Science and clinical

The relationship between two views, the scientific and the clinical, is addressed when contemplating the human being in his suffering. Subjective uniqueness will always difficult a simplistic statistical approach like the one that underlies so-called evidence- based medicine. The importance of the unconscious underlines the Read more…

Tosquelles, going and return

This article develops Francesc Tosquelles thesis and it is linked to his return to Institut Pere Mata. He returns all scientific knowledge acquired before 1939 in Reus, Catalonia and Spain, applied and developed later in his professional stage at the Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole hospital, known finally as Read more…

Psychoanalysis versus a theory of life and gender diversity

I raise the debate on gender that bursts among psychoanalysts with the challenge of a conference by the philosopher Paul B. Preciado, and I comment on the various responses from Psychoanalysis. For my part, I make an approach about the laws or rules of normalization Read more…

Document from the Neonatal Studies Group

In March 2020, the Newborn’s Study Group, faced with the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, considered the consequences of measures to restrict the presence of parents in neonatal units. These measures modify the paradigm in the Developmental and Family Centered Care (DCFC) model. The adverse Read more…

Effects on the mental health of people in residential emergency processes in Ciutat Meridiana (Barcelona)

Incidence of the Covid-19 pandemic and suicide risk. A look at psychological distress and mental health. This article aims to explain the phenomenon of psychological distress of people who are in a situation of extreme housing vulnerability, based on the experience of the psychologists members Read more…

About the coronavirus and the thought of John N. Gray

This article reviews the reflections of the English political philosopher John Gray on the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in the societies of the immediate future. Gray’s conclusion is forceful: “The era of peak globalization is over”. Keywords coronavirus, John Gray, globalization, liberalism. [Text in Read more…

Inclusive school and control society

Tenderness as a proposal to combat medicalization in childhood   The article analyses the increasing psychopathologization of children educational system in the model known as «inclusive school» in Catalonia. It focuses in the description of some devices, and proposes some conditions, necessary for intervention in Read more…

Poetic creation and the riddle of suicide: Hart Crane i Alejandra Pizarnik

This essay explores the relationship between the literary imagination, poetic creation, and suicide through the work of two poets who took their own lives: Hart Crane and Alejandra Pizarnik. Drawing on authors from the psychoanalytic field such as Vincenzo Marzulli, and literary critics such as Read more…

The introduction of supervision in Social Services.
Story of a 1986 experience

In this article we explain the first experience (of which we have knowledge in our environment) of the supervision of cases following the psychoanalytic model in the childhood social services. This experience took place in the context of the general reorganization of these services derived Read more…

Approach to the spiritual dimension in clinical practice

This article tries to explain my experience and my learning, as a specialist in internal and palliative medicine, accompanying ill people who are dying. Healthcare professionals approach our patients with a certain attitude and with respect, trying to explore their threats and their fears that Read more…

To welcome and treat the difference in mental health

This article tries to make a tour of what various authors consider Normality and/or Adaptation, showing that the “normal”, refers only to the area marked by a rule that changes and adapts to various historical contexts that the subject has lived, and the difficulty of Read more…

Psychodynamic factors underlying recurrence in cases of women victims of gender violence

Clinical experience with female victims of gender violence shows that in a considerable number of cases there is a repetition in that these women are recurrent victims of physical and / or psychological violence, either by the same or different partners. This has two sides: Read more…

The hypochondriac enjoyment and the medicalized society

The fact that death is inevitable makes the narcissist a hypochondriac, because it makes the healthy presence of oneself in the future an extremely uncertain matter. Given that the hypochondriac, in addition to its psychic structure, the environment also does so, the excess of medicalization, Read more…

A critical review at bisexual theory

It is not a matter of erasing sex differences between subjects, but of emphasizing these differences even more. No sexual position might be considered as forming part of a homogeneous group, nor should heterosexuality have a privilege over other forms of sexual composition. The different Read more…

Multicausality and overdetermination of violence

The human, the subject, is a social, cultural and historical phenomenon characterized by a complex epistemological stratification. The analysis of violence is also a very complex phenomenon. Violence is a multicausal phenomenon whose explanation lies in the presence and interaction of a considerable number of Read more…

Clinical diagonally, particular transferential practices

This article intends to open a reflection on possible transference practices that from collective devices can hold other listening positions. Based on psychoanalytic reflections raises the possibility of understanding and exercising a non-normative clinical practice that may bring together some of the trauma or suffering Read more…

On the subject of violence: context, trauma and reparation

Violence is present in life, in human behaviour. It has been and is still a wide field of observation for psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists and psychoanalysts. Studying the psychological trauma associated with violent demonstrations, which can be unaccountable to those who suffer, without forgetting that violence Read more…

A conceptual map of the primary and secondary process of the psychic device

In this paper we present the main features of the primary and secondary processes of the psychic apparatus, according to our interpretation of Freud’s formulation, within the first topology. We have organized our presentation using a representation tool known as concept map using free software Read more…

Trauma and abuse: reflections about traumatic origin of aggressiveness based on clinical experience

The article addresses the issue of abuse and mistreatment in childhood, through clinical experiences carried out in the Dominican Republic. A meeting with J, a Dominican 7-year-old child, took place to explore the traumatic outcome and devastating consequences that situations of abuse and mistreatment can Read more…

Regredience: a central concept for a specifically psychoanalytic epistemology

[Text in Spanish]: 6ª Conferencia de Christian Delourmel Conferencia organizada por Gradiva, Associació d’estudis Psicoanalítics, en Barcelona, el 14 de junio de 2013 Algunas reflexiones acerca de la verdad y la realidad, entre convicción y creencia Introducción Poco a poco, ha emergido en la trayectoria Read more…

Regarding the problem of the medicalization of depression in the context of the current crisis

This paper looks into the types of strictly medical responses that are given to depression, medicating it excessively. It highlights the current confusion among people about its nature that often includes a real hotchpotch of discomforts, symptoms and disorders. It explains the process by which Read more…

Psychic disorders, social transformations and economic crisis

In this paper we analyze the psychic discomforts associated with the economic crisis triggered from autumn 2008. This crisis is causing a deep social transformation that affects institutions and people. In addition, the progressive impoverishment of several social sectors happens in a social model based Read more…

About some transformations and uses of term «difference» in recent times.
Women and politics

[Text in Catalan]: El moviment d’emancipació femenina ha aspirat i aspira a harmonitzar dos moviments de la democràcia moderna que no sempre han anat equilibrats: la universalitat dels drets humans i la dualitat dels sexes, present en tota la tradició utòpica del segle XIX (pensem Read more…

Some clinical reflections from the concepts of transitional space and object and false self

According to some thoughts developed by Winnicott about transitional space, transitional object and false self, the author writes about their interrelation and their importance for symbol formation, individuation, self-object differentiation and the «as if» pathologies. Finally he presents a clinical example in order to illustrate Read more…

Presentation of the 5th lecture by Christian Delourmel

[Text in Spanish]: Esta es la quinta de las conferencias que Christian Delourmel viene presentando en Gradiva sobre el tema de las relaciones entre psicoanálisis y ciencia. En las cuatro primeras (ya publicadas en esta revista*) Delourmel ha perfilado rasgos comunes al pensamiento científico y Read more…

Transfer of concepts from one discipline to another: risk of usurpation? risk of conceptual deviation?

[Text in Spanish]: 5ª Conferencia de Christian Delourmel Conferencia pronunciada en Gradiva, Associació d’Estudis Psicoanalítics Algunas reflexiones introductorias a una epistemología psicoanalítica específica En el transcurso del XXXVIII Congreso de la Asociación Psicoanalítica Internacional en Ámsterdam en 1993, la Revista de Psicoanálisis (publicada por la Read more…

Preliminary notes for mental disorders’ international classifications review. About the DSM-V

It is well known for mental health professionals around the world but specially for those who are directly or indirectly involved in the mental health field, the main working lines of the new DSM-V have been finalized. As it has already happened before, an increase Read more…

Repeat, build and elaborate. Reflections on the unrepeatable repetition in the theory and clinic of contemporary psychoanalysis

In this paper the author describes a clinical case related to the contemporary theoretical conceptualizations of repetition, construction and elaboration of those amnesic psychic contents and attitudes which some of our patients insistently repeat during the developement of their psychoanalytic process. The involvement of the Read more…

Freudian thought, a complex thought (Edgar Morin): some prolegomena to a study of the specificity of the theorizing process in psychoanalysis

[Text in Spanish]: 3ª Conferencia de Christian Delourmel Conferencia pronunciada en Gradiva, Associació d’Estudis Psicoanalítics, el lunes 27 de junio de 2011 Quisiera comenzar abordando la cuestión esencial para nuestro grupo de trabajo que practicó Elsa Schmid-Kitsikis en una presentación reciente a saber: «¿en qué Read more…

Epistemological obstacles in the quantum microphysical perspective (Bachelard) and resistance to psychoanalytic thought in the second topic: common points

[Text in Catalan]: 4a Conferència de Christian Delourmel Conferència pronunciada a Gradiva, Associació d’Estudis Psicoanalítics, el divendres 25 de novembre de 2011 En el text que us he adreçat, Gaston Bachelard mostra molt bé com un dels obstacles epistemològics, que anomena «obstacle substancialista» en el Read more…

Thinking relationships between psychoanalysis and science (Introduction to cycle of six conferences)

[Text in Spanish]: Introducción al ciclo de seis conferencias de Christian Delourmel En 2004, César Botella organizó en París un seminario —que codirigí junto a él— denominado «Psicoanálisis y ciencias» cuyo objetivo era preguntarse por las relaciones entre ambas disciplinas. El seminario se reunió una Read more…

Provisional resource for the metaphor as intermediary representation in the theoretical process in psychoanalysis

[Text in Spanish]: 1ª Conferencia de Christian Delourmel Conferencia pronunciada en Gradiva, Associació d’Estudis Psicoanalítics, el viernes 21 de enero de 2011 El autor examina el papel que pueden tener las metáforas en el caminar teórico tanto del psicoanálisis como de la ciencia. Tanto en Read more…

Specificity of a psychoanalytic theory of memory

[Text in Spanish]: 2ª Conferencia de Christian Delourmel Conferencia pronunciada en Gradiva, Associació d’Estudis Psicoanalítics, el viernes 25 de marzo de 2011 En esta segunda conferencia el autor defiende una radical heterogeneidad conceptual entre el acercamiento psicoanalítico de la memoria y del inconsciente y los Read more…

About some technical and methodological issues of psychoanalytic dialogue with children

This paper tries to convey to its readers certain methodological and technical characteristics to be taken into account in psychoanalytical work with children. The author shows the complexities that the analyst has to face from a theoretical and technical point of view as well as Read more…

Primary and secondary psychopathy. (The acting out and the desperate invisible)

[Text in Spanish]: Dada la complejidad polisémica que hoy enfrentamos los psicoanalistas ante el concepto de acting out, pasaje al acto, actuación psicopática y personalidad psicopática; me resultó pertinente y útil diferenciar las psicopatías primarias de las defensas psicopáticas. Cada una de ellas tiene una Read more…

Do you not exaggerate a little, to call social and political attention, when you say that inequality in health is the worst epidemic of our time?

«Health inequalities: an epidemic we can avoid» Interview with Joan Benach and Carles Muntaner, public health teachers at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and the University of Toronto respectively, and directors of the Employment Conditions Network and Health Inequalities (Emconet) which is part of the WHO Social Determinants Health Commission. [Text in Spanish] Read more…

Notes on some psychological roots of violence: narcissism, fundamentalism and fanaticism

[Text in Spanish]: El fanatismo y el fundamentalismo, tal como se expresan en las conductas fanáticas y fundamentalistas y en sus diversas manifestaciones y consecuencias, son generalmente considerados como el origen y el caldo de cultivo de la violencia, especialmente de la violencia terrorista. Mi Read more…

Setting and Taboo
A female analyst and her male patients. Vicissitudes and variations of the framing

[Text in Spanish]: En este trabajo la autora aborda el difícil tema del amor y el sexo tal como se manifiesta en el juego transferencial/contratransferencial dentro del encuadre psicoanalítico. Se refiere a la importancia de la capacidad del analista para reconocer, analizar y utilizar sus Read more…

The uprooting and consequent search for homeland in the trilogy by Josefina Rodríguez Aldecoa: «Story of a teacher», «Women in black», «The force of destiny»

[Text in Catalan]: L’article planteja la problemàtica de la pèrdua de la pàtria en el cas de les filles de l’exili. Per això es tenen en compte els estudis de la filòsofa Lluïsa Muraro que fan referència a la importància de la recuperació de l’ordre Read more…

Norm and authority: free obedience and its social expression

[Text in Spanish]: La importancia de la innovación y la sensación de aceleración en los cambios sociales están incidiendo en las relaciones intergeneracionales, en lo referente a la transmisión del saber y en el valor de la experiencia, afectando correlativamente al principio de autoridad. A Read more…

Contribution of neuroscience to the understanding of mental development and functioning

[Text in Catalan]: Els coneixements actuals de la neurologia i del desenvolupament neuro-psico-senso-motriu del nen, ens permeten profunditzar cada vegada més en aspectes que poden ser motiu de diàleg amb les aportacions de la teoria psicoanalítica. Aquesta possibilitat de confluència és possible perquè la neurofisiologia Read more…

The sea around Strómboli – Projective identification and fusional identification

[Text in Spanish]: Un problema que parece de actualidad es el de definir teóricamente mejor, el vínculo entre la relación transferencial y aquellos aspectos menos definidos de la situación analítica que llevan a tanteos, utilizando en cada ocasión significados diferentes, términos como psicótico bordeline, narcisístico, Read more…

The care of individuals and groups: who takes care of them? Social organization and gender

[Text in Spanish]: El propósito de este texto es mostrar las interferencias que tienen lugar en el establecimiento de relaciones sociales cuando las actividades de cuidado se producen de un modo especializado, por parte de las mujeres, mientras que las actividades de provisión y defensa Read more…

Framing, health and interpretation. Reflections around D. Winnicott’s Concepts

[Text in Spanish]: Los pacientes que hoy vemos en nuestra consulta, que entre perplejos y angustiados, se perciben «vacíos», «extrañados», «transparentes», nos inducen a renovar los conceptos operativos, para lograr dar respuestas terapéuticas a sus angustias, a la vez que intentamos desarrollar las conceptualizaciones teóricas Read more…

The analytical dialogue. Possible worlds and transformations in the analytical field

[Text in Spanish]: Considero que, ya desde los primeros instantes, la sesión de análisis está abierta a infinitos desarrollos posibles: según como interactúen analista y paciente en su diálogo, y sobre todo, según el tipo de emociones que se activen, tendremos infinitos nudos lingüístico-emocionales que Read more…

The psychoanalyst’s selfobject needs and the effect of their frustration on the treatment: a new view of countertransference

[Text in Spanish]: Somos conscientes de que en la literatura existen definiciones múltiples y conceptualizaciones complejas sobre la contratransferencia (véase definiciones y referencias sobre todo en Rycroft, 1972; Moore y Fine, 1990) y por tanto no las vamos a repasar aquí. Históricamente, los psicoanalistas han Read more…