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Journal of Analytical Psychology, Volume 35, Number 3, 1990
This paper is a consideration of the transference as paradox - as an experience of irreconcilable meanings and unresolved contradictions. Many of the metaphors in the analytic field refer to the holding function of the transference and do not address the underlying tension and paradox of analysis - that the content affirms what the form denies. I have used the image of Dionysus, the dismembered child, as the embodiment of paradox and have identified the recognition of paradox and ambiguity as one of the goals of the analytic process. In addition, I have reconsidered Winnicott's understanding of transitional phenomena in the light of the more ambivalent concept of liminality and used my work with a schizoid patient to illustrate how the traumatised psyche takes flight from paradox and is forced to reencounter paradox in the transference.
British Journal of Medical Psychology, Volume 62, Part 4, 1989
A postal questionnaire was sent to 100 members of an organization for helping adopted individuals to trace their origins. Replies were received from 42 women and 34 men, some of whom were interviewed in person or more often by telephone. The voyage of self-discovery was evidently more crucial for women, whose need for a stronger sense of identity had been enhanced by marriage and motherhood.
Relatively more men than women had sought help for personal problems in adulthood, although paradoxically more women reported an unhappy experience of adoption and a damaged sense of identity. Predictably, mother-child reunions had often proved disappointing and occasionally distressing for both parties. In contrast, the discovery of lost siblings had usually brought more reward. This aspect of the search for biological relatives deserves more emphasis, in case adoptees (especiall