Editorial Introduction

In this fourth issue of Psychoanalysis, Self and Context in 2024 we continue our mission to publish innovative papers by some of the best thinkers and clinicians in our psychoanalytic community. This issue commences with the paper on Permeable Boundaries: Therapeutic Benefits by Richard Geist and Meredith Nocek, which elicited much controversy when it was first delivered at the self-psychology conference in Chicago last year. Charles Strozier, Denise Davis, Daniel Perlitz, and Sarah Mendelsohn examine the paper from various perspectives. Strozier situates permeable boundaries within the context of the history of psychoanalysis; Davis suggests ways that therapists can help initiate permeable boundaries and gives clinical examples of its effectiveness; Perlitz raises critical questions about what he views as the dangers of permeable boundaries; and Mendelsohn weaves together her assessment of Geist and Nocek with papers by Daniel Goldin and Steven Stern about how to extend empathy that were given at the 2023 conference and which were published in the previous Issue of PSC (19.3). Geist and Nocek then respond to these discussions. We hope that the paper and its commentaries will stimulate creative conversations about the nature and use of intimacy in the therapist/patient dyad.

This section on permeable boundaries is followed by several articles that extend self psychology into novel arenas of understanding. Daniel Schreiber shows how a work of art can play a significant role in therapy and Stacy Berlin, in her discussion of this paper, expands it into a fuller understanding of voyeurism, why it arises, and how it can be self-affirming. Deborah Cher’s paper on Two Spies follows two Israeli espionage agents’ remarkably different uses of empathy in their work. Valerie Frankfeldt’s article, “Can We Hug?” returns us to the difficult days of the pandemic in NYC and asks a question about physical contact that reverberates with the themes introduced in the Geist/Nocek paper. W