From the Editors-in-Chief

Dear Readers,

We wanted to introduce this issue of Contemporary Psychoanalysis by letting you know that it’s a bit of a departure. The issue begins with four articles on diverse topics, but—in the second section—we pay tribute to a beloved member of the William Alanson White Institute community, Paul Lippman, who recently died. These pieces are less formal and academic, more personal, and from the heart.

The first two articles in Section I explore history’s resonance with the present. Mark Blechner’s “The Three cures of Bertha Pappenheim (Anna O): The Talking Cure, the Writing Cure, and the Social Cure” presents new insights into the life of the first psychoanalytic patient, who later went on to be a force in German social work and campaigner for women’s rights. Pappenheim, like Harry Stack Sullivan, recognized the impact of context on development, and the need to change society to promote mental health. In “Considering the Intersubjective Perspective of Therapeutic Action,” Pasqual Pantone focuses on the many re-conceptualizations over the last 80 years of the understanding of therapeutic action, both within interpersonal psychoanalysis and among many other psychoanalytic orientations.

The third article, Ofra Eshel’s “Bion’s Long Road Towards Intuiting the Patient’s Suffering: ‘Theoretical’ vs. ‘Clinical’ Bion,” looks at the gap between Bion the theoretician and Bion the practicing analyst. She offers a possible explanation of Bion’s difficulty in empathizing with the patient’s suffering. Finally, Robert Drozek writes about “The Patient as an Ethical Subject: Technical Implications of the Patient’s Irreducible Responsibility.” Drozek sees patients as ethical subjects, people who have a moral obligation, including to their analysts. In his

article, he focuses on technique, asking how we cultivate patients’ ethical responsiveness towards themselves as well as toward the other.

Section II is devoted to the remembrance of Paul Lippmann, who died on March 14, 2022, at the