JAPA PSA-NETCAST

DISCUSSION OF MASCULINITY WITH GERALD I. FOGEL

The next JAPA PSA-Netcast will feature an article by Gerald I. Fogel:

Riddles of Masculinity: Gender, Bisexuality, and Thirdness (JAPA, Issue 54/4, 1139-1163, 2006)

This discussion will start June 1, 2007 and last through the month of June.

Fogel Biography
Fogel Bibliography
Fogel Interview
Moderator
Panelists
A Psychoanalytic Reading List on Masculinity

Dr. Gerald I. Fogel Dr. Fogel is Training and Supervising Analyst, Founding Member, and former Director of the Oregon Psychoanalytic Institute (OPI). He has a private practice of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy in Portland, Oregon. Before moving to Portland in 1996, he had been in New York City for more than thirty years, where he had his psychiatric and psychoanalytic training, then served on the faculties of the Columbia Psychoanalytic Institute, where he was Training and Supervising Analyst, and the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he was an Associate Clinical Professor. In his teaching career at Columbia, he taught various theoretical and clinical courses over the years, and supervised students at all levels, and he has continued these activities in Portland. In tribute to his teaching and supervising abilities, he was awarded the George Goldman Award for Achievement in Psychoanalytic Education in 1995. Among other duties, he served as assistant curriculum director and chair of several major theory courses at Columbia. He also served in many administrative capacities there, including President of their psychoanalytic society, the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine from 1987-1989. He is currently a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Oregon Health Sciences University School of Medicine.

Dr. Fogel is currently serving a second term on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association and has served several times on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. He has recently been appointed to the Editorial Board of Studies in Gender and Sexuality. He has also been editor of the Bulletin of the Association of Psychoanalytic Medicine (Columbia's society) and the Newsletter of the American Psychoanalytic Association. He is a nationally recognized contributor to the psychoanalytic literature, having edited books on perversion, the psychology of men, and the work of Hans Loewald, and written numerous papers, book chapters, book reviews, and other brief contributions for major scholarly journals. He frequently appears as a lecturer, discussant, panelist, or moderator at institutes around the country and at national meetings of the American Psychoanalytic Association. In recognition of his achievements, he was awarded the George E. Daniels Merit Award for Contributions to Psychoanalysis by the Columbia Psychoanalytic Institute in 1996, as well as the Donald Kaplan Award for Excellence in Teaching by the candidates of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis in 1999.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fogel, G., Lane, F., and Liebert, R., Editors: The Psychology of Men: New Psychoanalytic Perspectives, New York: Basic Books, 1986. Reissued in paperback, New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1996.
Fogel, G., and Myers, W., Editors: Perversions and Near Perversions in Clinical Practice: New Psychoanalytic Perspectives New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.
The Work of Hans Loewald: An Introduction and Commentary. New York: Jason Aronson, 1991.

A Case of the Elusive Search for Psychoanalytic Data: Live Patient Interviews at Teaching Seminars. Bulletin of the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine, 22:45-62, 1983.
Being a man. In The Psychology of Men: New Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Fogel, Lane, and Liebert, Eds., pp.3-22, New York: Basic Books, 1986.
The Authentic Function of Psychoanalytic Theory: An Overview of the Contributions of Hans Loewald. Psychoanal. Quarterly, 58:419-451, 1989.
Perversity and the Perverse--Updating a Psychoanalytic Paradigm. In Perversions and Near-Perversions in Clinical Practice: New Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Fogel and Myers, Eds., pp 1-13, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.
Fogel, G. and Glick, R. The Analyst's Postgraduate Development-Rereading Freud and Working Theory Through. Psychoanal. Quarterly, 60:396-425, 1991.
Winnicott's Antitheory and Winnicott's Art-His Significance for Adult Analysis. Psychoanal. Study of the Child, 47:205-222. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1992.
A Transitional Phase in our Understanding of the Psychoanalytic Process-A New Look at Ferenczi and Rank. Journal of the American Psychoanal. Assn., 41:585-602, 1993.
Psychological Mindedness as a Defense. Journal of the American Psychoanal. Assn.. 43:793-822, 1995.
Introduction and Commentary to Psychoanalytic Classics Revisited: Hans Loewald's "On the Therapeutic Action of Psychoanalysis." Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Vol. 43, No. 3, 1996.
After the paradigm wars: New consensus and integration in American psychoanalysis. Gli Argonauti, Vol. 73, pp 147-153, 1997.
A Postmodern Turn for Classical Metapsychology: A Commentary on Grossman & Stewart=s APenis Envy: From Childhood Wish to Developmental Metaphor,@ in Women and Psychoanalysis: A Continuing Dialogue, Donna Bassin, Ed. Jason Aronson, 1998.
Interiority and Inner Genital Space in Men: What Else Can Be Lost in Castration. Psychoanal. Quarterly, 62:662-697,1998.
Some Aspects of Compliance in Psychoanalytic Treatment. Psychoanal. Inquiry, 19:97-113, 1999.
New Possibilities for Integration and Unification in Interdisciplinary Studies-Comments on Jan Haaken's Pillar of Salt: Gender, Memory, and the Perils of Looking Back, Journal of Gender and Sexuality, 2002.
Riddles of Masculinity-Gender, Sexuality, and Thirdness. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 54: 1139-1163, 2006.

Heyman, A. and Fogel, G., About Psychoanalysis (informational brochure from Public Information Committee of the American Psychoanalytic Association), 1985. Revised, 1996.
Book Review: Self Psychology and the Humanities: Reflections on a New Psychoanalytic Approach. By Heinz Kohut. Charles Strozier, Editor. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 68:555-559, 1987.
Book Review: Freud's Theory of Psychoanalysis. By Ole Andkjaer Olsen and Simo Koppe. Psychoanal. Quarterly, 59:498-503, 1990.
Book Review: Chaos: Making of a New Science. By James Gleick. Bulletin of the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine, 29:89-95, 1990.
Book Review: Sublimation: Inquiries into Theoretical Psychoanalysis. By Hans W. Loewald. Jour. of the Amer. Psychoanal. Assn, 39:250-257, 1991.
Book Review: Theaters of the Body: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Psychosomatic Illness. By Joyce McDougall. Psychoanalytic Books, 2:307-317, 1991.
Book Review: New Foundations for Psychoanalysis. By Jean Laplanche. Psychoanal. Quarterly, 61:91-98, 1992.
Book Review: Freud and His Critics, by Paul Robinson. Int. Jour. Psychoanalysis, 74:1283-1286, 1993.
Book Review: The Technique and Practice of Psychoanalysis, Volume II: A Memorial Volume to Ralph R. Greenson. Alan Sugarman, Robert A. Nemiroff, and Daniel P. Greenson, editors. Psychoanal. Quarterly, 1995.
Book Review: Internal Objects Revisited. Joseph Sandler and Anne-Marie Sandler. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 1999.
Book Review: Psychoanalysis Makes a Comeback A Review of Nancy Chodorow's The Power of Feelings: Personal Meaning in Psychoanalysis, Gender, and Culture. Newsletter of the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute & Society, May 2000.
Book Review. The Dead Mother: The Work of Andre Green. Gregorio Kohon, editor. Psychoanal. Quarterly, 70:873-878, 2001.
Book Review: Darwin's Worms, by Adam Phillips. Jour. of the Amer. Psychoanal. Assn, 50:1408-1412, 2002.
Book Review: The Texture of Treatment: On the Matter of Psychoanalytic Technique, by Herbert J Schlesinger. Jour. of the American Psychoanal. Assn., 53:280-287,2005.
Book Review: Gender as Soft Assembly, by Adrienne Harris. Int. J. Psychoanal., 87:1164-1170, 2006.

An Interview with Dr. Fogel

1. What got you interested in gender and particularly in masculinity?

"My interest in male psychology was an accident of fate. I was coeditor of a book on the psychology of men because I was president of my psychoanalytic society when a symposium was turned into a book. This was a perk, not a testament to my expertise. My two coeditors each had a paper to contribute, but I had none, so I was assigned the job of writing the book's introduction. The introduction caught the eye of Ronda Shaw,who several years later asked me to participate in a panel she chaired at the American meetings with the provisional title, "Male Psychology Reconsidered in Light of Recent Advances in Female Psychology." Later the panel was retitled simply "Male Psychology Reconsidered." I had a lot of catching up on the gender issue to do in subsequent years. One thing led to another, but I was instantly perceived by some as an expert on men and gender.I subsequently expanded my panel presentation into my paper on male interiority. My children, now almost forty, still sometimes roll their eyes and glance conspiratorially but conspicuously at one another when the idea that I am an expert on gender, sex, or men comes up. I have never sensed an internal contradiction here. I have always maintained that my deepest expertise is as a psychoanalyst, not a scholarly authority on gender, sexuality,or men. My deepest expertise rests in my psychoanalytic clinical-theoretical experience, and this is the cornerstone of my personal struggle to grasp gender and sexuality."

2. Much of the impetus in recent gender studies has come from women re-evaluating theory of feminine development. This has led to women writing about gender and now about masculinity. Does this give a particular slant on masculinity? Is it turning the table on Freud's pronouncing on women? Does being a certain gender play a role in theorizing about gender?

It is true that women have been overrepresented among those developing significant new ideas about gender. This is a logical outcome of the feminist and relational movements in psychoanalysis and their increasing credibility and influence. So called "problematized" (ie disempowered) groups such as women, gays, and lesbians, have employed deconstructionist tools to rethink and thus empower their own groups. Such groups had been diminished by psychoanalytic theory, where, following Freud, female psychology had been derived from that of the male. But new ideas about women have led to a broad rethinking of other aspects of psychoanalytic theory, including the patriarchal bias that had represented heterosexual men as a norm and thus unnecessary to rethink. When I began developing my thinking about masculinity, I found feminist approaches to female psychology very useful. It may be significant that women analysts in general reacted more favorably than the men to my early work. This difference between the sexes around the subject is less true of late. Nevertheless I do not think women generally have a different "slant," nor that women are better qualified than men to understand and apply the newer ideas. Out groups often see more easily the holes and hidden agendas of those in the in group. As new ideas continue to gain credibility and wider usage, men and women shall undoubtedly turn out to be comparable in the proportions of wisdom and bias to be found among them on the subject of men.

3. There isn’t much mention of the disidentification hypothesis of Greenson and Stoller in the current literature, yet it seems to me to retain clinical usefulness. What is your take?

The problem with Greenson and Stoller’s disidentification hypothesis is not its lack of clinical usefulness. It dates to an enlightened theoretical era, when existing theory was significantly expanded in its relational complexity and integration of separation-individuation phenomena with classical oedipal ones. In other words, the disidentification hypothesis organized clinical phenomena common to many male patients in a way that was more sensitive to their actual upbringings and developmental complexities. The problem we can see in retrospect is that both theorists retained certain essentialist assumptions that linked psychic masculinity too categorically to anatomy and normative sexual roles, as well as the patriarchal power and phallocentric sexual dynamics embedded in these assumptions, agendas, and roles. Diamond and Reichbart, in their respective papers in the recent JAPA issue on men (where my paper also appears) demonstrate many of the limits of that model in today’s world. Newer models allow for even more radical possibilities. A sophisticated and sufficiently nuanced constructionist, metaphorical model can remain deeply rooted in bodily experience, yet be liberated from biological, anatomical, or hidden cultural-historical assumptions and agendas. There should be no theoretical reason to assume that a sufficiently evolved single parent or therapist of any sex or sexual orientation cannot mediate the necessary developmental transformations to help a man attain his highest level of psychological functioning and integration, regardless of gender arrangements or roles.

4. On a personal note, my first supervisor in my training was Hans Loewald. I know Loewald has been an important influence and subject for you as well. Do you see his influence in your thinking on gender and masculinity?

I do not recall any ideas of Loewald’s on the subject of gender and masculinity, so there was no direct influence in that sense. But his ideas were centrally important to me in the contemporary synthesis that is my theoretical context for rethinking bisexuality and gender. Loewald’s ideas about the Oedipus complex, for example, are crucially important in my rethinking of masculinity. In addition, I found inspiration and validation in Loewald for my inclination to use theoretical ideas from many different authors and schools across multiple contemporary and generational divides, including disciplines outside of psychoanalysis. In my 1989 Loewald paper, I say that he, like Freud, seems unable to turn his back on anything that seems to him to be true. Loewald’s quest for understanding (and perseverance in the face of difficulties) helped him to create a theory weaving diverse interests and sensibilities into a theoretical synthesis that contained coherence, wide applicability, and a unique personal voice. My theoretical synthesis, such as it is, aspires to this ideal of integration and unity emerging through diverse interests, personal experience, and the qualities of character that may inform a personal voice. Roy Schafer’s work and character has influenced me similarly. As one who has also been influenced by Loewald, I am sure you understand how much I like the idea that I might bring Loewaldian attitudes and aspirations to the subjects of masculinity and gender.

5: On a closing note, is there anything you might like to add on the wider significance of gender theory for psychoanalysis?

One emerging trend that I see is that gender theory is helping to restore sexuality and genetic reconstruction to their proper central place in psychoanalysis. Many have noted that constructionist and relational theories emphasize aliveness and engagement in the here and now, a two-person intersubjective point of view, and the centrality of the treatment relationship. But also noted is that these important subjects seem sometimes to be at the expense of the central roles of human desire, interpretive separateness, and the patient’s own psychology as a central focus in treatment. Gender theorists appear to be restoring this balance, at least those that prefer a both-and approach to an either-or one. For example, what Adrienne Harris calls gender narratives strike me as components of character structure (gendered “identities” or “selves”) based on unconscious fantasies that can be traced to early interactions with caregivers.

The newer theories embrace the paradox that gender structures are fluid, ambiguous, and emergent, as well as complexly constructed in every individual, but also that there is a necessary masculine-feminine polarity that contains hidden judgments and values that are largely culturally defined. The both-and approach requires a space to contain useful dialectic between the poles. This treatment space and the analyst’s responsibility for it is an old subject brought to new life by the current relational emphasis. Categorical reduction, whether to such things as anatomy, normative gender roles, or one or two person psychology, is to be constantly challenged in clinical work. Good theory respects the facilitative role of the both-and approach, and the potential integration of old and new in a previously unimaginable larger perspective. I sense such potential in the dialogues now taking place among formerly competing ideologies. Gender theorists have been prominent among those to challenge either-or categorical theoretical assumptions and thus to promote effective new dialogue throughout psychoanalysis.

Moderator: Robert S. White

Panelists

Janice S. Lieberman, Ph.D. edited the Special Section on Masculinity inJAPA 2006, 54,4, in which her article "Masculinity in the Twenty-firstCentury: an Introduction" appeared. She was until recently on the EditorialBoards of JAPA and TAP. She is a Training and Supervising Analyst andFaculty Member of IPTAR in New York City, where she is in private practice.She is the author of Body Talk: Looking and Being Looked at inPsychotherapy and co-author of The Many Faces of Deceit: Omissions and Liesin Psychotherapy and has written and spoken about issues of gender, bodyimage and art. At the Winter Meetings of ApsaA she leads a Discussion Groupon Masculinity.

Michael J. Diamond, Ph.D., is a psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist practicing psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy and couples therapy in Los Angeles, CA. He also teaches and supervises other professionals and is an active professional scholar-writer. He is currently Training and Supervising Analyst at the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies, is on the Teaching and Supervising Faculty of the Wright Institute Los Angeles, and is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. Dr. Diamond graduated magna cum laude from the University of California at Los Angeles, received his doctorate in psychology from Stanford University, and completed his psychoanalytic training from the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, a member of the International Psychoanalytic Association, and a Diplomate in Clinical Psychology of the American Board of Professional Psychology. He has published extensively in professional journals and books, including over seventy-five articles and book chapters in the areas of fathering and masculinity, psychoanalytic gender theory, as well as on psychoanalytic technique, the treatment of early trauma and dissociation, psychotherapy, hypnosis, and group process. He co-edited the award winning 1995 book, Becoming A Father: Contemporary Social, Developmental, and Clinical Perspectives, and is currently on the editorial board of Studies in Gender and Sexuality: Psychoanalysis, Cultural Studies, Treatment, Research. He has received numerous awards and prizes for his writing, teaching, and clinical work including most recently, the Distinguished Psychoanalyst of the Year from the Institute For Psychoanalytic Training and Research in New York. His new book, My Father Before Me: How Fathers and Sons Influence Each Other Throughout Their Lives has just been published by WW Norton (2007).

Donald Moss, M.D. is a graduate of the medical school at the University of Michigan. He graduated from the Psychoanalytic Institute at NYU Medical Center in 1991. He is currently in private practice in New York City and is on the faculty of SUNY Downstate, NYU Medical Center, and NYU Psychoanalytic Institute. He is the editor of, Hating in the First Person Plural: Psychoanalytic Essays on Racism, Homophobia, Misogyny and Terrorism, Other Press, New York. (2003). He has written numerous articles on such themes as homophobia, the death penalty, and racism. His article, Masculinity as Masquerade, appears in JAPA, 54/4 (2006). He was co-Editor of American Imago between 1989-99 and is currently on the editorial boards of Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Psychoanalytic Quarterly, and Studies in Gender and Sexuality

Adrienne Harris, Ph.D. is a faculty member and a supervisor at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. She is also a teacher and a supervisor at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, the Massachusetts Institute of Psychoanalysis, and the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Center in Seattle. Harris is an associate editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and Studies in Gender and Sexuality, as well as the film review editor of The International Journal of Psychoanalysis. Harris is coeditor of Rocking the Ship of State: Toward a Feminist Peace Politics (1989 with Ynestra King), The Legacy of Sandor Ferenczi (1993 with Lewis Aron), and Storms in Her Head: Freud and the Construction of Hysteria (2001 with Muriel Dimen). Her latest book is Gender as Soft Assembly (2005). She has published papers on gender development, gender and speech, developmental theory, and nonlinear dynamic systems (chaos theory). Harris is a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City.

Richard Reichbart, Ph.D. has been in private practice in Ridgewood, New Jersey for twenty years, where he sees children in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and adults in psychoanalysis. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and the child track of the clinical psychology program of the City University of New York. As an attorney, he lived and worked on the Navajo reservation, and subsequently represented a number of Native American groups. He is a member of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) and a faculty member of their Child and Adolescent Program. He is a training and supervising analyst at the Institute for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy of New Jersey, and a supervisor of child psychotherapy at the Ferkauf Graduate School, Yeshiva University. He a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association and Secretary of the New Jersey Psychoanalytic Society. He has written numerous articles on male development and child treatment, as well as on the intersection of culture and psychoanalysis.

Ethel Spector Person, M.D. Ethel Person is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, and a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytical Training and Research. Dr. Person along with Dr. Arnold Cooper and Dr. Glen Gabbard edited the APPI Textbook of Psychoanalysis, published in 2005. She is the author of Feeling Strong: The Achievement of Authentic Power; The Sexual Century; and By Force of Fantasy: How We Make Our Lives. She is priviledged that in 2006 American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc. reprinted her book Dreams of Love and Fateful Encounters: The Power of Romantic Passion. She has edited 11 other books and contributed over 100 papers to the psychiatric and psychoanalytic literature.