Academic Papers
Childhood Loss and Adoption: The Unending Search for the Perfect Other
“Whether openly acknowledged or present in an unconscious form, the experience of adoption, for all those involved, carries its own special set of feelings and fantasies. Despite the many stories of successful adoptions the word “adoption” itself, evokes a curious mélange of affects. In this single word the terror of relinquishment joins the elation of affirmation to create a tension-filled counterpoint. Perhaps it is this tension that accounts for the unending fascination about adoption in both life and mythology.”
Learning Self Psychology Abroad: The Turkish Experience
“The Self Psychology community is spread across the globe. Training in the theory and practice of a self psychologically informed psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, however, has primarily been available only to people who live in select cities within the US. Those in the rest of the world, as well as some in the US, have not had easy access to the training in Self Psychology they desire. The purpose of this paper and workshop is to share the experience of one group, The Anatolia Center for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, a group that has confronted this problem and is actively engaged in the process of working toward its solution. It is our hope that our experience in distant education might be of benefit to you.”
Time, Co-Created Space, and the Interpretive Process in Psychoanalysis: A Self Psychological Perspective
“Because the self psychological perspective is relatively new to Turkey I will underscore some of its core ideas I wish to demonstrate that while Kohut’s psychology of the self understands the contents of the unconscious differently, it is similar to other psychoanalytic theories in that it too conceives of an analytic cure through an interpretive process. To accomplish my task I will first review elements of the interpretive process that are common to all psychoanalytic theories as well as address the unique relationship of the interpretive process to time. I then will present one session from an ongoing analysis and follow that presentation with a discussion of the elements of Kohut’s psychology of the self that have informed this treatment. Finally, I will address some broad issues concerning time in relation to the self.“
Definition of Disorder of the Self
“Self disorder is the term Heinz Kohut used, in his psychology of the self, to describe those psychological situations in which the core narcissistic elements of the personality are either permanently arrested and result in a primary developmental failure or, secondarily, they are temporarily fragmented due either to a toxic but less malignant milieu or to disruptions in the current environment. In either case, and in normal development as well, the core elements of the self form as a consequence of the child’s interaction with its earliest caretakers. Because these formative people (objects) are experienced by the developing child as part of its self, in terms of the particular psychological functions they provide, Kohut called them selfobjects (see cohesive self).“
TRAUMA, HEALING, FORGIVENESS: A process for the Jewish New Year
“Forgiveness is a complex story, central to the ritual process of Jewish New Year. It speaks of injury and repair and, for the purposes of this discussion, it is between 2 people which means that it involves:
- 2 sets of constitutional emotional givens and 2 sets of emotional resiliencies;
- 2 sets of awareness of other’s feelings and 2 two sets of personal history,
- 2 sets of vulnerabilities; 2 sets of pride and shame; 2 sets of stories
In my view, forgiveness actually is the final step healing process that follows an emotional trauma.”