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Biomedical subjects

E D Joseph

Publications and source records attributed to E D Joseph.

17 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1987

The consciousness of being conscious.

Starting with the therapeutic advantage gained when insight acquires consciousness, an investigation of the nature and function of consciousness is undertaken. Consciousness is a state of awareness, having a range of higher mental functions serving a regulatory, controlling, and integrating role in mental activity. There are high levels of thinking, reality testing, experiencing, judging, anticipating; self-awareness and self-reflection enter into these controlling activities. Psychoanalysis has rightly been a science that studies the workings and contents of the unconscious portions of the mind. It has perhaps overlooked the important role that consciousness plays in ordinary life and in providing the levels of control and self-awareness individuals both experience and require. That pathology and disturbances of function may accompany normal states of consciousness as well as altered states of consciousness is a common clinical phenomenon. Psychoanalysis as a therapy widens the scope of the conscious control systems.

Awareness↗
PubMed1982

Presidential address: normal in psychoanalysis.

This paper is an attempt to spell out some of the usages of 'normal' in psychoanalysis in respect to the concepts lying behind such usage, and to attempt to see how various of these usages and concepts have been and can be employed in present day psychoanalysis. This started out as a seemingly simple exploration of the meaning of a term but turned into a puzzling exposition, the dimensions of which were not anticipated, and perhaps, were not fulfilled in the course of this presentation. In the final section, the author returns to the concept of normality as progressing over time and links this with the concept of average and expectable. This concept, as defined by research and experience, is the most operationally useful one when applied to the individual. From this point of view, the same seems to apply to psychoanalytic societies and groups.

Adult↗
PubMed1975

The therapeutic aspects of affect.

A satisfactory psychoanalytic definition and theory of affects has not yet been evolved. In spite of this, analysts work with affects using, for practical purposes, a common-sense definition leading to a therapeutic advantage in coordinating affective and cognitive structures as they appear in the course of a prolonged analysis. Undoing of defenses facilitates this process, allowing the ego's integrative capacities to function more adequately and satisfactorily in relation to inner and outer reality. A developmental hierarchy of affects emerges in this way ranging from primitive--all or none--affective experiences to adult, modified expression of such ego experiences. A brief historical survey of the changing forms of the theory of affects is included, as are clinical vignettes illustrating the therapeutic aspects of dealing with affective expression in the psychoanalytic situation. The therapeutic gains of such work comes about through the integration of earlier affective experiences into more developed cognitive structures allowing a variety of ego functions greater control over adult experiences.

Affect↗
PubMed1975

Symposium on The Ego and the Id after fifty years. Clinical formulations and research.

The Ego and the Id has served as an organizing model which has advanced psychoanalysis as a science and as a therapy. The paradigm offered by the structural formulations provided a framework for many developmental and clinical studies as well as an approach to a general psychology of human behavior. Therapeutic advances have been made, but the art of therapy has not kept pace with the scientific advances. Dissatisfaction with psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic theory is discussed. Theories have become too far removed from their clinical base; a changing sociologic climate that has reduced the impact of the rational attitude offered by psychoanalysis and the failure of psychoanalytic therapy to cure all ills have contributed to the dissatisfaction.

Ego↗