Reflections on Contemporary Psychoanalytic Thought

Rui Aragão Oliveira is a full member and supervising analyst of the Portuguese Psychoanalytical Society (PPS) and International Psychoanalytical Association. He is the director of the training committee of the PPS, past president of the PPS, past editor-in-chief of the Portuguese Psychoanalytical Review, and past editor of Psychoanalysis Today. He teaches at the Psychoanalytical Institute in Lisbon and has been working with clinical groups for the IPA with the three level model. He has published on the theory of technique, paternal function, and clinical issues.Maria José Gonçalves is a medical doctor, child psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, child psychoanalyst, and full member and supervising analyst of the Portuguese Psychoanalytical Society (PPS) and International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). She is the former president of the PPS Board and Institute Board, and past director of the PPS Training Committee. In the PPS Institute, she promotes the training on psychoanalytic ethics. She was a former director of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the Pediatric Hospital in Lisbon, where she founded a mental health infancy unit. She has published numerous papers, especially on infant psychoanalysis and on clinical issues.João Seabra Diniz is a full member and supervising analyst of the Portuguese Psychoanalytical Society (PPS) and International Psychoanalytical Association. He started his psychoanalytic training in Italy and continued it in Lisbon at SPP. For many years, he was involved in the formation of candidates for psychoanalysis. He is past president of the SPP and of the Institute of Psychoanalysis of Lisbon/SPP. He is the former director of the Social Action Service at Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, and worked in the childhood and youth sector, where he collaborated in the launch of Adoption in Portugal. For some years, he collaborated with the Center for Judicial Studies, training in matters related to the abandonment and adoption of children. He is former national director of the Family and Child Support Project—PAFAC. He was a member of the National Commission for the International Year of the Child.

This collection of lectures presented to the Portuguese Psychoanalytic Society contains some of the best psychoanalytic papers of the past decade. The editors contextualize the relevance of international psychoanalytic thought to the development of their society. It is an exemplary case study of how an institution benefits from participation in global psychoanalytic exchanges.

• AcknowledgementsAbout the editors and contributorsIntroductionPart IPsychoanalysis and contemporaneityIntroduction by Maria José Gonçalves1. The institutional dynamics of psychoanalysis: the effect of the “development threatening idea”R. D. HinshelwoodIntroduction by Maria José Gonçalves2. Freud and cultureÉric SmadjaIntroduction by João Seabra Diniz3. The disappeared: a sorrow without dreamsLeopold NosekIntroduction by Rui Aragão Oliveira4. Virtual space, identity, and psychoanalysis: a new world or a dreadful voyage?Andrea MarziIntroduction by João Seabra Diniz5. Contemporary hysterical bodyFernando OrduzIntroduction by Rui Aragão Oliveira6. Connecting the International Psychoanalytical Association to our psychoanalytical communitySérgio Eduardo NickIntroduction by João Seabra Diniz7. From the glass slipper to the glass ceilingVirginia UngarPart IITheory of psychoanalytic techniqueIntroduction by Rui Aragão Oliveira8. Towards a two-track model for psychoanalysisHoward B. LevineIntroduction by João Seabra Diniz9. Who is killing what or whom: some notes on the internal phenomenology of suicideDavid BellIntroduction by Rui Aragão Oliveira10. Achieving the elasticity of technique: Sándor Ferenczi’s psychoanalytic project and journeyFranco BorgognoIntroduction by Maria José Gonçalves11. Ferenzci’s ideas in contemporary psychoanalysis: Ferenczi’s contribution to the psychoanalytic theory of trauma and further developmentsLuis J. Martín CabréFinal thoughtsIndex