Prof. Carlo Strenger, Ph.D.
School of Psychological Sciences
Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas
Tel Aviv University strenger@post.tau.ac.il
Relational Psychoanalysis, Fall 2015/6. Syllabus
Relational Psychoanalysis is a style of psychoanalytic thought and clinical work that emerged as a distinct movement in the mid-1980 through the publication of Steven
Mitchel’s
Relational Concepts in Psychoanalysis and Jessica Benjamin’s Bonds of
Love. As opposed to earlier movement is not is characterized by adherence to a single, defining theory, but by an interconnected set of attitudes: emphasis on the relational element in human development and clinical work; a postmodern, reflexive and critical examination of the role of psychoanalytic theory; an open, constructivist epistemology in general and with respect to gender and sexuality in particular.
In the course we will read a number of the papers that achieved classical status in the emergence of the relational tradition as well as a number of accounts trying to characterize the movement as a whole.
After two introductory lectures the course will proceed by participants giving introductory analyses of two papers each week to open discussion.
We will connect the theory to the practice via 4 case presentations in the course of the semester
The course assignments are active participation in class discussion and handing in a paper analyzing a case students are currently treating or have treated in the past from a relational point of view

Readings:
General Recommended Introductions
(All three books are available in Hebrew Translation and contain most of the material that will be read in class)
*Stephen Mitchell (1993), Hope and Dread in Psychoanalysis
**Mitchell, S. and Aron, L. (1999) Relational Psychoanalysis: the Emergence of a
Tradition
***Lewis Aron (1996), A Meeting of Minds.
Course Readings
Lecture 2
Lewis Aron (1996), A Meeting of Minds, Chapter 1, The relational Orientation, an
Introduction
I) A New paradigm
Lecture 3: A new Theory?
Lewis Aron (1996), Chapter 2: Relational Theory and its Boundaries, One person and
Two Person Psychologies
Stephen Mitchell (1993), Hope and Dread in Psychoanalysis Chapter 1: What does the Patient Need? A Revolution in Theory
Lecture 4: What does the Analyst know?
Stephen Mitchell (1993), Hope and Dread in Psychoanalysis chapter 2, What does the Analyst know? A Revolution in Metatheory

Mitchell, S. (1993), Hope and Dread in Psychoanalysis chapter 3, The Two
Revolutions together
Lecture 5: Case Presentation by one of the participants
II) Relational views of psychoanalytic Treatment
Lecture 6: What happens in Psychoanalytic Treatment?
Lewis Aron (1996), Chapter 3, The Patient’s Experience of the Analyst’s Subjectivity
Thomas Ogden (1994), The Analytic Third: Working with Intersubjective Clinical
Facts
Jessica Benjamin (1990), Recognition and Destruction: an Outline of
Intersubjectivity.
II) The Analyst’s Subjectivity in the Clinical Process
Lecture 7
Lewis Aron (1996), Chapter 3 The patient’s experience of the analyst’s subjectivity
Irwin Z. Hoffman, (1982) The patient as interpreter of the analyst’s experience
Lecture 8: Case Presentation by Participant
Lecture 9
Lewis Aron (1996) Chapter 4, Interpretation as the Expression of the Analyst’s subjectivity
Carlo Strenger 2005, The Designed Self, Chapter 5

Lecture 10: Mutuality in analytic Treatment
Lewis Aron (1996), Chapter 5, Aspects of Mutuality in Clinical Psychoanalysis
Lewis Aron (1996), Chapter 6: The Dialectics of Mutuality and Autonomy: Ferenczi and Rank.
III) Gender and Sexuality
Lecture 11: How Normal is “Normal” Sexuality?
Nancy Chodorow (1994), Femininities, Masculinities, Sexualities: Freud and Beyond.
Lecture 12: Gender as Compromise
** Adrienne Harris (1991), Gender as Contradiction
Jessica Benjamin (1988), The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism and the
Problem of Domination. Chapter 2: Master and Slave
Lecture 13: Case Presentation by Participant
Lecture 14: Spirituality in Relational Psychoanalysis. What is Psychoanalytic
Faith?
**Michael Eigen (1981), The Area of Faith in Winnicott, Bion and Lacan.