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Smith College

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

Theses/Dissertations

2014

Psychoanalysis

Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Trauma, Criminalization, And Movements For Healing Justice : A Theoretical Study Of Relational Theory And Transformative Justice Interventions In The Treatment Of Juvenile Sexual Offending, Megan E. Shaughnessy-Mogill Jan 2014

Trauma, Criminalization, And Movements For Healing Justice : A Theoretical Study Of Relational Theory And Transformative Justice Interventions In The Treatment Of Juvenile Sexual Offending, Megan E. Shaughnessy-Mogill

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This theoretical thesis explores the etiology and treatment of juvenile sexual offenders from the perspectives of psychoanalytic relational theory and the emerging grassroots theory of transformative justice, drawing together the often-disconnected spheres of the individual and the systemic in the study and treatment of child sexual abuse. This study traces the concepts of dissociation and reenactment to examine the role of unconscious traumatogenic phenomena and the apparent parallel process across the individual and systemic dimensions of juvenile sexual offending. Engaging two theories from outside the mainstream treatment model, this study asks what clinical understandings and treatment possibilities may be foreclosed …


From Sadomasochism To Bdsm : Rethinking Object Relations Theorizing Through Queer Theory And Sex-Positive Feminism, Simon Z. Weismantel Jan 2014

From Sadomasochism To Bdsm : Rethinking Object Relations Theorizing Through Queer Theory And Sex-Positive Feminism, Simon Z. Weismantel

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This theoretical thesis explores the phenomenon of BDSM. BDSM is a type of consensual erotic experience that covers a wide range of interactions between or among people. Referencing the compound acronym BDSM, these interactions encompass: bondage and discipline; dominance and submission; and sadism and masochism. This project investigates psychoanalytic conceptualizations of BDSM, often called sadomasochism in analytic literature. In particular, object relations theory conceptualizations of BDSM are explored. Object relations theorists have tended to identify sadomasochism as pathology. This thesis explores and uses queer theory and sex-positive feminism to analyze two important object relations authors' writings on sadomasochism (i.e., Otto …


Alone With The Other : Paradoxes Of Shame And Recognition In Psychoanalytic Theory, Case Material And Home Alone, Nicholas J. Collura Jan 2014

Alone With The Other : Paradoxes Of Shame And Recognition In Psychoanalytic Theory, Case Material And Home Alone, Nicholas J. Collura

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

Shame and recognition co-occur in the human psyche. Phenomenologically, shame is relational: experienced in the world with the Other. Psychoanalytically, the shame affect is treated as one of the ego's defenses, for example, as a protection from exposure. Shame seems to either promote or prevent the subject's capacity to recognize otherness and difference. In this paper, I attempt to re-read these respective theories on shame and recognition, eventually placing shame in, among other places, Lacan's (1988) mirror stage and relational perspectives of human development. I turn to two cases, one clinical, one from popular culture, to elaborate on the paradoxical …


Emptiness As Symptom, Emptiness As Healing : Examining The Intersections Between Buddhist And Psychodynamic Perspectives On No-Self, Bruno D. Trindade Jan 2014

Emptiness As Symptom, Emptiness As Healing : Examining The Intersections Between Buddhist And Psychodynamic Perspectives On No-Self, Bruno D. Trindade

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

Despite growing usage of meditation in Western psychotherapeutic practice, there is a divergence in the meaning of empty self-experience between psychodynamic psychotherapy and the Buddhist source of these meditative practices. In this theoretical study I propose that empty self-experience is manifold, including both beneficial and pathogenic forms, specifically the experience most prized in Buddhism as sunyata, and those most dreaded in personality disorders. By studying these through the theories of control-mastery and Buddhist Abhidhamma, I demonstrate how similar psychological processes are involved in overcoming pathogenic emptiness, on one hand, and in the achievement of sunyata, on the other. The findings …


Gender As Compromise Formation : Towards A Radical Psychoanalytic Theory Of Trans*, Laura K. Werner-Larsen Jan 2014

Gender As Compromise Formation : Towards A Radical Psychoanalytic Theory Of Trans*, Laura K. Werner-Larsen

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This theoretical study explores the utility of psychoanalytic theory as a tool for working with trans* identified clients. Acknowledging the deeply problematic history of psychoanalytic theory and practice with trans*clients, the study nevertheless contends that a radical rereading of the psychoanalytic canon can provide a theory of gender as compromise formation and a conceptual toolkit that can allow for anti-oppressive clinical work around gender identity from a psychodynamic perspective. Using conceptual history and conceptual analysis as a methodological frame, the study delineates five concepts in contemporary psychoanalytic theorizing that support the depathologizing of trans* identity and the denormalization of cisgender …