Incest Fantasies and Self-Destructive Acts: Jungian and Post-Jungian Psychotherapy in Adolescence

by Mara Sidoli

Overview

Mainstream analysts working in the Jungian tradition have largely neglected adolescents. Mara Sidoli and Gustav Bovensiepen remedy that omission by showing how and why psychological and physical abuse suffered by young children erupts in violent and destructive behavior against the self and others. Using clinical material, they establish the link between archetypal imagery, disturbed behavior, and instinctual drive.

Drawing from all schools of analytical psychology, the authors, along with several associates, focus mainly on severe neurotic disturbances and behavioral problems occurring in adolescence. Because most disturbances originate in the body, the contributors concentrate on self-destructive behavior: suicide, self-mutilation, and other self-damaging acts. Focused heavily on the treatment of these adolescents, the text has selections from an international group of contributors, providing diverse accounts of both theoretical and technical approaches to therapy. The case histories illustrate the relationship between the analyst and the adolescent patient as it develops in consultation. Interweaving the concepts of Jung, Freud, and others makes this volume a unique contribution to contemporary psychoanalysis. It will be of sustained interest to psychoanalysts, child psychotherapists, social workers, psychiatrists, and psychologists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781412853873
Publisher:	Transaction Publishers
Publication date:	05/30/2014
Pages:	355
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Mara Sidoli (1937-2000) was president of the Jung Institute in Santa Fe, California and director of the Institute for the Advancement of Analytical Psychology. She is the author of The Unfolding Self and the co-editor of Jungian Child Psychotheraphy.

Gustav Bovensiepen is the medical director of the Max Burger Clinic of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Berlin and a training analyst at the C. G. Jung Institute of Berlin. He has published widely in German and English.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Notes on Contributors xv

Glossary of Terms xix

Part I Individual Adolescent Psychotherapy in Private and Clinical Practice

Section 1 A Jungian Approach

Introduction to Section 1: Jung's Contribution to the Understanding of Adolescence and A Review of the Literature Gustav Bovensiepen 3

1 Notes on Technique and the Personality of the Analyst Gustav Bovensiepen Mara Sidoli 15

2 Experience of Time and Death Fantasies in Adolescence Mara Sidoli Gustav Bovensiepen 25

Section 2 Incest Fantasies and Separation

Introduction to Section 2 39

3 Oedipus as a Pre-Oedipal Hero Mara Sidoli 43

4 Incest Fantasies as a Defense against the Analysis of Pre-Oedipal Object Relations Gustav Bovensiepen 55

Section 3 Acting Out Incest Fantasies

Introduction to Section 3 67

5 The Trickster and the Terrible Mother: Archetypes Experienced during the Treatment of a Preadolescent Sexually Abused Girl Janet Glynn-Treble 71

6 Heroic Deeds, Manic Defense, and Intrusive Identification: Some Reflections on Psychotherapy with a Sixteen-Year-Old Boy Miranda Davies 81

Section 4 Defenses of the Self: A Psychological Suicide

Introduction to Section 4 101

7 Defenses of the Self in a Preadolescent Boy Miranda Davies 105

8 Suicide and Attacks on the Body as a Containing Object Gustav Bovensiepen 123

Section 5 Heterosexual and Homosexual Elements in the Search for Identity

Introduction to Section 5 137

9 What to Do about Mother? An Adolescent Girl's Dilemma Jane Bunster 141

10 The Search for Identity in Late Adolescence Brian Feldman 153

Section 6 Attacks on the Body

Introduction to Section 6 169

11 Bulimia in Adolescent Women: An Exploration of Personal and Archetypal Dynamics in Analysis Brian Feldman 173

12 The Stone Womb: A Case of Psychogenic Paralysis Francesco Bisagni 187

Section 7 Attacks on the Mind

Introduction to Section 7 207

13 The Fight against Big Nose Mara Sidoli 211

14 First Steps toward Independence: Transference Manifestations in a Fifteen-Year-Old Boy Helga Anderssen-Plaut 223

Part II Inpatient and Outpatient Adolescent Psychotherapy in Institutions

Introduction to Part II 239

15 The Clinic as Container Gustav Bovensiepen 247

16 Group Therapy in a Day Care Setting Heide Heidtke Michael Neumann-Schirmbeck 263

17 Borderline States, Incest, and Adolescence: Inpatient Psychotherapy Geoffrey Brown 281

18 Sandplay Therapy and Verbal Interpretation with an Anorexic Girl Gianni Nagliero 297

19 Individual Psychotherapy in a Residential School for Girls Janet Glynn-Treble 311

Index 323

Editorial Reviews

This book is a major Jungian contribution to the literature on sexual abuse. The rich tapestry of different theoretical strands is exemplified by clinical material covering a wide range of problems which forcefully convey the challenges of working with adolescents. . . . This book has much to commend it. It addresses many of the psychic consequences of abuse. There is a wealth of clinical material conveying the immediacy of adolescence, and a breadth of theoretical discussion that reflects contemporary Jungian thinking.” —Clive Britten, Journal of Analytical Psychology “Incest Fantasies and Self-Destructive Acts, edited by Mara Sioli and Gustav Bovensiepen, is a most welcome and indeed a most necessary and long awaited exposition of the Jungian understanding and clinical handling of the psychopathology and psychotherapy of adolescents. The editors have brought together papers by experienced analytical psychologists, working in several different countries. This gives the readers an overview of the diversity of approaches which the relatively non-doctrinaire character of analytical psychology facilitates and so helps to make for a sensitive response to patients and to the subtlety of the relationship as it evolves between analyst and analysand. . . . [T]his book is rich in excellent and well described case studies. The observations, intuitive perceptions, understanding and ideas are interesting and challenging.” —Rosemary Gordon, The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal “An important contribution to the contemporary psychoanalytic dialogue concerning adolescent development and the treatment of psychopathology in adolescence.” —Thomas H. Ogden, San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute “The book revolves around the activation of incest fantasies and incestuous acting out in adolescence, interpreting this phenomenon as a potentially creative and healing regression. . . . This theoretical/clinical thread is elegantly elaborated throughout the book.” —Alicia F. Lieberman, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco "This remarkable book is a significant contribution, both to the psychopathology and psychotherapy of adolescents and to the rapprochement between psychoanaly­sis and analytical psychology." —Roger Brooke, Director of Training in Clinical Psychology, Duquesne University "... A most welcome and indeed a most necessary and long awaited exposition of the Jungian understanding and clinical handling of the psychopathology and psychotherapy of adolescents." —Rosemary Gordon, editor, Journal of Analytical Psychology "This book is a useful addition to the literature on adolescence: it is the first seri­ous contribution to the subject by a group of Analytical (Jungian) Psychologists; it also covers a wide range of treatment methods from strictly analytic procedures to group therapies and institutional caring. . . . stimulating and thought provoking." —Dr. Michael Fordham

From the Publisher