- This event has passed.
Overview of PSA History
September 24, 2018 @ 8:00 pm - 9:15 pm
Adult Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (APP)
2018-19, 1st Block — Mondays, 8:00-9:15pm
Scot Gibson, MD
View Whole Syllabus
September 24, 2018 — Freud and His Followers (through Ego Psychology)
[56 pages]
Mitchell, S.A.; Black, M.J. (2016) Ch1, “Sigmund Freud and the Classical Psychoanalytic Tradition” in Freud and Beyond: A History of Modern Psychoanalytic Thought (2nd Edition). Basic Books, New York. pp1-22.
This book is an excellent primer on psychoanalytic theory, very readable and clear. Stephen Mitchell is widely considered to be one of the founders of the modern relational movement in psychoanalysis, and as such is one of the great figures of the field. This chapter summarizes the basics of Freud’s work.
Auchincloss, E. (2015) Ch8: “A New Configuration and a New Concept: The Ego” in The Psychoanalytic Model of the Mind. American Psychiatric Publishing. pp129-143.
Auchincloss, E. (2015) Ch10, “Conflict and Compromise” in The Psychoanalytic Model of the Mind. American Psychiatric Publishing. pp167-185.
These chapters are from a reference work which we will be using often this class. The chapters summarize what I think are the most clinically relevant areas of ego psychology — the Structural Model; the concepts of ego function and ego adaptability; and the concepts of conflict, defense, and compromise formation.
In this book, Auchincloss does a reasonably nice job of putting complex ideas into readable, digestible, encyclopedic form. She can be a bit dry, and she has a very ego psychological slant on psychoanalysis which sometimes colors her generalizations and her readings of other theories. She continually talks about “the psychoanalytic model” as if it were a unified theory of some sort, and not a collection of often disparate models. Despite these fairly minor criticisms, I find this to be a very useful reference.
Optional Reading
Colombo, D. (2012) Ch1 “Freud and His Circle.” in Textbook of Psychoanalysis, 2nd Ed (Gabbard, Litowitz, and Williams, Eds.) American Psychiatric Publishing, pp3-17
Daria Colombo, who used to live in Seattle (she now lives in NYC) and is on faculty at SPSI, did a nice job here of condensing a LOT of history and theory into a readable chapter.
