Leading articles

THE VIENNA PSYCHOANALYST wants to give not only already internationally established psychoanalysts, but also still unknown psychoanalysts the opportunity to post a self-written and not yet published article on the FrontPage of our online magazine!

Our Users then can leave comments, ask questions or discuss the articles in our forum. Our aim is to provide an international platform where for the first time anyone interested in psychoanalysis can exchange ideas on certain topics.
Articles are welcome in German and/ or English.

If you are interested, please send your article to
leadingarticle@theviennapsychoanalyst.at


(For reasons of readability, the male form is used with personal names, however the female form is also always intended.)

In our interview series "in conversation with“, we will briefly present the authors of the leading articles. We want to give our users the opportunity to read the leading article from a different point of view.


This week we are very glad to welcome Jeanne Wolff Bernstein:

She is a practicing psychoanalyst in Vienna. Previously, she was President and training analyst in San Francisco / Berkeley, California on Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, (PINC). In 1985, she earned her doctorate in clinical psychology at The Wright Institute, Berkeley, California and wrote her doctoral thesis on the work of Edouard Manet. She taught at various universities and psychoanalytic institutes in Berkeley and San Francisco, where she worked in private practice as a psychoanalyst. In 2008 she was the Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna. During this time in Vienna, Jeanne Wolff Bernstein gave a lecture at the Academy of Fine Arts of the work of Eva Hesse and wrote her Fulbright lecture on Freud´s access to the modern art. In 2009, she was the scientific advisor for the art exhibition Eros and Thanatos in the Sigmund Freud and Liechtenstein Museum. Since 2010, Jeanne Wolff Bernstein lives and works in Vienna. She teaches and supervised at the Sigmund Freud University, Vienna, and since 2014 is the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Sigmund Freud Foundation and Museum, Vienna. She regularly participates at discussions over the Film Noir series at the Sigmund Freud Museum. Latter publications include;
Unlocking Diane Arbus, Studies in Gender and Sexuality,  2007,Vol.8, #4, pp.33-336
In Search of her Own Language: Eva Hesse Show, SFMOMA Museum, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, Vol. 6, #4, 2002, pp. 345-368.
Beyond the Bedrock in Good Enough Endings, (2010) ed. by Jill Salberg, Routledge Press and The space of transition between Winnicott and Lacan in Between Winnicott and Lacan, (2011) ed. by Lewis Kirshner, Routledge Press. She wrote the chapter on Jacques Lacan,  to the (2012) Textbook of Psychoanalysis, Second Edition, edited by Glen Gabbard, Bonnie E. Litowitz & Paul Williams, American Psychiatric Publishing and eine a recension about Danielle Knafo’s book, Alone Together: Solitude and the creative encounter in art and psychoanalysis., Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 2012.
Tattoos/hysteria, Body Image and Identity in Contemporary Societies, (2015) Routledge. Introduction to Narcissus in Mourning, by Paul Verhaege, (2015) by Thuria and Kant.



DWP: What brought you to psychoanalysis?

Jeanne Wolff Bernstein: A lively and deep interest in how people think, feel and act and in which paradoxes they live and exist.


DWP: If you had the opportunity to talk with Sigmund Freud, what would be the topic?
Are there any specific questions?

Jeanne Wolff Bernstein: I would have many questions for him and would love to ask him about the many dilemmas in his life, I would like to continue his discussion of the finite and the infinite analysis (1937) and ask him about the further development of Eros and Thanatos.


DWP: Fabric or leather couch?

Jeanne Wolff Bernstein: Definitely fabric.


DWP: According to Bruno Bettelheim and the importance of fairy tales in childhood. Will you tell us your favorite fairy tale? And do you see parallels to your own adult life?

Jeanne Wolff Bernstein: The fairy tales occurring repeatedly helpful analogies in my analytic work, are "Rumpelstiltskin", "Cinderella" and "The Emperor´s New Clothes".


DWP: I dream,….

Jeanne Wolff Bernstein: I dream, well, a lot ... how should it be different.


DWP: What do you find good or particularly good in psychoanalysis and is there anything you do not like about it?

Jeanne Wolff Bernstein: For me it is the only conceivable theory and practice, and in which I can work, I love the diversity of ideas that the psychoanalysis allows and the discipline that are required. What I regret in psychoanalysis, are the squabbles between the various psychoanalytic schools and associations, they do not learn from each other, but fight each other most of the time.


DWP: Do you have a favorite Freud - quote?

Jeanne Wolff Bernstein: This is hard, there are so many ....

Thus the shadow of the object fell upon the ego, and the latter could henceforth be judged by a special agency, as though it were an object, the forsaken object. In this way an object-loss was transformed into an ego-loss. Mourning and Melancholia

The ego, if we are to be able to make such a pact with it, must be a normal one. But a normal ego of this sort is, like normality in general, an ideal fiction. The abnormal ego, which is unserviceable for our purposes, is unfortunately no fiction. Analysis Terminable and Interminable

Only by the concurrent or mutually opposing action of the two primal instincts - Eros and the death instinct -, never by one or the other alone, can we explain the rich multiplicity of the phenomena of life. Analysis Terminable and Interminable


Thank you very much for this conversation and for your leading article!



Contact information of the author:
Jeanne Wolff Bernstein