10 Rules Every Long-Term Couple MUST Follow to Keep the Romance Alive

“The 10 rules that every long-term couple MUST follow in the bedroom to keep the romance alive and avoid someone straying (including fantasizing about other people)” was an article that originally published by The Daily Mail (UK)

– Introduction by Bianca London

 

As anyone in a long-term relationship knows only too well, things between the sheets can often become non-existent.

But according to one relationship expert, there’s ten essential rules that every long-term couple should follow in the bedroom to keep the romance alive and prevent one partner straying. Continued

Dying Should Be a Selfish Endeavor

This article originally appeared on HuffingtonPost.com

screen-shot-2016-11-29-at-3-35-49-pm

 

My patient Rona is dying. She has been my psychoanalytic patient for 30 years and has struggled against her cancer for 15 years. She has had Stage 4 cancer for seven years. She fought the good fight, a valiant fight, and truly, for many years, it had seemed as though she were indefatigable. She has been telling me that she is dying for a few months now, and in spite of her being bone-thin, I still saw and heard life energy in her. Her voice and spirit were strong in spite of her frail body. Although she needed help to make it up the two flights of stairs to my office, still she plowed through it, and never missed a session. Continued

From Symbiosis to Separation: Seeing and Touching Pt 2

Originally published by HuffingtonPost.com

screen-shot-2016-11-25-at-10-11-18-pm

I have heard from mothers, both biological and adoptive, about the feeling of deep connection with their infant children through eye contact. The profundity of the eye contact between mother and infant is one reason why adoption agencies prefer that birth mothers not see their child. They know that when the child gazes up into his mother’s eyes, the mother will recognize their bond, and it will be more difficult for her to let go of her child.

Continued

Just Words

Article originally appeared on HuffingtonPost.com

One of the criticisms of Barack Obama has been that his presidency consists of “just words.” Ted Sorenson, whose death we have mourned, expressed astonishment at the sentiment. “‘Just words’ is how a president manages to operate. ‘Just words’ is how he engages the country,” Sorensen said in a moment of peevedness. Continued

Psychoanalysis: A Treatment of the Soul

Article originally appeared on HuffingtonPost.com

Throughout my 40 years as a psychoanalyst, many of my patients have expressed interest in wanting to enter the territory of spirituality and authentic soul searching. They are surprised when I present the possibility of using their psychoanalytic therapy as a portal with which to explore this interest. When we understand the roots of what has come to be called “the talking cure,” we can see how deeply spiritual the psychoanalytic process is meant to be. Continued

In Defense of Slow and Tedious: Quick-Fix Therapy or the Kind that Takes “Forever”?

Article originally appeared on HuffingtonPost.com

Since the New York Times published an article by psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert, “In Therapy Forever? Enough Already” (April 21, 2012), there has been lively debate within the psychotherapeutic community about the benefits of short-term, goal-oriented, advice-driven therapy vs. the longer, open-ended, free-associative linguistic wandering brand espoused and practiced by psychoanalysts. The lengthiness of treatment is a question that Freud, the originator of the notion “interminable” analysis, himself asked. He experimented for a time with what we might call today, “speed therapy” (comparable to “speed dating” — first impressions count for all). Ultimately, he wasn’t particularly impressed with the results. But Freud’s goal (in this seemingly “goalless” endeavor) was radically different from the goal of today’s popular short-term — often with adjunctive psychotropic drugs — therapies. Perhaps the best way of describing the difference is that the goal of short-term therapy is to feel “better,” which can translate into feeling “less.” On the other hand, the goal of psychoanalysis is to feel both “deeper” and more “outward” which, at least in the beginning of the process, might translate into feeling “more” and “worse.” Continued

The Use of Group Analysis in the Resolution of Primitive Regression

Originally published in Modern Psychoanalysis: Vol. 24, No. 2 (1999)

The author expounds on how group analysis is an essential aspect of any comprehensive analysis. Specifically, she addresses how regression is used deliberately in the service of cure and how and why group analysis is an antidote to narcissism. The author draws upon examples of patients as well as her personal experiences.

I was watching a TV show called “The Practice” the other night. It was about a 13-year-old boy who had killed his mother because he was angry at her. The defending attorney was pleading with the judge not to try the boy as an adult because it presented the possibility of putting him away for life. Continued

Aggression and the Female Therapist

As the number of women therapists increases, the study of the effects of the sex of the therapist on treatment becomes meaningful. Patients may choose, and mental health agencies may assign therapists of either gender, yet there are no guidelines for such pairing.

Meltzoff and Hornreich (1970), in reviewing the literature on sex-pairing in psychotherapy, conclude: “At present there is no clear basis for preferential assignment of a patient of either sex to a therapist of either sex. No statement can be made with confidence about the relative benefits of selected sex pairing with given types of patients.” Continued

Working With the Split Transference

Modern Psychoanalysis, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1978 (P. 217 – 232)

In attempting to resolve the resistance of the patient to freely experience and verbalize all thoughts and feelings, the author recognized that resolution may depend on the patient forming alternative transference alliances. This may be described as splitting the transference.

The technique of allowing for a therapeutic split transference finds its roots in the theoretical concept of splitting. Continued

The Physiology of Psychoanalysis: Is Psychoanalysis a Treatment of the Body?

From Modern Psychoanalysis, Vol. XX, No. 2, 1995 (P. 207 – 212)

A theory is presented that incorporates psychoanalysis as a treatment for disturbances that find manifestation on the level of the body. The actual physiology of the mind/body and body/mind connections are discussed, as well as the biochemical effect of putting all of one’s thoughts and feelings into work.

You can try an interesting little experiment. Ask your friends to point on their bodies to the place where they think their “I” exists. You will see that most will point to the center of their heads. This is an understandable response. Continued

Building a Psychological Immune System: Theoretical Considerations in the Psychoanalytic Treatment of Physical Diseases

From: Modern Psychoanalysis, Vol. XVI, No. 1, 1991 (P 105 – 120)

There is an old fable that goes as such:

Once upon a time, there was a great, large animal. The animal was taken to the gate of a city, where six blind men of the highest scientific curiosity were to inspect the animal in order to tell their countrymen both the nature of the animal and how to best care for it.

The first blind man’s hand fell upon the animal’s tusks. “Ah,” he said, “This creature is a thing of bones; they even protrude through his skin.” Later on, years having passed, this man became an orthopedist. Continued

Psychosis of the Body, Cancer of the Mind: The Isomorphic Relation Between Cancer and Schizophrenia

From: Modern Psychoanalysis, Vol. XIV, No. 1, 1989 (P. 21 – 36)

Although there are finer creations of the spirit than perversion and psychosis, in the long run, it is better to be mad than dead.
Joyce McDougall

In observing the ways in which the process of differentiation between self and not-self can be thwarted on the level of the mind, Freud identified the disease of pathological narcissism. Parallel scientific research on the level of the body revealed that the equivalent somatic dysfunction led to the disease of cancer. Continued

Abandonment, Rejection and the Search for Union

From: Modern Psychoanalysis, Vol. 27, No. 2, 2002 (P. 205 – 218)

The author traces the vicissitudes of a thirty-year analysis. The patient came into analysis as a suicidally depressed teenager and has become a confident, content wife and mother of four. Among the most intense conflicts that were worked through were transference issues related to abandonment. The patient was given up for adoption at birth, and during the course of the analysis, developed a longing to be reunited with her biological mother, The author understands this longing as a displacement and avoidance of the pain of the transferential fear of the analyst repeating her history of rejection and abandonment. Through fits and starts, through the patient repeatedly leaving the analysis, and the analyst searching her out to come back, this analysis is testament to the power of self-transformation that is possible when historical repetitions are resolved. Continued

Loving as a Defense Against Life: The Analysis of a Terminally Ill Patient

From: Modern Psychoanalysis Vol. XI: 1 & 2, 1986 (P. 73 – P. 88)

One might say that Mrs. C and I fell in love. From the moment she walked into my office, it seemed as though she and I had been fated to meet, and that knowing each other was going to affect us profoundly. Our positive feelings for one another did not seem to be tempered by the mundane disappointments, fears, frustrations and miscommunications that pervade most relationships. Our relationship seemed free of earthly imperfections. Continued

Fantasies of Revenge and the Stabilization of the Ego

Acts of Revenge and the Ascension of  Thanatos

There’ve been 2 major traumas in my life: one before my analysis, the other during. My first was when I was a senior in college. I was brutally assaulted, my neck was sliced open with a razor blade, and I almost died. My second was when the man I was passionately in love with rejected me, decided not to marry me. Continued