[Automatic translation from Spanish]:
A few months ago, at the Psychoanalysis Committee of the Official College of Psychology of Catalonia, we invited Guillermo Bodner to give his lecture entitled «Current problems: new pathologies, new normalities». This invitation has a precedent. It was in the context of the XXXVII Conference of the Catalan Journal of Psychoanalysis, held a year earlier in Barcelona —on November 11, 2022—, when I had the opportunity to learn about his work, addressed that day to a large audience, where we listened with great attention to the reflections that G. Bodner offered us.
It is not often that one finds an updated exposition of some of the classic psychoanalytic paradigms. The teaching and transmission of psychoanalytic theories —in their different theoretical-clinical perspectives— continue to collect the already known postulates, but it is necessary, as Bodner says, «to know and deepen our theories avoiding turning them into dogmas, but into necessary supports, in incessant evolution». And he emphasizes that «the patriarchal model that dominates our society and our culture tends to stigmatize certain clinical pictures… When what changes is not only what we observe but also our way of listening, looking and understanding».
A century after Freud’s emblematic texts, and several decades of transmission of the Kleinian and Lacanian school, do we still listen, look and understand from those postulates?
Guillermo Bodner says that we observe changes in the type of consultation, but that it is not easy to know how the type of suffering has changed, and he wonders if it might not be that the same sufferings manifest themselves in another way. He even expands on this reflection, which is a warning against the temptation to classify diagnoses:
Discomfort in relationships, with oneself or with the body, is not always organized under the models of neurosis, psychosis or borderline symptoms.
These are some of the true «current» challenges that we confront in our daily clinical practice.
By «current» he refers to the different clinical practice that is emerging in this era of accelerated social and cultural changes; a «current» that implies a «different» with respect to the psychopathological organizations described by classical psychoanalysis. In this sense, Bodner includes the social and the cultural as unavoidable factors that also affect the construction of subjectivity.
These are factors that in our contemporary era we cannot say are innocuous. But if they were not in previous eras in which we have lived, it would seem that the challenges are becoming more and more insurmountable every day. Yet we find that the postmodern subject, as Bodner says, attempts to challenge accelerated —and profound— changes, even though they far exceed our capacity for understanding and adaptation. That, of course, is not without consequences.
That is why the reflections that Guillermo Bodner raises in his interesting article seem so current and necessary to us.
I met Guillermo Bodner in 1985, precisely also at the Official College of Psychologists of Catalonia, as it was then called. He was part of the teaching team coordinated by Dr. Valentín Barenblit, who taught a course entitled «Psychoanalytic psychotherapy and therapeutic strategies in primary care». That and other courses that followed on psychopathology and psychoanalytic psychotherapy in its different modalities and clinical approaches, brought together a good number of colleagues who were committed to mental health care from public services. It was truly a privilege and a gratifying opportunity to receive and share almost four decades ago a rigorous, broad and committed training in mental health from a psychoanalytic perspective.
Guillermo Bodner studied Medicine in Uruguay, where he completed a postgraduate degree in Psychiatry and began training in psychoanalysis. The political events of 1973 forced him to leave the country. He arrived in Barcelona in 1978. He worked as an assistant physician at the Psychiatric Clinic of Dr. Obiols at the Clinic Hospital. He collaborated in various initiatives with Dr. Valentín Barenblit, teaching continuously for several years at the COPC. In Barcelona he resumed his personal analysis, and soon began his training at the Spanish Psychoanalysis Society. He attended seminars with Alberto Campo, Manuel Pérez Sánchez, Josep Beà, Joan Coderch, Pere Folch, Ramón Bassols and curricular supervisions with Terttu Eskelinen, Luis Feduchi and Francisco Calvo.
After completing his training at the SEP, he continued supervising with Kleinian-oriented psychoanalysts and others. For more than 20 years he supervised with Michael Feldman and Betty Joseph, and sporadically with Hanna Segal. He attended weekend meetings at the West Lodge Conference near London for 25 years with other European colleagues, coordinated by John Steiner, Ronald Britton and Michael Feldman. Within the European Federation of Psychoanalysis, he had the opportunity to supervise with Jean Michel Quinodoz, Peter Fonagy or Josep Sandler.
He was actively involved in the SEP, where he held various committee positions and was President of the Board of Directors between 1999-2003. During that period he represented the SEP at the meetings of the Board of Directors of the European Federation of Psychoanalysis. He participated in several congresses of the International Psychoanalytic Association and for eight years was a member of the Ethics Committee of the IPA. For 15 years he has been a member of the Editorial Committee of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and is an advisor to various psychoanalytic journals in Europe, Latin America, as well as Calibán, the journal of the Psychoanalytic Federation of Latin America. He has published numerous articles in the Catalan Journal of Psychoanalysis, as well as in Portuguese, Italian, Colombian and other journals.
After completing his training at the SEP, he began to give private seminars to groups of psychologists and psychiatrists interested in the thought of Freud, Klein and Bion. He was part, as a supervisor, of the initial group of the Mental Health Unit of L’Hospitalet; he also carried out clinical supervision at the CSMA of Prat de Llobregat, Cornellá, as well as in Sant Pere Claver.
As a teacher, he taught at the Vidal i Barraquer Foundation, and currently at the Institute of Psychoanalysis of Barcelona, where he continues his activity. We hope that you celebrate as much as we – the board of the COPC Psychoanalysis Commission – the invitation to Guillermo Bodner to publish his article in our journal.
Regina Bayo-Borràs leave a comment
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