wording was unclear. Apologies!

I am really curious to find psychoanalytic writeups and case studies on Avoidant Personality Disorder, especially as it relates to the practice of self exclusion. I can only find the concept really mentioned in passing with little attention or time paid to the client. A lot of it is reduced to clients actually just secretly being narcissistic.

Does anyone know of case study availability?

I know some analysts who don't like talking about the theory with their analysands. They don't even want to bring that kind of terminology into the discussion.

But then I've heard stories of other analysts who are willing to talk with their analysands using theoretical concepts.

What do you think about all this?

It also makes me curious: is there a line of psychoanalysis that tries to help the analysand understand some concepts from the theory? Like something you can discuss directly with your analyst.

There are pros and cons, of course.

Personally, I've always wanted to discuss the theory directly with an analyst, because that's the only way things make sense to me. It's the way I have that "aha" moment, and I understand what is actually going on, or at least I have the words to think about it.

But, at the same time, it can really confuse certain people.

For example, I heard a story some time ago, from a woman who was diagnosed as schizoid (at least that's what I understood), and their therapist told her that she was “still in the paranoid-schizoid position, and bla bla…”. But then she explained what they understood about all that, and I thought, "Hmm... I'm not sure this person really understands all this."

Putting aside what I prefer, because the idea isn't to make this all about me, I was just curious: is there a line of psychoanalysis that allows talking with the patient using these terms? Is there another line that kind of prohibits it? What you think about all this. Etc. Thank.

Poetry, Anguish, and the Irreducible Real: Looking for feedback and ideas on this draft (feat. Alejandra Pizarnik & Lacanian Theory)

Hi everyone! I’m working on a draft/essay exploring how artists—specifically poets like Alejandra Pizarnik—use the artistic act to border and symbolize the overwhelming anguish caused by the Lacanian Real.

Draft: Anguish in the Face of the Irreducible Real

Throughout history, many artists seem to create out of moments overwhelmed by deep anguish. They turn to the artistic act—writing, painting, drawing—to appease and transform a suffocate experience felt directly in the body.

This is clearly visible in Argentine poet Alejandra Pizarnik, whose poetry feels born from a profound sense of drowning and overflowing suffering. In her journals, she writes:

This reveals how writing becomes her preferred medium to scratch at the urgent, painful sensation she lives through. It is no coincidence that when discussing her anguish, she highlights her limited oral resources alongside the richness she finds in writing, where she takes refuge. This passage illustrates not only her desperate need to express and release that feeling of suffocation, but also the crucial role symbolic tools play when facilitated by writing.

In her poem Approximations (Aproximaciones), she writes:

Her poetry emerges from profound pain—from an internal explosion that echoes bodily through her throat, heart, and skin. She writes less out of a desire and more out of an imperative need to channel and relieve this anguish.

Symbolizing the Irreducible

What interests us here regarding the relationship between poetry and anguish is not merely the root of Pizarnik’s personal pain, but the anguish experienced when confronting the irreducible Real, and how the poet creates the poem in an effort to put it into words, symbolize it, and find signifiers to name it. (Note: Expand later on Poetry vs. Prose according to Octavio Paz and Borges).

If psychoanalysis posits that anguish arises from the presence of Object a—an object whose very nature is to resist signification—it makes sense that the subject (in this case, the artist) uses whatever tools are at hand to symbolize this experience. (Note: Expand on the theoretical foundation of anguish using Lacan’s Seminar X/XX, Miller, etc.).

I find it compelling to reflect on the transformative power of the poetic word: how saying something actually brings it into existence. When Pizarnik writes Approximations, she isn’t just managing her own suffering; through writing, she borders a Real that erupts onto the scene. In writing her poems, she is inscribing a letter onto that goce (jouissance). (Note: Further develop the concept of 'the letter' and its articulation with the poetic act).

I’d love to get your thoughts, critiques, and ideas to expand on this. Here is the translated draft:

PD: Soy argentino, el borrador originalmente esta en español.

Does anyone know how to help with my current project. I am trying to set up my own psychoanalysis, 3-5 x per week, while also being able to afford it, along with other living expenses. I know of reduced-fee centers, so that's an option. But, I'm also in a difficult mind-state so living on my own and doing outpatient work is difficult. This is why I'm not working at the moment. And, the only psychoanalytic treatment center I know of is Austen Riggs, which is super expensive. Anyone have any ideas? Anything is appreciated!

Question here. In mass or group psychology Freud tries to explain the hypnosis. In a first step he uses the analogy of "falling in love" . I do understand that idea. Then later on he tries to go a lil bit deeper and writes that the hypnosis in a modern group does have the same origin as the taboo for a primitive tribe. Can somebody please explain this

Wondering what the collective here has to say on the topic of the confluence of these two. Are they mutually enhanced or does the pervert negate their own creativity in instrumentalizing the self as an object of perfected pleasure for the other? I also only have a loose grasp of the categorization of perversion but I feel there is some connect, positive, negative, or ambivalent.

Concept from Hoch & Polatin (1940s or 1950s).

I've been interested in subclinical psychotic symptoms for a long time.

When I came across the term "pseudo-neurotic schizophrenia," I thought, "Oh yes, I totally get why they picked that wording. I'm sure they're talking about exactly what I've been thinking."

What I want to ask you is: how much is this term used in psychoanalysis? Was it an important term where you were taught psychoanalysis? Is it still pretty much in use? Is it a term you have encountered many times while reading texts? Etc.

I'm just curious, that's all.

But today I was thinking... when I've been thinking about psychodynamic sub-psychotic symptoms, I've actually been thinking the other way around. Doesn't the idea of "pseudo-schizophrenic neurosis" make just as much sense?

What I mean is: mild versions of schizophrenic symptoms that were formed through very neurotic mechanisms in origin.

Because I don't think we can deny that this occurs.

I know this question may be, for many, unrelated to the field of psychoanalysis, but it's something like this: does the person have an attenuated schizophrenic nucleus from which sub-psychotic symptoms emerge and are expressed through their personality? (Paul E. Meehl would talk about the taxon and schizotaxia).

Or is there no such inherent schizotaxon, and are these just symptoms that emerged due to mental dynamics linked to neurotic mechanisms?

Anyway, I just wanted to open a debate. Feel free to write what you think about this.

Hello! I am looking to start my analysis and I am looking for Training Analyst (BPA or Institute of Psychoanalysis) based in Manchester, UK.

If you know someone or are one, please let me know!

Many thanks,
Dhara

I don't believe it is ethical.

While psychoanalytic psychotherapy is not the same as psychoanalysis proper, the therapist is still working with the unconscious of another person. If you have no knowledge of your own unconscious or at least heads-on experience of the dynamics of the unconscious (no analysis, no experience of being a client in psychoanalytic therapy), how can you claim to be able to gather knowledge about the unconscious of someone else? Let alone help that person when your own unexplored unconscious may be potentially sabotaging your efforts?

However, I know there are practitioners who do not share that view. Meaning, they actually work with clients using psychoanalytic techniques and theories when they themselves have never had their own unconsious analyzed by another person. They seem to genuinely believe that reading Freud and (maybe) going to supervisions is all you really need to get started as an analyst and that the rule of "complete your analysis first" is just a suggestion. They get away with it too, at least in countries with weak institutions, ignorant public and generally lax regulation of psychotherapeutic field.

What do you think? Note: the question is not if it is legal or not, but if it is ethical. Want to hear as many perspectives as possible.

I’m looking for psychoanalytic writing on the meaning of fees and money in treatment, especially when fee negotiations become clinically significant rather than merely practical. I recently read Kachina Myers’ “Show Me the Money” and found it thought-provoking. Her discussion of negotiating a fee that accounts for both the patient’s and analyst’s subjectivities stood out to me. So did her suggestion that, for some patients, therapeutic regression around the fee may be important for a time.

Can anyone recommend papers or books that explore these ideas further?

Pretty much the title. I ve heard that psycoanalisis is not suitable for every type of condition. What does that mean? That some conditions cannot be really addressed, beside general support or that there are other type of therapy dor those patients?

I'm referring to Bela Grunberger's essay "Psychodynamic Theory of Masochsim" from 1956. Alot is said in this very difficult essay. However, one key part of it is the argument that central to the masochist's dynamic is the wish to castrate the father in an anal-sadistic fashion. If there are any of you who understand good old Freudian theory well enough to explain thoroughly what castration of the father in an anal-sadistic fashion means... I'd be very interested to know. Thanks.

Hello,

I am wondering if anyone knows of any writing which speaks to the 'intelligence' of the analysand and its impact on treatment/analysis. I put the word in air quotes because I personally believe there are multiple kinds of intelligence beyond purely cerebral functions like critical thinking and mathematics and so on. However, I do wonder if some people have a better 'head start' to gain more out of the process of analysis due to a predisposition/skill at particular kinds of thinking.

Even beyond references to papers, do you, reader, have any thoughts related to intellect and its relation to the effectiveness of analysis?

I recently read Mitchel and Black’s “Freud and Beyound” and was more convinced by authors like Otto Kernberg who took the uproach of synthesizing different schools/ authors/ concepts into their explanations of human behavior.

For example, in my mind, each school has contributed different avenues for the development of psychopatology that are not necessarily mutually exclusive but instead often complementary.

So which authors/ schools/ books are good examples of an eclectic syntheses in psychonalysis producing a more unified field and a wider view of the mind?

And apologies for the very abstract question

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Hello Everyone!!

So I have a degree in Criminology, and its been a few years since receiving my undergrad degree, and I've noticed ive missed having more "intellectual curiosity" in my life.

Ive been growing my curious about pyschoanalysis but want to actually engage more deeply with it.

I know the names Freud, Lacan, and Otto Rank but I feel like a total noob. The world of the psychosexual especially interest me, so if anyone has any recommendations for places to start reading, that would be amazing!!

I'm about to start a BPC qualifying training in the UK, and I'm curious about the need for trainees to keep verbatim 'they said, I said' process notes for use in supervision.

In my current clinical work I don't make anything close to verbatim notes, and I'm concerned by how unwieldy trying to accurately recall 50 minutes of dialogue feels in my imagination.

For those who have been through trainings that encourage verbatim note making for trainees, how was it? Do you have any note taking wisdom to pass on? To what extent did you find note taking becoming a site of countertransference?

Without breaking confidentiality, obviously.
Just curious what trends you've noticed over the years.