As I write this, it almost feels like I’m sitting in a shoebox. The sun has shown up for 4 hours this month, and the work is rolling on in a quiet mood. We psychoanalysts do not necessarily have as much contact with our outside world unless we actively seek it.
So, waiting for the sun to reappear on the horizon and the Vitamins D help us to face the world again I hope you will enjoy reading this year’s edition of Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review.
This is, as you can see a double issue of the Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review. We have chosen that model for this issue, in order to make the release of the coming years issues a little more in ‘phase’.
We’ll see how it goes, but that’s our ambition.
In my new capacity as Editor-in-Chief, this is my first editorial work.
I will try to shoulder Jussi Kotkavirta’s previous work as Editor-in-Chief, which has been brilliant.
I came into the work as editor, after Michael Kaster who chose to resign in the editor’s team. Now I have the heavy burden of announcing, the sad news that Michael Kaster is no longer with us. He passed away on the 24th September. Michael was editor of Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review for the Danish Society during the years 2015–2017.
Sometimes life stops in the step, and we get to know our fragility in a sad way.
It is with great sadness that we realize that we lost a colleague at a young age, and our thoughts go to his family and especially his little son.
We have an important function, in times when fear threatens the wellbeing, of many people, both in the form of environmental responsibility and the political instability in the world.
If the threat and fear take our senses, and if fear is allowed to guide our actions, then our human thought world is wasted. Our psychoanalytic knowledge is invaluable … the human world of thought is invaluable and that it allows us to be human, human beings in relationships.
The German philosopher Bettina Stangneth has just published a new book, titled in Swedish ‘Tänka ont’ (2019).
She uses Hannah Arendt there, and Arendt’s constant question, how can so many ordinary decent people get so bad, in Arendt’s case during the Second World War? Arendt’s answer was ‘Because you refrained from thinking. You did like everyone else. You just hung out’
Several of the articles in this issue capture exactly this, human frailty, trauma, body, mental health, contradiction, and humanity.
In Watkins article, he helps us in our work as supervisors, with a model.
It is important that we keep our work as supervisors alive and in constant development. Watkins facilitates this for us, through a thorough elaboration of previous literature, which he generously shares in his article.
Lunn gives us a beautiful review of Kjell Westö’s novel ‘Hägring 38’
If you have not yet read ‘Hägring 38’ then you have an amazing reading experience in front of you, and with Lunn’s interpretations. Lunn talks about in the article, everything we breathe before it becomes visible to us. The characters we also see in the psychoanalytic room, before they are even formulated. But also the important in how trauma, fear and the past are present in the unspoken.
Haapatalo makes us think about the child and the child’s ability to build their own internalized object, or not, and how it manifests itself in superego. Important thoughts, which we feel good, to constantly repeat.
Le Poulichet’s article also lets us think about trauma and superego, about understanding external and internal threats, and our ability to bear that.
What we are exposed to as children remains as infections, which are easily raised in adult life, but also about the difficulties in identifying the infections and treating them properly.
La Poulichet uses these metaphors in a way that gives us new dimensions of our previous knowledge.
Sahlberg lets us get acquainted with Piera Aulagnier.
‘Suffering body, body in state of need’.
The article also discusses our ability to translate and use the language and how bodies are used in relation to others.
Välimäki lets us follow the process with two patients during a few sessions. Important aspects will be, how the psychoanalyst uses to respond to the inner needs of the patient. This gives us a new and interesting perspective on how to grow in our work in the human contact with the patient.
In this article Visentini allows us to share his science, in structuring data from psychoanalytic practice, to the randomized and controlled, but with a qualitative model.
Zachrisson discusses in his article, mental health and normality. What is Mental Health? A complex question, but Zachrisson asks it in his article. That everything would be without mental pain or difficulty, Zachrisson thinks, is not a normal condition.
There is no such thing as a normal condition says Zachrisson. He also writes so wisely that this question must be constantly asked and kept in our minds.
Varvin has the same theme in his article as Visentini, but from a slightly different angle, which makes it interesting with these two articles in the same issue.
Varvin also deals with variables that affect the patient-therapist, the relationship and the therapeutic competence. Varvin also discusses his method, the essay method, in relation to other qualitative methods.
Schmidt-Hellerau discusses in such a beautiful way that psyche and soma are connected. How early trauma recurs later in life, perhaps as bodily expression and that it structures the order between others and myself. That we always have both sides of the coin, and that both mind and body speak.
Eerola lets us follow the Finnish folk tales, with the Oedipus myth. Eerola tells us in a generous way, about the diversity of Finnish folk tales.
Eerola also points to our cultural heritage and the universality of it, and through them the survival of humanity.
Finally, we have the pleasure of reviewing two new books.
Judy Gammelgaard ‘Efter Freud- Erindringsforstyrrelser og andre normale maerkvaerdigheter’, and Gudrun Bodin’s ‘Set og forstået. Om det psykoanalystiska rum’
This year’s issue shows a breadth of psychoanalytic science, which is very interesting.
Read and let your thoughts be inspired to submit new articles to our magazine!
We wish you good readings!