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Biomedical subjects

L R Loeb

Publications and source records attributed to L R Loeb.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Analysis of the transference neurosis in a child with transsexual symptoms.

This paper touches on two issues that have been disputed by child analysts: the genesis of the transsexual symptom complex, and the question of transference neurosis in child analysis. My observation, as reported previously (Loeb and Shane, 1980) and shown in the present case, is that the transsexual symptom complex can develop out of intrapsychic conflict and can be resolved in a fully developed transference neurosis. In the analysis of a four-and-a-half-year-old boy with transsexual symptoms, I was abstinent--not benevolent or supportive--and both positive and negative transference feelings developed into a full-blown transference neurosis. Then, as I interpreted its elements, we worked through his conflicts, which manifested themselves as acting out of his identification with his aggressive, seductive, and castrating grandmother. As he came to understand his conflicts, the boy's transsexual symptoms vanished.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1987

Psychoanalytic observations on the effect of lithium on manic attacks.

This paper describes a predictable relation between our manic-depressive patients' blood lithium levels and particular changes in their conscious and unconscious mental processes (i.e., their thoughts, wishes, fantasies, inclinations, and feelings). These changes were, in turn, predictively related to specific changes in these patients' overt manic symptomatology. Because each of our patients' manic episodes was heralded by a marked increase in unconscious or conscious phallic sexual thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and because this increase preceded any observed deterioration in ego or superego functioning, we hypothesize that a primary increase in our patients' phallic instinctual drives secondarily overwhelmed the capacity of their egos to defend against these drives, and that this, in turn, resulted in the development of our patients' overt manic symptoms. Psychoanalysis (or psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy) made our patients consciously aware both of their previously unconscious phallic sexual thoughts and impulses, and of their defenses against them. This new awareness enabled our patients to recognize when their, now conscious, phallic sexual impulses and thoughts became inappropriately intensified; and this, in turn, permitted them to avoid overt manic episodes by counteracting these inappropriate inclinations with increased doses of lithium.

Adult↗