Touch Papers, Galton, Graeme

What people refer to as "the rules," such as anonymity, neutrality and abstinence, are the lessons Freud learned from painful experience when he tried to reproduce the new, free mind-set. Friedman argues that one can see Freud making this empirical discovery gradually over the sequence of papers. He argues that we cannot understand the famous images, such the analyst-as-surgeon, or mirror, without seeing how they figure in this series of experiments. Many of the arguments in the profession turn out to be unnecessary once this is grasped. Freud's book is not a book of rules but a description of what happens if one does one thing or another; the choice is the therapist's, as is the choice to use them together to elicit the analytic experience.

In the light of this understanding, Friedman discusses aspects of treatments that are guided by these principles, such as enactment, the frame, what lies beyond interpretation, the kind of tensions that are set up between analyst and patient, the question of special analytic love, the future of analytic technique, and a possible basis for defining Freudian psychoanalysis. Finally, he makes concrete suggestions for teaching the Papers on Technique.

Freud's Papers on Technique and Contemporary Clinical Practice will appeal to all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists concerned about the empirical basis of their customary procedures and the future of their craft.

The first paper, Memory and Desire, clarifies one of Bion's most important and clinically-relevant ideas: the value of suspending elements of our memory and desire in the service of allowing openness to psychoanalytic intuition. The second, Negative Capability, was reformulated to become the final chapter of his 1970 Attention and Interpretation. The publication here of the original paper allows an interesting and rewarding three-way comparison to be made with the 1970 chapter, and Memory and Desire. The third paper, Break Up, Break Down, Break Through, was presented without notes in 1976 in Los Angeles and the transcript from the recorded talk is published here for the first time. It displays the complex interweaving of the personal and the theoretical and offers a fascinating contribution to the study of what Bion called "the turbulence that obeys no man-made 'laws of nature'."

Wilfred R. Bion's writing continues to be read and re-read by an increasing and widening readership; the three papers presented here possess contemporary clinical relevance and each have a bearing on the underlying philosophical basis of psychoanalytical work and thinking.

My selected papers reflect the influences of my early education in Austria followed by a humanistic education in France, the extensive work at Chestnut Lodge, and a wide ranging psychoanalytic clinical and teaching practice. The theory and clinical application of the newly elaborated concept of "atmospheric object" serves a bridging function between transference in severe and less severe psychopathology. The selected papers are also organized as an updated version of the out of print "Multiple Realities", followed by papers on Theory, Technique and Psychopathology, on Psychosis and Schizophrenia, on Time and Memory, and on Society, Trauma and the Holocaust. A final entry deals with the relevance of psychoanalysis to current, including recent scientific developments.

What people refer to as "the rules", such as anonymity, neutrality and abstinence, are the lessons Freud learned from painful experience when he tried to reproduce the new, free mind-set. Friedman argues that one can see Freud making this empirical discovery gradually over the sequence of papers. He argues that we cannot understand the famous images, such the analyst-as-surgeon, or mirror, without seeing how they figure in this series of experiments. Many of the arguments in the profession turn out to be unnecessary once this is grasped. Freud's book is not a book of rules but a description of what happens if one does one thing or another; the choice is the therapist's, as is the choice to use them together to elicit the analytic experience.

In the light of this understanding, Friedman discusses aspects of treatments that are guided by these principles, such as enactment, the frame, what lies beyond interpretation, the kind of tensions that are set up between analyst and patient, the question of special analytic love, the future of analytic technique, and a possible basis for defining Freudian psychoanalysis. Finally, he makes concrete suggestions for teaching the Papers on Technique.

Freud's Papers on Technique and Contemporary Clinical Practice will appeal to all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists concerned about the empirical basis of their customary procedures and the future of their craft.

The first paper, Memory and Desire, clarifies one of Bion's most important and clinically-relevant ideas: the value of suspending elements of our memory and desire in the service of allowing openness to psychoanalytic intuition. The second, Negative Capability, was reformulated to become the final chapter of his 1970 Attention and Interpretation. The publication here of the original paper allows an interesting and rewarding three-way comparison to be made with the 1970 chapter, and Memory and Desire. The third paper, Break Up, Break Down, Break Through, was presented without notes in 1976 in Los Angeles and the transcript from the recorded talk is published here for the first time. It displays the complex interweaving of the personal and the theoretical and offers a fascinating contribution to the study of what Bion called "the turbulence that obeys no man-made 'laws of nature'".

Wilfred R. Bion's writing continues to be read and re-read by an increasing and widening readership; the three papers presented here possess contemporary clinical relevance and each have a bearing on the underlying philosophical basis of psychoanalytical work and thinking.