In this course, we will look at destructive process in the patient, in the analyst, and within the analytic situation. We will make the assumption that varieties of destructiveness exist in every treatment, ranging from the implict to the explicit, from the mild to the severe and intractable. Utilizing a predominantly relational perspective, but borrowing from interpersonal, object relational, and Freudian literature, we will look at these processes through a developmental lens. Readings will consider characterlogical and intrapsychic processes internal to the patient and/or analyst. This look will be contextualized in a perspective which emphasizes the mutual construction of destructive experience: in the family; in the culture; and between analyst and patient. We will consider, as well, the analyst’s own negative influence on the patient. We will inquire into the nature of an analytic culture which prohibits knowledge of (and repair of) the analyst’s ‘crimes and misdemeanors’. Finally, we will examine the analytic processes wherein consciousness, guilt, remorse, and empathy can awaken in the analytic dyad.
Readings will primarily involve articles in a packet that can be picked up at a local copy center. Books will be denoted with an asterik. As our discussions proceed, students should feel free to mention literature that they would like to explore. There is a vast field of related literature that is not represented on the reading list, as well as a proliferation of new literature.
WEEK ONE : Overview of the problem in Psychoanalysis
Learning Objective: candidates will be able to identify clinical problems in the treatment of aggression
WEEK TWO : THE FREUDIAN VISION
Learning objective: candidates will be able to discuss Freud’s concept of destructiveness
Freud, S. (l920) Beyond the Pleasure Principle in S.E. l8 p7-64 *
Freud, A. (1966). Identification with the Aggressor. The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense
NY: International Universities Press.
WEEK THREE: THE KLEINIAN VISION
Learning objective: candidates will be able to compare Klein’s view of aggression as it diverges from that of Freud, and will illustrate that divergence with psychic/cultural problems.
Alford, C.F. (l998) Melanie Klein and the nature of good and evil. In: Psychoanalytic Visions of the Human Condition: Philosophies of Life and Their Impact on Practice ed. P Marcus and
A. Rosenberg. New York University Press, NY pp ll8-l40
Bragin, M. (2005). Pedrito: Blood of the Ancestors. J. of Infant, Child and Adolescent

Psychotherapy. 4(1): 1-20.
WEEK FOUR: THE INTERPERSONAL VISION
Learning objective:
Candidates will be able to analyze the interpersonal conceptualization of destructiveness, in comparison with Freudian and Kleinian concepts.

Fromm, E. (l964) The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil. The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry. W.W. Norton & Co. NY ch 3 pg. 203-217
Sullivan, H.S. (1953) Chapter 3, The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry. WW. Norton & Co.
NY. Pp. 203-217.
Searles, H. The Effort to Drive the Other Person Crazy. In: Collected Papers on
Schizophrenia.. NY International Universities Press.
WEEK FIVE: Object Relational Visions
Learning objectives: Candidates will be able to elucidate the development of Freud’s and Klein’s positions on aggression in justaposition to the Object Relational perspectives on aggression, and will be able to illustrate those perspectives with clinical examples from the literature.
Guntrip, H.S. (l971) The Schizoid Problem in Psychoanalytic Theory, Therapy and the Self.
Basic Books, NY pg. l45-l75
Coltart, N. . Slouching Towards Bethlehem. In: The British School of Psychoanalysis: the
Independent Tradition. Ed: G. Kohon, 1986.
Williams, P. (1998). Psychotic Developments in a Sexually Abusive Borderline Patient.
Psych. Dialogues. 8(4): 459-491.
WEEK SIX: ARRIVING AT THE RELATIONAL
Learning objective: Students will be able to identify the evolution of relational perspectives on destructiveness. Students will also be able to analyze the way that relational perspectives incorporate and diverge from, these other theories.
Mitchell, S. (1993). Aggression and the Endangered Self. In: Hope and Dread in
Psychoanalysis. Basic Books, N.Y.pg 151-175.
Davies, J. (2004). Whose Bad Objects are we anyway? Psa Dial.
14(6): 711-732
WEEK SEVEN: ARRIVING AT THE RELATIONAL
Learning Objective: Students will be able to discuss the role of the body in relational perspectives on aggression.
Grand, S. (2000). Preface and Chapter One in The Reproduction of Evil: A Clinical and
Cultural Perspective. Analytic Press: Hillsdale N.J..

Fonagy P. and Target, M. (1995). Towards Understanding violence: the use of the body and the role of the father. Intl J. of Psa. 76: 487-502
WEEK EIGHT: ARRIVING AT THE RELATIONAL
Learning objective: students will be able to identify and demonstrate how Benjamin’s theory or recognition and destruction are related to Winnicott’s theory.
Benjamin, J. (1999) Recognition and Destruction: An Outline of Inter-subjectivity. In:
Relational Psychoanalysis: The Emergence of a Tradition. Eds: Mitchel, S. and Aron, L.
Analytic Press, Hillsdale, N.J.
Winnicott (1975). Hate in the counter-transference. In: Through Paediatrics to
Psychoanalysis. N.Y. Basic Books.
WEEK NINE: GREED AND ENVY
Learning Objective: candidates will be able to distinguish envy and greed in both clinical and theoretical contexts.
GRAND, S. (2000). The depravities of the non-human self: greed, murder, persecution.
In: The Reproduction of Evil: A Clinical and Cultural Perspective.
Segal, H. (1964). Chapters 3 & 4 In: An Introduction to the work of Melanie Klein. N.Y.:
Basic Books.
Gabbard, G. (1996). Technical Approaches to Malignant Transference Hate. In: Love and
Hate in the Analytic Setting.
WEEK TEN; SHAME AND VENGEANCE
Learning Objective: students will be able to recognize the concept of shame, and critique it as the underpinning of vengeance and hostility at both cultural and personal levels.
Orange, D. (2008) Whose Shame is it anyway? Cont. Psa Vol 44 #1, p 83-100
Marder E. (2007) On Psycho-Photography: Shame and Abu Ghraib. Unpublished ms.
WEEK ELEVEN : THE ANALYTIC SITUATION
Learning Objective: Students will be able to recognize indirect forms of aggression in the consulting room and will apply that recognition to clinical process regarding fees and frame.

Dimen, M. (2006). Money, Love and hate: contradiction and paradox in psychoanalysis.
In: Psychoanalysis Class and Politics.
Layton, L. (2007). Who’s Responsible? Our mutual implication in each other’s suffering.
Unpublished paper.
WEEK TWELVE: THE ANALYTIC SITUATION
Learning objectives: Students will be able to work with eroticized aggression/frame testing as it is manifest in the transference.
Racker, H. (1968). Ch 7&8 in Transference and Countertransference. The Meandway Press,
Croyden. P. 174-186.
Slochower, J. (2006). The Analyst’s Secret Delinquencies. In: Psychoanalytic Collisions.The
Analytic Press, Mahwah,N.J.
WEEK THIRTEEN: SEXUALIZED AGGRESSION
Learning objective: Students will be able to apply theory to work with sexualized aggression, both in the patients’ lives, and in threatening communications from patient towards the analyst.
De Peyer, J. (2002). Private Terrors: sexualized aggression and a psychoanalyst’s fear of her patient. Psychoanalytic Dialogues 12: 509-530.
Celenza, A. (2006). Sexual Boundary Violations in the Office: When is a Couch just a couch? Psych.Dialogues
, 16(1)113-128
Kumin, I. (1984). Erotic Horror: Desire and Resistance in the Psychoanalytic Situation.
Presented at the Tulane University Div. of Psychoanalytic Medicine.
WEEK FOURTEEN: WAR
Learning objective: Students will be able to apply these conceptualizations to addressing cultural problems of war and racism.
Moss, D. (2010). War Stories. In: First Do No Harm. Ed: Harris, A. & Botticelli, S.
Routledge, N.Y.. pp 243-251

Grand, S. (2009) chs 2&3 in: The Hero in the Mirror: From Fear to Fortitude.
WEEK FIFTEEN: RACISM
Learning objective: students will be able to apply these conceptualizations to cultural problems of racism.
Bonovitz, C. (2009). Mixed Race and the negotiation of racialized selves: developing the capacity for internal conflict. Psa Dialogues. 19: 426-441.