An International Survey of the Concept of Effective Psychodynamic Treatment During the Pandemic.

Introduction: Most psychotherapists had no choice during the COVID-19 pandemic but to offer teletherapy in order to provide needed treatment. Several psychoanalytic theorists wondered if the very concept of treatment would change without an embodied relationship in an office setting. Methods: To attempt to understand the current concept of effective psychodynamic treatment in the new norm of teletherapy, we surveyed practitioners from 56 countries and regions who remotely treated patients psychodynamically during the beginning months of the pandemic. We asked the practitioners to rank six factors felt to be important to psychodynamic treatment: use of the couch during sessions, session in-office or via teletherapy, cultural similarity between therapist and patient, number of sessions a week, patient factors (motivation, insightfulness, and high functioning) and therapist factors (empathy, warmth, wisdom, and skillfulness). Results: We received 1,490 survey responses. As predicted, we found that the therapist and patient variables were considered much more important (both tied as highest rankings) to effective treatment than any of the other variables, including if the therapy was in-office or by teletherapy. Discussion: Psychodynamic practitioners worldwide confirmed that the empathy, warmth, wisdom, and skillfulness of the therapist and the motivation, insightfulness, and level of functioning of the patient are most important to treatment effectiveness regardless if the treatment is remote or embodied.

Group affective learning in training for psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

This paper describes The Group Affective Model, a method for teaching psychoanalytic concepts and their clinical application, using multi-channel teaching, process and review in group settings, and learning from experience in an open systems learning community for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. This innovation arose in response to criticism of existing methods in psychoanalytic education that have subordinated the primary educational task to that of the training analysis. Noticing this split between education and training analysis, between cognition and affect, and between concepts of individual and group unconscious processes, we developed the Group Affective Model for teaching and learning psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in an open psychological space in which students and faculty experience individual and group processes of digestion, assimilation, and review, which demonstrate the concepts in action and make them available for internalization selectively. We discuss our philosophy and our educational stance. We describe our institution and our participants. We give examples of teaching situations that we have studied to provide some insight about assimilation and internalization of the concepts and clinical approaches being taught. We discuss the transferability of the Group Affective Model to other teaching settings and psychoanalytic training institutions and propose it as the fourth pillar of psychoanalytic training, next to analytic treatment, clinical supervision, and didactic seminars.

Pichon Rivière's psychoanalytic contributions: Some comparisons with object relations and modern developments in psychoanalysis.

Enrique Pichon Rivière's work, fundamental to Latin American and European psychoanalytic development, is largely unknown in English-language psychoanalysis. Pichon's central contribution, the link (el vinculo), describes relational bonds in all dimensions. People are born into, live in, and relate through links. Psychic structure is built of links that then influence external interaction. Links, expressed in mind, body and external action, continuously join internal and external worlds. Links have two axes: vertical axis links connect generations through unconscious transgenerational transmission; horizontal axis links connect persons to life partners, family, community and society. For Pichon, treatment constitutes a spiral process through which interpretation disrupts existent structures, promoting new emergent organizations at successively deeper levels. Psychic and link structures evolve over time unless repetitive cycles stunt growth. For Pichon, transference is constituted in the here-and-now-with-me because of the analytic link. Pichon also undertook family and group psychoanalysis where individuals become spokespersons for unconscious links and family secrets. He developed operative groups that apply psychoanalysis to both analytic and non-analytic tasks. After describing Pichon's major contributions, the paper compares Pichon Rivière's ideas with those of Klein, Fairbairn, Bion, Winnicott and Bowlby, and contemporary writers including Ogden, Kaës, and Ferro whose works echo Pichon Rivière's thought.

PSYCHOANALYSIS IN CHINA: AN ESSAY ON THE RECENT LITERATURE IN ENGLISH.

Using extensive quotation, the author reviews the introduction and current state of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy in China from the vantage point of recent publications in English. Psychoanalysis was briefly introduced to China before the Communist era, then forbidden, and has experienced an accelerated reintroduction since the late 1980s. The author briefly summarizes the cultural and historical background of China relevant to the introduction of psychoanalysis, the traumatic history of China, and the deep structure of thought and philosophical differences from Western culture that challenge a simple imposition of psychoanalytic ideas and practice, and some psychological effects of rapid cultural change throughout China. Training programs in China, the general enthusiasm for analysis among the Chinese, and a number of notable contributions by Western and Chinese authors are discussed. Also surveyed are the use of distance technology for training and treatment, the personal experience of Chinese senior and junior colleagues, and ongoing challenges to the continuing growth of psychoanalysis and analytic psychotherapy in China.

Psychoanalytic Teaching by Video Link and Telephone.

In this era of global connectedness, there is great interest in using distance video platforms such as Skype and VSee, as well as the telephone, for conducting psychoanalysis and psychotherapy across geographic distance. Little, however, has been written about the use of technology for psychoanalytic education. The International Psychotherapy Institute has extensive experience in the use of videoconference and telephone technology in the teaching of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, including didactic teaching, infant observation, and individual and group supervision, with individuals and groups across the United States and overseas. Use of this technology for tele-education has facilitated the spread of psychoanalytic ideas, recruitment of psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic trainees, and ongoing training for members living at great distances from one another and from the institute. This work is in many ways similar to ordinary psychoanalytic teaching and supervision, and yet presents significant differences in technique, opportunity, and group dynamics. Further implementation and study of this methodology can greatly aid in the dissemination of psychoanalysis in the digital age.