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Biomedical subjects

F D Barth

Publications and source records attributed to F D Barth.

3 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1990

Obsessional thinking as "paradoxical action".

Obsessive-compulsive neurosis has long intrigued psychoanalysts. Although they may disagree about the underlying etiological mechanisms, analysts generally agree that obsessive individuals are often difficult to engage in the psychoanalytic process and are therefore difficult to treat psychoanalytically. The author offers a selective integration of theoretical approaches to this disorder and elaborates on Schafer's theory of obsessional thinking as paradoxical or conflictual action as a way to understand the resistance frequently encountered in these patients. A case report illustrates this psychoanalytic approach to obsessional neurosis.

Humans↗
PubMed1988

The role of self-esteem in the experience of envy.

It is the thesis of this paper that although analysts have always recognized that narcissistic injury may trigger envious feelings, the significance of self-esteem as both a motivator and response to envious feelings has not yet been sufficiently explored. Traditional drive-defense or object instinctual explanations tend to diminish awareness of the importance of self-esteem in the experience of envy. The focus on drives or repetition of early patterns of object relations does not always take into account the significance of the cycle in which damaged self-esteem leads to envy, the component parts of which may cause further damage to self-esteem, leading to more envy, and so on. I am suggesting that it is often an attempt to avoid painful injury to one's self-esteem, as well as the related attempt to maintain a positively colored sense of self, and not a repression of drives or a repetition of some aspect of early object relationships which must be understood in order to fully comprehend both feelings of envy and the need to keep such feelings out of conscious awareness.

Adult↗