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Biomedical subjects

S Kavaler-Adler

Publications and source records attributed to S Kavaler-Adler.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1993

The conflict and process theory of Melanie Klein.

This article depicts the theory of Melanie Klein in both its conflict and process dimensions. In addition, it outlines Klein's strategic place in psychoanalytic history and in psychoanalytic theory formation. Her major contributions are seen in light of their clinical imperatives, and aspects of her metapsychology that seem negligible are differentiated from these clinical imperatives. Klein's role as a dialectical fulcrum between drive and object relations theories is explicated. Within the conflict theory, drive derivatives of sex and aggression are reformulated as object-related passions of love and hate. The process dimensions of Klein's theory are outlined in terms of dialectical increments of depressive position process as it alternates with regressive paranoid-schizoid-position mental phenomenology. The mourning process as a developmental process is particularly high-lighted in terms of self-integrative progression within the working through of the depressive position.

Aggression↗
PubMed1993

Object relations issues in the treatment of the preoedipal character.

It was through tolerance of Ms. D.'s infantile rage (i.e., rage against reality and its limits) that the analyst was able to open up a dialogue with the patient that could lead to a developmental mourning process. The same was true for the borderline character, Ms. A.! The interpersonal dialogue between analyst and analysand, which had both empathic and interpretive functions, allowed Ms. D. to reactivate her capacities for an intrapsychic dialectic gained during infancy. In her case, as well as in that of Ms. A., the initiation of an internal dialectic allowed for a mourning process to unfold. It is proposed that this internal dialectic is evidence of the existence of the psychic structure necessary to promote both mourning and the mutuality of interpersonal dialogue. The inability to mourn, generally seen in narcissistic and borderline characters, can be seen, therefore, not only as a failure in psychic structure formation, but also as a failure in psychic structure function that is due to intrapsychic defense.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Mourning and erotic transference.

This article proposes that the clinical mourning process is a critical factor in transforming an aggressively-laden erotic transference, and its potential for use as resistance, into a conscious erotic transference that progressively mobilizes the psychoanalytic treatment process. A psychoanalytic case is used to illustrate that the mourning of the pre-oedipal object allows an erotic transference to emerge into consciousness in treatment. The case also demonstrates that the erotic transference takes the form, not only of desiring, but also of mourning the oedipal level object. The case serves as a case in point in illustrating that erotic transference appears in cases in which female analysts treat male analysands. Further, it illustrates that erotic transference remains a primarily object-related phenomenon as opposed to being a merely narcissistic phenomenon. Finally, it illustrates the course of working through the erotic transference in an analytic treatment in which the therapeutic object relationship facilitates mourning.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Anaïs Nin and the developmental use of the creative process.

Anaïs Nin had the capacity to work through the wound of self-injury through the combination of poetic and analytic exploration demonstrated in her writing. She recreated her father, and confronted the fallacies of her idealization, as well as the suppressed anger that kept her enslaved in wishes for his mirroring admiration. There was no escape from injury for Nin. After the father's departure, she scrutinized herself for flaws, trying to discover a reason for her father's betrayal. Yet, the humiliation was modified by some knowledge of the narcissistic bind that she was in, and by some evidence that her father was unworthy of the kind of worship that she clung to from childhood. Nin transcends retaliation. Her fictional abandonment of her father does not come from vindictiveness. Rather, it comes through growing insight into herself and into her own needs. There is a letting-go of past fantasies of idealization, and a mourning process that is based on both awareness and acceptance of the disappointments in these idealized fantasies. Separation and loss stem from surrendering the fusion with the idealized object and its counterpart grandiose self, a grandiose self seen here as a false self that exists through resonating with image projections and their reflections.

Creativity↗