Is there still a place for the concept of therapeutic regression in psychoanalysis?

The author uses his own failure to find a place for the idea of therapeutic regression in his clinical thinking or practice as the basis for an investigation into its meaning and usefulness. He makes a distinction between three ways the term ‘regression’ is used in psychoanalytic discourse: as a way of evoking a primitive level of experience; as a reminder in some clinical situations of the value of non-intervention on the part of the analyst; and as a description of a phase of an analytic treatment with some patients where the analyst needs to put aside normal analytic technique in order to foster a regression in the patient. It is this third meaning, which the author terms “therapeutic regression” that this paper examines, principally by means of an extended discussion of two clinical examples of a patient making a so-called therapeutic regression, one given by Winnicott and the other by Masud Khan. The author argues that in these examples the introduction of the concept of therapeutic regression obscures rather than clarifies the clinical process. He concludes that, as a substantial clinical concept, the idea of therapeutic regression has outlived its usefulness. However he also notes that many psychoanalytic writers continue to find a use for the more generic concept of regression, and that the very engagement with the more particular idea of therapeutic regression has value in provoking questions as to what is truly therapeutic in psychoanalytic treatment

Creativity and destructiveness in art and psychoanalysis

This paper focuses on the creativity of the patient in analysis and compares it to that of the artist. Taking artists’ descriptions of their practices as its starting point, the paper suggests that the relationship between patient and analyst parallels that between artist and medium. Psychoanalysis and artistic process can both be seen in terms of a complex interplay between oneness and separateness in which aggression and destructiveness play an essential part. The paper includes a discussion of different forms of aggression and destructiveness within the creative process with particular reference to Winnicott’s paper ‘The Use of an Object’ and Rozsika Parker’s ‘The Angel in the House’. It suggests that a consideration of artists’ creative processes can shed light both on the experience of the patient in analysis and on the role of the analyst in facilitating the development of the patient’s creativity

The Music Therapist in School as Outsider

This essay examines the institutional commonalities among several schools in which I have worked as a music therapist, illustrating how thinking about my role as an outsider has informed my therapeutic approach. I refer to the broader concept of the outsider as it relates to both fictional and historical figures and in particular to Sherly Williams's article 'The Therapist as Outsider: The Truth of the Stranger' (1999) in which she compares the therapist to the archetypal figures of the fool and the seer. Finally, I link these ideas to Winnicott's concept of play, presenting the music therapist's role in school as that of an advocate for fostering creative impulses, which can at times be at odds with (or perhaps complementary to) the central educational aims of the school

Beyond "the Relationship between the Individual and Society": broadening and deepening relational thinking in group analysis

The question of ‘the relationship between the individual and society’ has troubled group analysis since its inception. This paper offers a reading of Foulkes that highlights the emergent, yet evanescent, psychosocial ontology in his writings, and argues for the development of a truly psychosocial group analysis, which moves beyond the individual/society dualism. It argues for a shift towards a language of relationality, and proposes new theoretical resources for such a move from relational sociology, relational psychoanalysis and the ‘matrixial thinking’ of Bracha Ettinger which would broaden and deepen group analytic understandings of relationality

Collected Works of D.W.Winnicott

Donald Woods Winnicott (1896-1971) was one of Britain's leading psychoanalysts and paediatricians. The author of some of the most radical propositions in psychoanalysis: transitional space, the capacity for concern, the use of an object, and many more, Winnicott’s work remains of great relevance to 21st century psychoanalysis.

Vital lines drawn from books: difficult feelings in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Are You My Mother?

This article examines the representation of a transnational archive of queer books in Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoirs Fun Home and Are You My Mother? for the insights it provides into role of reading in making sense of the often difficult “felt experiences” of lesbian life. In both memoirs, books serve an important narrative function in the portrayal of Alison’s lesbian identification and its complex emotional entanglements with the lives of parents who are trapped – killed even, in the case of the father – in the wastelands of patriarchy and heterosexual expectation. The article argues that in this complex family dynamic in which “sexual identity” itself is a problem and emotions remain largely unspoken, books act as fragile conduits of feelings, shaping familial relationships even as they allow Alison to contextualise her life in relation to historical events and social norms. Reading books allows her to understand the apparently U.S.-specific history of her family in relation to a wider queer history in the West