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C B Brenneis

Publications and source records attributed to C B Brenneis.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

The analytic present in psychoanalytic reconstructions of the historical past.

The psychoanalytic reconstruction of specific influential past events has been a regular feature of psychoanalytic practice from its inception. More recently, as reconstructions of incestuous sexual abuse have become more frequent, the reconstructive process has attracted attention, and doubts have been expressed about the validity of the analytic evidence used to substantiate their inference. Over the years, psychoanalytic discourse about the adequacy of this evidence has moved from Freud's uneasy confidence to a rather sharply divided debate between advocates and skeptics. From beyond psychoanalysis, memory research raises questions about the validity of this evidence, and research on influence raises questions about the procedures by which it has been collected. A reexamination of several cases in which reconstructions emerged from unstable therapeutic circumstances leads to the conjecture that dynamics located in the analytic present may have been displaced to the historical past. Although logically "truth in the past" need not foreclose on "truth in the present," in practice, once a reconstruction surfaces, the latter seems to disappear behind the former.

Humans↗
PubMed1996

Memory systems and the psychoanalytic retrieval of memories of trauma.

Increasingly, psychoanalysis has confronted the issue of recovered memories of childhood trauma. Based on trauma research, the concept of a special traumatic memory has evolved. Overwhelming psychic experience is thought to generate a defensively altered state of consciousness (specifically dissociation), which encodes memory in unassimilated visual, somatic, and behavioral, rather than linguistic modes. Analytic reevocation and interpretation of the original altered states of consciousness then permits the transformation of "early" traumatic memory into "later" explicit memory. Examined from the vantage point of contemporary cognitive research and theory, underlying flaws may be found in these propositions when they are extended to patients without explicit memory of trauma: first, dissociation is a chameleonlike process, perhaps as closely associated with suggestibility as with trauma; second, state-dependent learning does not adequately account for the absence of explicit memory; and third, implicit memory does not map onto explicit memory in any direct or simple fashion. Consequently, the clinical application of current propositions about traumatic memory to patients without explicit memory of trauma may warrant considerable caution. Provisional guidelines are offered for estimating the validity of retrieved memories of trauma.

Humans↗
PubMed1994

Belief and suggestion in the recovery of memories of childhood sexual abuse.

The increasingly frequent clinical reports of the recovery of repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse have drawn both skepticism and support in the analytic community. Two contrasting paradigms are offered to account for the processes by which fully repressed memories are recovered. On the one hand, the analyst's belief that one can reconstruct early traumatic experience creates fertile ground for overt and covert suggestion, which, in conjunction with an anxious patient seeking affiliation, may lead to the production of false memories. On the other hand, the analyst's belief in the likelihood of repressed abuse and that it can be reconstructed may constitute a necessary precondition for the emergence of valid memories. With these beliefs providing an essential holding environment, the recovery of repressed memories of sexual trauma may be an instance of the retrieval of state-dependent memory. Although the preponderance of evidence favors the suggestion hypothesis, the evidence is not conclusive. Which paradigm the analyst adopts, however, carries enormous clinical implications.

Child↗
PubMed1994

Observations on psychoanalytic listening.

Psychoanalysis has long presented ideal listening as an oscillation between Freud's "evenly suspended attention" and a more focused attention. This paper explores modes of listening as they are manifest in the author's clinical experience. Two modes are evident: a receptivity, mostly out of awareness, which becomes shaped and primed toward specific expectations; and a concurrent, more conscious and directed mode of listening through specific filters. The former is described as "listening alertly from a distance" and the latter as "listening for implications."

Adult↗
PubMed1976

Dream patterns in Anglo and Chicano young adults.

This study is the conclusion of an exploratory cross-cultural investigation of dream content and organization. Following our report in "Ego Modalities in the Manifest Dreams of Male and Female Chicanos," (Brenneis and Roll, 1975), this paper examines differences in the organization and content of dreams: (1) between Anglo men and women; (2) between Anglo and Chicano men and Anglo and Chicano women; and (3) between Anglos and Chicanos.

Acculturation↗
PubMed1975

Developmental aspects of aging in women. A comparative study of dreams.

Changes with age in the nature of women's inner experience were investigated through a comparison of the manifest dreams of a group of older women (ages 40 to 85 years) with the dreams from two groups of younger women (ages 18 to 26 and 16 to 17 years). The major comparative findings include a narrowing down of internal personal investments, a decrease in concerns about aggression, a decrease in the dreamer's sense of herself as pivotal, and, strikingly, an augmented amount of internally represented robust and locomotor activity for the older women. These results seem to correspond with other reports in the literature on the experience of aging women.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1975

Ego modalities in the manifest dreams of male and female Chicanos.

When the manifest dreams of young adult male and female Chicanos were examined through an inventory which captures the dream content and pattern, striking differences between male and female dreams were found in the areas of setting, characters, interaction, self, instinctual modalities, and realism. Generally speaking, the men's internal psychic world, as viewed through their dreams, tended to be organized around a highly visible and demarcated self seen as robustly active, randomly in motion, and often contentiously involved with unrelated others. The confines of this internal world were sketched in as broad, but were occupied by boundaries and barriers and were often subject to unpredictable events. In contrast, the women's internal world contained a relatively less sharply defined and less robustly active self, but also a less contentious self with a greater range of interactions with more, and more familiar characters. Narrower confines were matched by less emphasis on boundaries, greater predictability, and more goal-directed locomotion.

Acculturation↗