External links
- Truthdigger of the Week: Paul Verhaeghe. Truthdig , October 6, 2014.
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Paul Verhaeghe (born November 5, 1955, in Roeselare) is a Belgian professor of clinical psychology and psychoanalysis.
In 1978, Verhaeghe graduated with a master's degree in psychology from the University of Ghent (RUG). In 1985, he obtained his PhD in clinical psychology (RUG) and in 1992 a special doctorate in psychodiagnostics (RUG). He received his initial psychoanalytical training at the Belgian School for Psychoanalysis (training analyst J. Schotte) and then at the École de la Cause Freudienne (Paris-Brussels).
After his studies, Verhaeghe worked for some time as a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist at a mental health centre (GGZ) in Sint-Niklaas and then also for some time at the Special Youth Care centre in Eeklo. In late 1981, he started his PhD research at the University of Ghent. He did this under the guidance of prof. Julien Quackelbeen, with whom he co-wrote many articles. In 1992 he was appointed Associate Professor. In 1996, he acquired the rank of Full Professor. He teaches Clinical Psychodiagnostics, Psychoanalytical Therapy and Gender Studies. He was head of the Department of Psychoanalysis and Clinical Consulting from 1999 through October 2014.
In 1998, Verhaeghe became known for the publication of Liefde in tijden van eenzaamheid (Love in a Time of Loneliness), a psychoanalytic reading of the postmodern man-woman relationship. Despite its levels of difficulty, the book was an unexpected success and has since been translated into eight languages. In 2008, a slightly reworked version of the book was published by the Bezige Bij publishing house. [1]
Until 2000, Verhaeghe mainly published articles in which he tried to combine the work of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan into a theory, which is useful according to psychoanalysts. With Over normaliteit en andere afwijkingen (2000), he tried to offer an alternative to the DSM diagnostic system; the U.S. edition of this book On Being Normal and Other Disorders received the Goethe Award. [2] One point of special interest in this work is his redefinition of the neglected Freudian diagnostic category of "actual neurosis". Here, the clinical category of actual pathology, where affect regulation, identity formation and (impaired) interpersonal relationships combine at the level of aetiology, is proposed to offer a more useful basis for the diagnosis and treatment of contemporary mental illness. [3] [4]
Shortly after 2000, he was part of a study group under the auspices of the IPA (International Psychoanalytic Association) on the interface between neuroscience and psychoanalysis. The collaboration with Jaak Panksepp and Mark Solms, among others, convinced him of the futility of any approach trying to understand humans solely on a psychological or a somatic level. [5] [6] On this basis, in Het einde van de psychotherapie (The end of psychotherapy), he adopts a very critical position against the reduction of psychological and psychiatric disorders to neurobiological, hereditary diseases, and in Identiteit (Identity) against a positivistic and individualistic approach to psychology.
In New studies of old villains. A radical reconsideration of the Oedipus Complex (2009), an essay in book form, Verhaeghe elaborated his views on the Freudian and Lacanian Oedipus complex. [7]
In 2010 he was invited by the Louise Bourgeois Studios (New York) to work together on a collection of essays on her work. He was one of the first to have full access to her diaries and, based on these, could present a new approach to her work. [8]
At the start of the new millennium, he turned his attention to the relation between social change and the explosive growth of mental disorders in combination with the ever-increasing dominance of psychodiagnostic labelling (DSM). In a keynote lecture in Dublin (2007) he stated that classical psychotherapy is disappearing because of the combined effect of DSM-diagnostics and the reduction of psychotherapy to evidence based practices. [9] These ideas were further elaborated in his book Het einde van de psychotherapie (The End of Psychotherapy) (2009), which saw ten reprints in a short period of time. [10]
Based on the research into burnout and depression carried out by his department, his attention increasingly focused on the combined effects of changes in society and work organisation. He elaborated these ideas during a lecture at the Oikos Academy in 2010. Both the printed (Verhaeghe, 2011) and digital publication of this lecture (website of the think tank Liberales) was widely received [11] and awarded 'essay of the year' in 2011 by Liberales.
Its further exploration brought him to the conclusion that contemporary identity is based on a compelling neoliberal ideology and that such an identity goes against our evolutionarily ingrained social nature. At the end of January 2012, during a Belgian national strike, Verhaeghe gave a sharp public lecture at the art centre Vooruit, Ghent, explaining how neoliberalism has done away with politics. [12] Later that year, he gave the annual Paul Verbraeken lecture in Antwerp where he argued that neoliberalism is a contemporary form of social Darwinism, using the university and the hospital as case studies. The subsequent publication of the text received a lot of attention in Flanders. [13] This lecture reappeared in two chapters of Identiteit (Identity), published in the autumn of 2012. Both in the Netherlands and Flanders this book found its way to a wide audience, both left and right wing, [14] and was subsequently translated into German [15] and English. [16]
In the first section of Identity Verhaeghe argues that our psychological identity is a construction on top of a well-founded evolutionary substructure. Evolutionarily, man is a social animal in which two opposing behavioural tendencies are at work: on the one hand he gravitates towards community and sharing, on the other, towards individualism and taking. Which of these two tendencies prevail in the construction of identity is largely determined by the societal model. In the second section, he describes contemporary society as neoliberal, with neo-liberalism as a new version of social Darwinism. The concomitant development of identity is thus, according to Verhaeghe, very negative, as it goes against the social nature of man. The structure and organisation of education, scientific research and healthcare are used as case studies to illustrate this. In the final chapter he argues that change will have to emerge from the bottom-up, given that the neoliberal ideology is now a part of our identity. Recently, he has turned to a new subject: patriarchal authority and its disappearance.
In December 2011, he and his department were criticised in De Standaard by several Ghent philosophers of science, including Maarten Boudry and Griet Vandermassen, who claimed that psychoanalysis, which Verhaeghe advocates, was pseudoscientific. [17] [18] [19] Verhaeghe's colleague Stijn Vanheule defended psychoanalysis on radio programme Peeters & Pichal against Boudry's and Vandermassen's criticism. [20]
The publication of Identiteit attracted criticism as well: Verhaeghe's critique of neoliberalism, "scientism", "Big Pharma" and DSM-V was considered "grossly exaggerated", he was found to use "neoliberalism" as a scapegoat for all modern problems, making that term a 'catch-all full of contradictions', and paradoxically, in his "litany against prophets of doom", he was one himself. [21] [22] [23] The discussion was nuanced by another group of science philosophers of the same department who criticized their colleagues for their narrow view and placed the discussion in a broader debate about what science is. [24] [25]
Although Paul Verhaeghe twice doctorated in psychology and is a professor psychology, he is currently not a licensed psychologist. That profession has been protected in Belgium since the law of November 8, 1993. The procedure in order to bear the title of psychologist is simple in his case. The reason he does not want to wear this title has never been made public. It does mean however that he is not bound by the ethical code of Belgian psychologists. [26]
Paul Verhaeghe has published over two hundred articles and numerous books. The complete list of publications can be found on the University of Ghent website [27] and on the author's website. [28]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Psychoanalytic Psychology, 22(4), 493-507.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 76(4):1317-1350.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link). Tijdschrift voor psychotherapie, 29(6), 496-500.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Ook downloadbaar van: http://www.liberales.be/essays/verhaegheneo | International | |
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Psychoanalysis is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques that deal in part with the unconscious mind, and which together form a method of treatment for mental disorders. The discipline was established in the early 1890s by Sigmund Freud, whose work stemmed partly from the clinical work of Josef Breuer and others. Freud developed and refined the theory and practice of psychoanalysis until his death in 1939. In an encyclopedia article, he identified the cornerstones of psychoanalysis as "the assumption that there are unconscious mental processes, the recognition of the theory of repression and resistance, the appreciation of the importance of sexuality and of the Oedipus complex." Freud's colleagues Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav Jung developed offshoots of psychoanalysis which they called individual psychology (Adler) and analytical psychology (Jung), although Freud himself wrote a number of criticisms of them and emphatically denied that they were forms of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis was later developed in different directions by neo-Freudian thinkers, such as Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, and Harry Stack Sullivan.
Daniel Kriegman is an American psychologist and writer whose work focuses on the interface between psychoanalysis and evolutionary biology. He was a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, a founder of the Psychoanalytic Couple and Family Institute of New England, and a creative consultant for the Edgeline Films (Showtime) docu-series "Couples Therapy." Dr. Kriegman was formerly Chief Psychologist and the Director of Supervision and Training at the Massachusetts Treatment Center for Sexually Dangerous Offenders, as well as the Clinical Director for the maximum-security, intensive-treatment unit for adolescents in Boston.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalytic psychotherapy are two categories of psychological therapies. Their main purpose is revealing the unconscious content of a client's psyche in an effort to alleviate psychic tension, which is inner conflict within the mind that was created in a situation of extreme stress or emotional hardship, often in the state of distress. The terms "psychoanalytic psychotherapy" and "psychodynamic psychotherapy" are often used interchangeably, but a distinction can be made in practice: though psychodynamic psychotherapy largely relies on psychoanalytical theory, it employs substantially shorter treatment periods than traditional psychoanalytical therapies. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is evidence-based; the effectiveness of psychoanalysis and its relationship to facts is disputed.
Relational psychoanalysis is a school of psychoanalysis in the United States that emphasizes the role of real and imagined relationships with others in mental disorder and psychotherapy. 'Relational psychoanalysis is a relatively new and evolving school of psychoanalytic thought considered by its founders to represent a "paradigm shift" in psychoanalysis'.
Michael Balint was a Hungarian psychoanalyst who spent most of his adult life in England. He was a proponent of the Object Relations school.
Sheldon Bach was an American psychologist and psychoanalyst based in New York City.
Gottfried Fischer was a German psychologist, psychotherapist and psychoanalyst. He is considered to be the founder of psychotraumatology in Germany and has been director of the Institute for Clinical Psychology and Psychological Diagnostics at the University of Cologne from 1995 to 2009.
Louis Breger was an American psychologist, psychotherapist and scholar. He was Emeritus Professor of Psychoanalytic Studies at the California Institute of Technology
Kenneth A. Frank is an American clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, and co-founder of the National Institute for the Psychotherapies in New York City, where he is Director of Training. A faculty member of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons from 1974 to 2009, he was Clinical Professor in Psychiatry from 1996 to 2009. He received his MA (1964) and PhD (1967) in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University.
Bertram Joseph Cohler was an American psychologist, psychoanalyst, and educator primarily associated with the University of Chicago, the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, and Harvard University. He advocated a life course approach to understanding human experience and subjectivity, drawing on insights from psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, personology, psychological anthropology, narrative studies, and the interdisciplinary field of human development. Cohler authored or co-authored over 200 articles and books. He contributed to numerous scholarly fields, including the study of adversity, resilience and coping; mental illness and treatment; family and social relations in normal development and mental illness; and the study of personal narrative in social and historical context. He made particular contributions to the study of sexual identity over the life course, to the psychoanalytic understanding of homosexuality., and to the study of personal narratives of Holocaust survivors. Other than his graduate study at Harvard, Cohler spent his career at the University of Chicago and affiliated institutions, where he was repeatedly recognized as an educator and a builder of bridges across disciplines. He was treated for esophageal cancer in 2011, but became ill from a related pneumonia and died on 9 May 2012 not far from his home in Hyde Park, Chicago.
Jon Mills is a Canadian philosopher, psychoanalyst, and clinical psychologist. His principle theoretical contributions have been in the philosophy of the unconscious, a critique of psychoanalysis, philosophical psychology, value inquiry, and the philosophy of culture. His clinical contributions are in the areas of attachment pathology, trauma, psychosis, and psychic structure.
The Goethe Award for Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Scholarship is given annually by the Section on Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Psychology of the Canadian Psychological Association. The award is given for the best psychoanalytic book published within the past two years and is juried by a peer review process and awards committee.
Jeremy David Safran was a Canadian-born American clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, lecturer, and psychotherapy researcher. He was a professor of psychology at the New School for Social Research, where he served for many years as director of clinical training. He was also a faculty member at New York University's postdoctoral program in psychoanalysis and The Stephen A. Mitchell Center for Relational Studies. He was co-founder and co-chair of The Sandor Ferenczi Center at the New School for Social Research. In addition he was past-president of The International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.
Het Denkgelag is a Belgian association without lucrative purpose that organises skeptical conferences in Flanders. Het Denkgelag started out in 2012 as a series of discussion evenings of the skeptical organisation SKEPP, but nowadays functions financially and legally independent from SKEPP. The mission of Het Denkgelag is to popularise scientific topics and to promote critical thinking for a broad audience. It has been described as “laid-back discussion evenings on philosophical, skeptical and scientific topics, in an informal atmosphere, with a crowd of interesting speakers and the audience as the central guest”.
Nancy McWilliams, Ph.D., ABPP., is emerita visiting professor at the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University. She has written on personality and psychotherapy.
Bert is a Belgian comic strip, written and drawn by Kamagurka, which appeared exclusively in the Flemish magazine HUMO since 1977. The cartoons have also been published in the Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland, the French magazine Charlie Hebdo and the US magazine RAW. The series' protagonist, Bert, is Kamagurka's most recognizable character.
H. Shmuel Erlich is an Israeli psychoanalyst, organizational consultant and psychologist of clinical psychology. Since 1990 he has been professor of the Sigmund Freud Chair at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2005 he became emeritus. Erlich is one of the spiritual fathers of the Nazareth-Conferences.
Gabrielle "Gaby" Clerk was a Canadian psychologist and professor of psychology at the Université de Montréal. She was one of the first psychoanalysts in Canada.
