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.
Four concise and exceptionally clear reports of psychoanalytic treatment are presented in this volume, each one accompanied by two commentaries written by respected, senior analysts. The overall effect is a portrait of mainstream American psychoanalysis as it is practiced and as it is understood by its practitioners.
The first case report is a small gem by Rudolph Loewenstein, entitled "The Old Woman's Touch: Reflections on the Treatment of a Case of Obsessional Neurosis." In the 1930's, Loewenstein took over the analysis of a woman nearly paralyzed by obsessional fear of contamination from the touch of an old servant woman who had been briefly in her employ. In psychiatric nosology, the woman suffered from a severe case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, complete with the familiar elements of extreme doubting, compulsive washing, and semimagical rituals, such as covering her bed (and the analytic couch!) with tissue. Contradicting today's popular biological reductionism, however, the disorder was both precipitated and cured by psychoanalysis. The patient was, in truth, suffering from contamination by an "old woman"—namely, the previous psychoanalyst,