Analytic neutrality, anonymity, abstinence, and elective self-disclosure

To Reveal or Not to Reveal, That Is the Wrong Question: Thoughts about Clinical Writing in Psychoanalysis

This paper plays with the possibilities of writing about psychoanalytic work in different ways with different levels of disclosure about both patient and analyst. Various issues around anonymity, confidentiality, consent and identity are explored, highlighting the many questions that come up. These issues of how to write psychoanalytically are also addressed from the point of view of culture and the sociopolitical gestalt of our time.

Feminist Social Work: Practice and Theory of Practice

Although feminist social work has been practiced in Israel since the 1970s, little has been written about it. This qualitative study aims to fill this gap by documenting and conceptualizing feminist theory of practice and actual practice based on interviews with 12 feminist social workers. Findings reveal that the interviewees perceive feminist practice as significantly different from traditional social work practice based on four analytical principles: (1) gender analysis, (2) awareness of power relations, (3) analysis of welfare services as structures of oppression, and (4) utilization of feminist language, as well as 10 principles of action. The principles are discussed in the context of feminist social work in Israel and in light of feminist principles described in international literature.

The reluctance to self-disclose: reflexive or reasoned?

Despite a growing body of clinical literature advocating the thoughtful and judicious use of self-disclosure in psychoanalysis, there remains a reflexive reluctance to intervene in this way by many analysts of various theoretical persuasions. Why is this the case? Four motives for this reflexive reluctance to self-disclose are discussed: (1) theoretical reasons; (2) psychoanalytic authoritarianism; (3) fears of influencing the patient through suggestion; and (4) the analyst's personality characteristics. Examining the reasons for this state of affairs should help to reduce the rigidity or orthodoxy with which clinical psychoanalysis is practiced.

Supervision and self-disclosure: modes of supervisory interaction

A conceptual framework is presented for thinking about supervisory issues raised by candidate self-disclosure. The process of dealing with self-disclosure in supervision brings into bold relief certain dynamics that operate in all supervisory encounters. In responding to these and other tensions stirred by analyst self-disclosure, the supervisory dyad moves in and out of various configurations, or "modes of supervisory interaction." Why these dynamics are intensified when the focus of supervision is on an instance of candidate self-disclosure is explored. To illustrate these ideas, a supervisory hour that dealt with the issue of self-disclosure is presented. A nonjudgmental awareness of the various modes of supervisory interaction enriches the supervisory process.

What is medical ethics consultation?

What happens when the field of ethics consultation meets the hermeneutics of suspicion.