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 have the great honor that an author decided to write a second time for us.
Therefore his Introduction is now slightly modified compared to the first time.
You, dear Reader, can read Moritz Pohlmann’s first interview here and Moritz Pohlmann’s first article can be found here!  


We are very glad to welcome back Moritz Pohlmann from Freiburg, Germany:

Born in Freiburg-Germany. Studied psychology, as main subjects Clinical Psychology and Social Psychology at the Universities of Fribourg and Bern. Pohlmann graduated in depth-psychological-analytical training at the Psychosomatic Hospital Freiburg and after several years of clinical activity – last at the Sigma Clinic in Bad Säckingen – currently working in a counseling center at Freiburg and in an ambulant therapeutic practice.

Quotes to the difficulties which may oppose the person who deals with what might be called (Oedipal) maturity of personality:

“So, like all unsatisfied mothers, she took her little son in place of her husband, and by the too early maturing of his erotism robbed him of a part of his masculinity (Freud S. (1910) Leonardo Da Vinci and a memory of his Childhood).”

Freud´s representation describes a socialization experience that in my observation is becoming much more characteristic for boys: in a pseudo-partnership relationship without paternal limit-putting pivotal word of a third person, they are excessively increased and stimulated, but nobody introduces them into the world. Their battles in the martial computer game worlds of the nursery on the one hand, their staying at home even if they could have already moved out on the other hand, is their compromise to keep the maternal castle and to strike out at the same time, to remain at her bosom while being her man and to prove his warrior status.

„Die Erfahrung und die Anerkennung der Begrenzung prä-ödipaler und ödipaler Grandiositätsvorstellungen sind die Voraussetzung für eine reife Persönlichkeitsentwicklung, die nach der Adoleszenz schließlich auch die begrenzte Möglichkeit eröffnet, eine konstante sexuelle Partnerschaft mit nur einem einzigen Partner einzugehen. Um einen Menschen lieben zu können, muss man Abschied nehmen von den vielen grandiosen Optionen und Ersatzbefriedigungen vor allem medialer Art, die die Moderne den Heranwachsenden zur Verfügung stellt." (aus: Dammasch, M. (2008). Vaterlose Jungen zwischen Größenphantasien und Verfolgungsangst. In: Dammasch, F. (Hrsg.): Jungen in der Krise. Das schwache Geschlecht? Psychoanalytische Überlegungen. Frankfurt am Main: Brandes & Apel, S. 142.)

[Quote not found in English translated by DWP]
"The experience and the recognition of the limitation of pre-oedipal and oedipal notions of grandiosity are essential for a mature personality development, which finally after adolescence also opens the limited possibility of entering into a constant sexual relationship with a single partner. To love a person, one has to say goodbye to the many fantastic options and substitute satisfactions especially the media type which modernity makes available to adolescents today."

If we complain about the alleged relationship inability of young patients and get angry about it, feel with them, we repeatedly tend in the therapeutic scene to only locate the origin of these associated conditions in their family microcosm. If we try to locate the so-called pre-Oedipal disorders exclusively at family conditions, we, in my opinion, overlook, however, that the consumer capitalism characterize today´s realities, the inherent structure of modern communications media - I will further explain this in my article - but also today’s dominant progressive political meta-narratives, which undermine basic elements of the oedipal experience: the inevitability and necessity of limitations; the requirement of renunciation and sacrifice; experiencing positive historically anchored and to everyday life tangible options of identification and models. From this point of view, mature oedipal structures appear almost as something untimely, because they are also based on the ability to prevailing social trends to escape a bit and to resist their seduction.


„Da die moderne Gesellschaft die Erfahrung der Abhängigkeit bis ins Erwachsenenleben hinein verlängert, fördert sie mildere Formen von Narzissmus auch bei Menschen, die sich sonst womöglich mit den unausweichlichen Grenzen ihrer persönlichen Freiheit und Macht ausgesöhnt hätten – Grenzen, die im Wesen der Condition humaine liegen -, indem sie Fähigkeiten als Arbeiter oder Eltern entwickelt hätten...Während er obendrein überwältigende Phantasien von Omnipotenz fördert, entwertet der neue Paternalismus bescheidenere Träume, lässt die Fähigkeit zu zweifeln verkümmern und verbaut den Zugang zu harmlosen Ersatzbefriedigungen, vor allem in Kunst und Spiel, die das Gefühl der Ohnmacht und des Ausgeliefertseins – typisch narzisstische Merkmale – zu lindern vermögen.“ (aus: Lasch, C. (1995). Das Zeitalter des Narzissmus. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, S. 323-324).

[Quote not found in English translated by DWP]
"As modern society extends the experience of dependence into adult life, it promotes milder forms of narcissism even in people who would otherwise possibly reconciled with the inescapable limits of their personal freedom and power - limits which are in the nature of the Condition humaine - by having developed skills as workers or parents ... While it moreover promotes overwhelming fantasies of omnipotence, the new paternalism devalued modest dreams, makes the ability wither to doubt and blocks access to harmless substitute satisfactions, especially in art and play that can normally alleviate the feeling of impotence and helplessness - typical narcissistic characteristics".

Psychoanalysts express themselves sometimes disparagingly about shorter treatments and therapy training. These barely scratch on the surface, they notice critical. I´ve heard of training analysts, who considered the completion of the training analysis after 400th hour is premature. In a lecture by Martin Teising I heard that only a small proportion of older psychoanalyst have made arrangements for the continuation of their practice in the case of their own death. In connection with the topic in my article about how much communication technologies hinder the maturation processes, we must, I think, also ask ourselves critically:

How often do we release in analytical practice - and perhaps because the more time passes, we increasingly depend on them and want to protect them and us – the patients too late and fail thereby to prepare them in time to a world without us?

And: Can it sometimes also apply to psychoanalytic training institutions what Lasch identified with "new paternalism": that their boundless (self) claims and their related narcissistic fears solidify and establish dependencies that prevent candidates to leave in time the life-practice and brave with their risk disappointing-offending limits and thus also have the courage to learn to be responsible for their own (professional) action themselves?


Thank you very much for this introduction, we are already looking forward to your leading article!



Contact information of the author:
Moritz Pohlmann