You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 79, 1071, 1998
The authors argue that the abandonment of the theory of trauma in 1897 was a trauma for Freud himself who was led to ‘despair’ and possibly reacted with an overemphasis on inner fantasies and drive discharge. They suggest that today we are facing a second trauma in the history of psychoanalysis that we might call the ‘abandonment of drive theory’, i.e. the notion that human beings strive not primarily to reduce sexual and aggressive drives but rather seek objects, assign meanings, test previous beliefs and assimilate new schemes. Our task is to recover as Freud was able to do, giving a new impetus to psychoanalysis. The current challenge is, on the one hand, a revision of the psychoanalytic conception of inherited information and, on the other, a theory of motivation based on converging evidence from cognitive science, ethology, infant research and psychotherapy research. Many clinical models are current in contemporary psychoanalysis. Only as one example among these models, some concepts used in Weiss and Sampson's Control Mastery Theory will be discussed in the light of cognitive science and evolutionary epistemology within the framework of (a) the 1960 classic, Plans and Structure of Behavior by Miller, Galanter and Pribram, (b) Edelman's neurobiological theory and (c) Bowlby's attachment theory.
International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 79, 1115, 1998
In this paper, the author makes metaphorical use of the astrophysical term ‘black hole’ to describe the impact of the psychically ‘dead’ mother. The ‘dead’ mother constitutes a ‘black hole’ experience in the interpersonal, intersubjective space of her child because of the intense grip and compelling pull of her world of inner deadness. Individuals under her influence are either trapped in her dead