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PSA - Fall 2006
First and Second Year Candidates
11:30 a.m. - 12:50 p.m.
2006: October 21, 28; November 4, 11, 18; December 2, 9, 16
Donald Moss, M.D.
Jennifer Stuart, Ph.D.
Course description
This course is intended to help candidates become active, discerning
readers of the psychoanalytic literature. We will present and explore
the premise that any written text must employ specific strategies,
to transmit information; to position the author in relation to the
reader; and – often -- to persuade. Ideas cannot be transmitted
without a format. Every format includes a strategic dimension, and
every strategy has both overt and covert elements.
Readings selected to illustrate these basic strategies will include
papers assigned for other courses concurrent with this one (in both
the first- and second-year curricula). This approach offers candidates
an additional perspective on material read primarily for content.
Weeks #1 and #2:
Introduction: “That’s what you say; who says that just
because you say it, it’s true?”
• How is discourse possible? What are the minimum requirements?
The possibility of an essential standoff, within a dyad.
• “Who says?” means, “By what authority?”
Rhetorical strategy as means to authorize an argument, by way of
a third party (who may or may not be named, but must be present
– at least implicitly).
- Instructors provide examples from clinical situations of rhetorical
strategies meant to effect desired changes in the object, to affect
the object by use of one’s own organs of influence.
-We consider forms of authorizing force and authorizing third parties—as
employed by both patient and analyst, author and reader:
1. Norms: “This is what people do . . ..”
2. Law and tradition: “This is what is permitted . . . Freud,
“classical,” “appropriate”, etc.
3. Exceptions, emergencies, necessity: “Yes, but, in this
case, we must make an exception . . ..”
4. Self-evidence: “Let me show you;” “Seeing is
believing.” The example relieves the speaker of the necessity
to make an explicit argument. Relation to “making the trains
run on time.” The conservative bias of all examples; “This
is how it was done.”
5. Neutrality: “This is merely what I see. I have no position,
no investment, no argument to make -- I leave that to you.”
Readings: We’ll examine two texts (not assigned
for concurrent courses) that we think particularly well suited to
an examination of rhetorical strategies. These are (* = available
on PEP CD-ROM):
Freud, S. (1905). Fragment of an analysis of a case of hysteria
(the Dora case). SE VII, pp. 3-14
* Casement, P.J. (1982). Some pressures on the analyst for physical
contact during the re-living of an early trauma. International
Review of Psychoanalysis, 9:279-286.
Week #3: Candidates will be asked to "make
a point" verbally; i.e., to make an arguable, persuasive, assertion.
We will all try to name the rhetorical strategies used, and to consider
what they achieve, where their weaknesses lie, etc.
Weeks #4 - 7: First and second year candidates
meet separately -- each group with one instructor, and with instructors
alternating (first-year candidates start out with Dr. Moss, second-year
candidates with Dr. Stuart, for weeks #4 and #5; then, instructors
swap classes, for weeks #6 and #7). During these weeks, we’ll
examine texts assigned concurrently for other courses, considering
each not only with regard to ideational claims, but also to demonstrate
the rhetorical strategies used.
Readings: selected from concurrent first- and second-year courses;
will be drawn from the list below (NOTE: first-year candidates may
be asked to read some papers assigned for concurrent second-year
courses; and second-year candidates may read some assigned for concurrent
first-year courses).
From concurrent first-year readings (* = available on
PEP CD-ROM):
Brenner, C. (1994). The mind as conflict and compromise formation.
Journal of Clinical Psychoanalysis, 3: 473-488.
Caligor, E. et al. (2003). Converted and clinic cases as control
cases. JAPA, 51: 201-220.
Fonagy, P. (2001). Attachment Theory and Psychoanalysis.
London: Karnac Books. Chapter 1, pp. 5-18.
* McLaughlin, J. (1988). The analyst’s insights. Psa.
Q., 51: 370-389.
Mitchell, S. A. (1988). Relational Concepts in Psychoanalysis.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Pp. 41-62 and 169-172.
From concurrent second-year readings:
Freud, A. (1936). The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense. In
The Writings of Anna Freud, Vol. 2. New York: International
Universities Press (1966). Part I.
Schafer, R. (1983). The Analytic Attitude. New York: Basic
Books. Chapter 1, pp. 3-13.
Waelder, R. (1930). The principle of multiple function: Observations
on overdetermination. In Selected Papers of Robert Waelder,
ed. Guttman,S. New York: International Universities Press (1976).
Pp. 68-83.
Concurrently assigned to both first- and second-year
candidates:
Ehrlich, L. T. (2004). The analyst’s reluctance to begin a
new analysis. JAPA, 52: 1075-1083.
Week #8: First- and second-year candidates combine,
again, for the final week of the course. Candidates will write brief
pieces that aim to “make a point,” responding to the
texts read in weeks 4-7. Together, we’ll examine the kinds
of rhetorical counter-strategies employed in their reactions.
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