Ethical Seduction of the Analytic Situation

Viviane Chetrit-Vatine, former President of the Israeli Psychoanalytic Society and faculty member of the Israel Institute of Psychoanalysis, is a training analyst for adults and children. Her professional activity includes: a private practice in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv, teaching and training at the Israel Institute of Psychoanalysis and on other Israeli psychotherapeutic and psychoanalytic post-graduate programmes, and research activity in the laboratory run by Francois Villa at Paris VII Diderot University (CPRMS). She is a member of the international reading committee of the 'Revue Francaise de Psychanalyse', of the international scientific committee of 'Monographies de Psychanalyse' and of the reading committee of 'Maarag'. She publishes articles in Israeli journals ('Sihot', 'Maarag'), in French journals ('RFP', 'Le coq heron'), as well as in the 'International Journal of Psychoanalysis'.

'The purpose of this book is to confront the demanding issue of the ethics of psychoanalysis from the original perspective of trying to discover the ethical consistency of the actual foundations of the discipline. The hypothesis that the ethical stance of Levinas, identified with the "responsibilisation" for the other, has maternal origins and must be re-thought following Laplanche's theory of primary seduction, clearly distinguishes the ethics of psychoanalysis from a mere - though always exacting - professional deontology. We are grateful to Viviane Chetrit-Vatine for trying to construct a new psychoanalytic statute for ethics and a new ethical orientation for psychoanalysis.'- Jorge Canestri, Chair of the International Psychoanalytical Association's Ethics Committee (2001 - 2005) and author of Putting Theory to Work: How are Theories Actually Used in Practice?'This book talks to all analysts, regardless of their different theoretical backgrounds, as it goes deep to the quintessential origin of our profession: the importance of the adult caring environment conjugated with a philosophical vision of our ethical sense of responsibility towards the other. Reflecting on the seductive and the ethical dimensions of the analytic situation not only helps us to refine our conceptualisation of psychoanalytic work, but also proves amazingly useful in our actual work whenever we have to scrutinise the adequacy of the elasticity of the setting. I believe this book really fills a gap in our psychoanalytic culture.'- Antonino Ferro, President of the Italian Psychoanalytical Society, member of the American Psychoanalytic Association and author of The Analytic Field: A Clinical Concept'In this most interesting book, Viviane Chetrit-Vatine aims to construct an ethics for psychoanalysis. She suggests that there is a double asymmetry of the analytical situation, while she stresses both its ethical and seductive dimensions. In particular, she argues that the psychoanalytic encounter takes place in a time/space that is characterised by the analyst's ethical position defined, after Levinas, as responsibility for the other. Drawing on contemporary schools of psychoanalysis, especially in France, this book is gripping and highly relevant to current discussions on the ethics of psychoanalysis.'- Rosine Jozef Perelberg, Training Analyst with the British Psychoanalytical Society and Visiting Professor in the Psychoanalysis Unit at University College London

• Series Editor’s Foreword , Preface , Introduction , On a Possible Contribution of Levinas’S Thought to Contemporary Psychoanalysis , Ethics and psychoanalysis , Asymmetrical responsibility for the other as the analyst’s ethic , At the Beginning of Life: Primal Seduction, Passion, and Ethical Exigency , The asymmetry of the primal situation: primal seduction and some elements of the Laplanchian theory of generalised seduction , Maternal passion, the analyst’s passion, or the primacy of affect , The ethical exigency at the beginning of life and the need for ethics in analysis , The Origins of Subjective Appropriation in Analysis, The Analyst’S Passion, and the Ethical Seduction of the Analytic Situation , Subjective appropriation in analysis , The ethical seduction of the analytic situation , A New Psychoanalytic Status For Ethics? The Feminine?Maternal Origins Of The Capacity For Responsibility For The Other , Psychoanalytic hypotheses , The feminine–maternal origins of ethics , Conclusions , The analyst’s anxiety or ethical awakening , Appendices , *Appendix 1. The case of new parental configurations: new perspectives , Appendix 2. Milena , Appendix 3. Responding to (répondre à), answering for (répondre de): Laplanche and responsibility in Levinas *