It is well understood that psychoanalysis began with Freud’s encounter with hysteria and his work with illnesses of the mind which manifested in bodily terms. However, despite its close connection to the body and the understanding that psychoanalytic theory and practice develop hand-in-hand, psychological conflict that expresses itself in physical terms and more especially the role of the two bodies in the therapy room has received relatively little attention. The topic of this research project is captured in its title: “Minding the Body”, and the four journal articles it presents interrogate the relationship between the mind and body of both the patient and therapist. The thesis begins with two published papers which focus on the body of the patient, rehearsing and extending the psychoanalytic theory of bodily psychopathology and the implications that the different understandings of the relationship between body and mind in different forms of psychosoma have for clinical interventions. The second two papers examine what the analyst’s interpretation of her somatic responses to the patient, and the patient’s engagement with the analyst’s body, can reveal about the dynamics of the therapeutic dyad. The project concludes with a discussion of the clinical implications of a greater focus on the two bodies in the room, suggesting that the techniques developed to make sense of the patient’s physical symptoms can be usefully applied to decode the somatic countertransference as it manifests in a particular therapeutic dyad. That process, coupled with an awareness of the patient’s engagement with the therapist’s body, can create conditions under which the analyst’s body may become an analytic object and this can add significantly to the analytic repertoire.

Nossa pesquisa tem origem no amplo campo da relação da psicanálise com a universidade. A partir do reconhecimento que essa relação é marcada por impasses, mas também por potencialidades, restringimos o foco da nossa pesquisa para as possibilidades de pesquisa clínica em psicanálise. O momento seguinte foi dedicado a fazer um levantamento das metodologias de escrita a partir de material clínico, resultando em encontrar cinco. A construção do caso de Pierre Fédida, a construção do caso de Carlo Viganò, a escrita da clínica de Simone Rickes, o traço do caso de Dumézil e o fato clínico de Czermak. Decidimos aprofundar nossa investigação nas duas últimas metodologias citadas por sua potencialidade teórica e de formação na psicanálise, mas curiosamente apresentando uma escassez de publicações. Logo, apresentamos exemplos de casos clínicos escritos a partir dessas metodologias e comentamos suas similaridades, diferenças, limites e potencialidades. Finalmente destacamos o modo de fazer operar a clínica com a teoria. Sublinhamos como a noção de ficção como operador a partir do real que é a clínica se oferece como suporte para fazer os conceitos como ferramentas. A partir da clínica, podemos construir um caso, escrever fazendo contorno no real, apreender um traço, propor um fato clínico. Consideramos que são essas ferramentas teóricas que permitem que operemos no campo abstrato, trabalhando hipóteses para tocar o que é de certa forma inacessível na clínica e assim produzimos e colhemos os efeitos da psicanálise. / Our research has its origin in the broad field of psychoanalysis's relationship with the university. From the recognition that this relationship is marked by impasses, but also by potentialities, we restrict the focus of our research to the possibilities of clinical research in psychoanalysis. The next moment was dedicated to make a survey of the writing methodologies with clinical material, resulting in finding five. The construction of the case of Pierre Fédida, the construction of the case of Carlo Viganò, the writing of the clinic of Simone Rickes, the trait of the case of Dumézil and the clinical fact of Czermak. We decided to deepen our research in the last two methodologies cited for their theoretical potential and formation in psychoanalysis, but curiously they presented a shortage of publications. Therefore, we present examples of clinical cases written from these methodologies and comments on their similarities, differences, limits and potentialities. Finally we highlighted the way of making operate the clinic with theory. We emphasized how the notion of fiction as an operator of the Real that is a support for the use of concepts as tools. With the clinic, we can build a case, we can write as making the counter of the Real, apprehend a trait, and also propose a clinical fact. We believe that it is these theoretical tools that allow us to operate in the abstract field, working hypotheses to touch what is in some way inaccessible in the clinic and thus we produce and reap the effects of psychoanalysis.

This study is an exploration of five children’s relationship with the existential as it is played out in their everydayness at the nursery. Previous research in the field has looked at teachers’ perceptions of pre-school children’s existential questions, showing, thus, a place for a study on children’s existential encounters. My focus lies with the subjective meanings and the emotional qualities of these encounters, specifically how they are embodied in children’s play in the form of a word but also an object, an image, a movement or silence as well as in their ordinary doing and their very being at the nursery. I am also interested in how the existential reveals itself in children’s everyday relationships with others as well as how it is precisely through my relationship with them that I, as someone who looks for it, can get closer to it. For that I use psychoanalytic observation as a methodology that stays with the child’s interior worlds as they unfold in her play and in the relationship with the observer. My methodology is informed by relational psychoanalytic thinking and feminist writings that allow me to locate meaning in the liminal spaces between the self and the other, the interior and the exterior. In the analysis, I use writing as inquiry as a means to explore an integrative approach by moving between psychoanalytic theories and existential-phenomenological ideas to think the existential with. I explore children’s existential encounters with the questions of nothingness, strangeness, ontological insecurity, death and selfhood as they emerged in the context of our relationship in the course of the observations. I also discuss how time, space and relationship - as inherent in the existential but also implicated in the method of psychanalytic observation - manifested in children’s existential encounters. Finally, I look at the idea of the interpersonal unconscious as a creative source of meaning and discuss how the existential emerged embodied in symbolic articulations in the form of character, imagery, sounds and scents.

A presente pesquisa investiga a noção de práxis psicanalítica, entendida como forma de saber empregada na direção do tratamento, nas decisões clínicas a ela atinentes e na ética que lhe concerne. De que maneira é possível reconhecer o saber em ação na prática da psicanálise a partir de sua incidência do lado do psicanalista? Nossa hipótese é a de que isso permitiria pensar com maior clareza critérios para definir praxicamente um psicanalista, inclusive considerando a incorporação do saber e da experiência adquirida em seu próprio percurso formativo. Nosso objetivo é delimitar as propriedades e características desse saber que se refere ao psicanalista, que não se restringe ao domínio de conceitos teóricos e regras deontológicos, mas também e sobretudo derivaria de sua análise pessoal. Examinaremos, para tanto, as propostas lacanianas a respeito da relação entre saber e verdade, da ligação entre saber do psicanalista e objeto a, bem como do conceito de sujeito suposto saber entendendo que em tais noções se exprime a ideia de práxis e o tipo de saber que lhe seria atinente. Pretende-se verificar em que medida o saber do psicanalista possui caráter de singularidade, uma vez que advém da análise pessoal, traço de particularidade servindo ao analista para operar tratamentos em geral e, responderia também ao critério de universalidade, pela sua articulação aos conceitos do ensino teórico e pela sua aspiração de transmissibilidade / This research is about the notion of psychoanalytic praxis, understood as a way of knowing. Applied towards a treatment, clinical decisions and ethics relating to it. How to recognize the knowledge in action in the praxis of psychoanalysis from its incidence on the analyst\'s side? Our hypothesis is that this would allow us to think clearly how to define criteria for a psychoanalysts praxis, even considering the incorporation of knowledge and experience in their own formation. Our goal is to define the attributes and characteristics of this knowledge as regards to the psychoanalyst, that is not restricted to the domain of theoretical concepts and deontological rules, but above all, it would derive from his personal analysis. We will examine the Lacanian proposals on the relationship between knowledge and truth, the connection between knowing the psychoanalyst and the object a, as well as the concept of the Subject Supposed to know - understanding that in such notions, the idea of praxis expressed and the type of corresponding knowledge aim to verify to what extent, the knowledge of the psychoanalyst has a unique character as it comes from personal analysis, a characteristic trait, which aids the analyst to operate a treatment. It would also answer the universality criteria, by its articulation of the concepts of theoretical teaching and by its aspiration of transmissibility

Afin de contribuer d’un point de vue épistémologique au débat actuel sur la recherche en psychanalyse, nous avons cherché à établir dans notre thèse une histoire conceptuelle des origines de la méthode psychanalytique, une méthode clinique d’investigation et de traitement développée à Vienne entre 1886 et 1896 par le neuropathologiste Sigmund Freud. Ce travail se divise en trois grandes parties. Dans la première, intitulée « les antécédents », nous proposons d’identifier au sein de la neurologie et de la psychiatrie de langue française et allemande les conditions de possibilités empiriques de l’émergence de la méthode psychanalytique. Dans la deuxième, intitulée « les précédents », l’objectif est de reconnaître à l’intérieur de cette même tradition un certain nombre de pratiques apparentées à la psychanalyse, des pratiques considérées ici comme concurrentes de la méthode de Freud. Finalement, dans la troisième et dernière partie, intitulée « les origines », nous avons essayé de comprendre la manière dont la psychanalyse s’est effectivement établie en tant que méthode clinique d’investigation et de traitement dans son contexte particulier d’émergence. À la fin de ce parcours, nous avons pu constater l’existence de trois éléments qui sont à la base de la méthode freudienne et qui se trouvent dans la continuité de ses antécédents et précédents : 1) une notion non-dualiste de psychisme ancrée dans le postulat du parallélisme psycho-physique ; 2) un modèle nosologique fondé sur une hypothèse constitutionnelle non-congénitale ; et 3) une conception dynamique des rapports psychophysiologiques entre les représentations et les affects. Enfin, nous avons conclu que, bien que la psychanalyse de Freud possède une spécificité vis-à-vis d’autres pratiques psychologiques qui lui sont contemporaines, celle-ci ne peut être considérée comme un événement historique coupé de son contexte scientifique, ni comme quelque chose d’absolument exceptionnel par rapport à d’autres savoirs sur l’être humain. / Abstract In attempting to contribute from an epistemological point of view to the current debate on psychoanalytic research, we have sought in our thesis to establish a conceptual history of the origins of the psychoanalytic method, a clinical method of investigation and treatment developed in Vienna between 1886 and 1896 by neuropathologist Sigmund Freud. This work is divided into three main parts. In the first, entitled “the antecedents”, we propose to identify within the neurology and psychiatry of French and German languages the empirical conditions of the emergence of the psychoanalytic method. In the second, entitled “the precedents”, the objective is to recognize within this same tradition a certain number of practices related to psychoanalysis, practices considered here as concurrent of Freud's method. Finally, in the third and last part, entitled “the origins”, we have tried to understand how psychoanalysis has actually established itself as a clinical method of investigation and treatment in its particular context of emergence. At the end of this itinerary, we were able to recognize the existence of three elements which are at the base of the Freudian method and which are in the continuity of its antecedents and precedents: 1) a non-dualistic notion of psyche anchored in the postulate of psycho-physical parallelism; 2) a nosological model based on a non-congenital constitutional hypothesis; and 3) a dynamic conception of the psychophysiological relationships between representations and affects. Finally, we conclude that although Freud's psychoanalysis possesses a specificity regarding other psychological and contemporary practices, it cannot be considered as a historical event disconnected from its scientific context, nor as something absolutely exceptional concerning other knowledge about the human being.

It becomes evident that psychoanalysis of a large group is meaningful and necessary when persistent conflicts cannot be resolved, and the Volkan Tree Model opens the door for meaningful dialogue if both parties are engaged. This report studies two major religions and their varieties as these are manifested in two Asian countries helps us to understand the specific cultures of China and Japan, and also shows the limits of their compatibilities with Western Philosophy. In this examination, the philosophical-psychological analysis of two major groups is central to the argument and its conclusions.

This dissertation establishes that the methods used to generate social and political criticism are just as important as the ideas expressed. This proposition is explored in both the ideas and methods of the Indian political psychologist Ashis Nandy. For over thirty-five years Nandy has contributed extensively to a number of debates within a global academic culture, and as a public intellectual in India. His critique of Indian secularism has produced intense controversy, and is a dynamic case to explore this relationship between critique and method, and by extension the identity of the critic. This case study also allows for an analysis, of what is widely accepted, as the confronting features of his critique. In radically questioning the ways in which the ideology of secularism operates in Indian political culture, and in defining concepts of Indianness, Nandy contests dominant political ideas and ideals. Further, he confronts the role these ideas and ideals play in foreclosing understandings of national identity, national integration and Indian democracy. I argue that this confrontation demonstrates a critical and psychoanalytic engagement with the constituting features of Indian political culture, and political identities. This case study also provides a context to consider the implications of this approach for understanding and representing the identity of the critic. / Much criticism of Nandy and his work is based on beliefs that he represents the intellectual basis of anti-secularism and anti-modernism in India. According to these accounts Nandy carries forward a threatening and disruptive quality. This is evident, it is claimed, in his calls to return to a regressive traditionalism. These responses represent his ideas and his identity within a particular ideological and intellectual framework. This takes place though, at the expense of engaging with the methods operating in his work. The focus on the disruptive and threatening features of Nandy and his work creates a series of over-determined responses that undermine recognition of his psychoanalytic approach. I argue that the location of agitation and fascination for critics is in Nandy’s willingness to confront accepted identities, meanings, fantasies, projections and ideals operating in politics, and in working through the complexities of subjectivity. This aptitude for working with external and internal processes, at the border between culture and psyche is where the psychoanalytic focus of his work is located. The psychoanalytic focus, in working with and working through the complexities of human subjectivity, produces a confronting self-reflexivity that can disarm critics. Nandy’s psychoanalytic reading of secularism is the starting point for theorising and characterising the method, or mode of critique operating across his work more broadly. / This dissertation argues that Nandy’s approach or method is characterised by a psychoanalytic mode. The psychoanalytic mode of engagement is illustrated in his capacity to generate critical analytic perspectives that rupture and regenerate subjectivity, including his own. This dissertation demonstrates Nandy’s psychoanalytic commitment, and argues the importance of this approach. Therefore, this reading of Nandy and the methods that are employed to develop this inquiry, build a case for the importance of psychoanalytic concepts, as a necessary interpretive mode for social and political criticism.

<p>Walker Percy writes, in the foreword of "A confederacy of dunces", “I hesitate to use the word comedy - though comedy it is - because that implies simply a funny book, and this novel is a great deal more than that …It is also sad. One never quite knows where the sadness comes from.” In this essay I have analyzed where the sadness comes from, through the psychoanalytic theories of Jaqcues Lacan, John Bowlby, Melanie Klein and Erich Fromm, mainly. My standpoint is that no text or utterance is ever completed, and therefore it is not absolute. The text itself is the strongest manifestation of power in the novel. When scrutinizing the text itself, I have treated it as one of the analysands, trying to reveal the suppressed information underneath the surface of the implied story.</p>

Walker Percy writes, in the foreword of "A confederacy of dunces", “I hesitate to use the word comedy - though comedy it is - because that implies simply a funny book, and this novel is a great deal more than that …It is also sad. One never quite knows where the sadness comes from.” In this essay I have analyzed where the sadness comes from, through the psychoanalytic theories of Jaqcues Lacan, John Bowlby, Melanie Klein and Erich Fromm, mainly. My standpoint is that no text or utterance is ever completed, and therefore it is not absolute. The text itself is the strongest manifestation of power in the novel. When scrutinizing the text itself, I have treated it as one of the analysands, trying to reveal the suppressed information underneath the surface of the implied story.

This essay examines the sadomasochistic relationship between the main characters of the Twilight Saga from a psychoanalytic perspective, and looks at the family and gender roles in the Saga from a post-feministic view. Aspects also considered are the portrayal of female sexuality as something dangerous and negative, recreational sex as something perverted, and the pro-marriage and anti-abortion propaganda in the last two novels. The purpose of the essay is to reveal how the author’s personal, and to some extent religious, beliefs and values are validated through the storyline; how the relationship between the main characters, as well as their personal psychological and physical health, change after matrimony and parenthood.