Article Announcements by Elizabeth F. Howell & Sheldon Itzkowitz (USA)
Elizabeth F. Howell, Ph.D. & Sheldon Itzkowitz, Ph.D. ABPP were Guest Editors for Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 54(1), 2018, a special issue focused upon “Psychopathy and Human Evil.”
Outsiders to Love: The Psychopathic Character and Dilemma
Elizabeth Howell, Ph.D.
Contemporary Psychoanalysis (2018), 54(1):17-39.
This article describes key characteristics of psychopaths. Their dangerousness stems not only from the unexpected deceit in a world that generally runs on trust, but also from the psychopath’s ability to tap into and intermesh with peoples’ dissociated need, greed, fears, and sadism. Psychopathic character is understood in terms of a dissociative structure of interlocking self-states in which a ruthless instrumentality is dominant and in which there is a severe dissociation of attachment need. The character problem and dilemma originates in the experience of being an outsider to love, outside the fabric of the social order and emotional world shared by others. The envy of the emotional bonding that others have drives them to seek to destroy it in others. It is argued that although it is human to have some characteristics of evil, sadism, and psychopathy, psychopaths themselves fit into a taxon, a category. The dangerous possibility of psychopathy as an incipient social ego ideal is discussed.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00107530.2017.1420318
Psychopathy and Human Evil: An Overview
Sheldon Itzkowitz, Ph.D., ABPP
Contemporary Psychoanalysis (2018), 54(1):40-63.
The term “psychopath” usually conjures images of serial killers or acts of genocide. Less frequently considered are those who are intelligent enough to avoid detection by the criminal justice system while hiding in the boardrooms of corporations or lurking in the halls of government institutions. This article provides an overview of psychopathy and human evil by exploring the personality characteristics, organization, and cognitive style of the psychopath, the role of superego pathology, contributions from the field of attachment, and ways in which dissociation plays a role in psychopathy and the potential for confusing this with the dissociative structuring of the mind. The article closes with a brief discussion about “corporate” or “successful psychopaths” and how they have a negative impact on culture and society.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00107530.2017.1418557
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Presentation Announcements
by Elizabeth F. Howell & Sheldon Itzkowitz (USA)
Sheldon Itzkowitz, Ph.D. ABPP presented “Interpersonal-Relational Approach to Working with Critical and Aggressive Dissociated Self-States” at the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation’s Regional Conference on Relational Healing of Complex Trauma and Dissociation: Psychoanalytic and Integrationist Perspectives, NYC, October 5, 2018.
An extremely dissociated patient who suffered early childhood trauma and, later on, war-related trauma will be presented. The etiology of critical and aggressive protector/perpetrator self-states, how they arose and how they appeared in sessions and in the patient’s dreams will be addressed. Concepts regarding the development of this kind of dissociative structure will also be explored. Verbatim session transcripts will show how Dr. Itzkowitz works with critical and aggressive protector/perpetrator self-states from an interpersonal-relational psychoanalytic perspective.
Elizabeth F. Howell, Ph.D. presented “The Self-Critical Conundrum: Reframing Harsh, Pathological Superego in terms of Dissociation and Attachment” at the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation’s Regional Conference on Relational Healing of Complex Trauma and Dissociation: Psychoanalytic and Integrationist Perspectives, NYC, October 5, 2018.
Although psychoanalytic theory has not provided a clear conceptual basis for this approach, clinicians often work intuitively with internal criticism or “superego” as if it were a dissociated persecutory self-state. I suggest that it may be just this – that the harsh superego may be best understood as an elaboration of a posttraumatic dissociative structure, arising in the context of disrupted attachment, rather than as an outcome of the Oedipal crisis. Freud’s 1917 essay, Mourning and Melancholia, describes harsh self-criticism in terms of two dissociated parts of the personality, arising from traumatic attachment loss, and functioning as an intra-personal struggle and implicit dialogue between these dissociated parts. This proposed reframing suggests another structural model.
Sheldon Itzkowitz, Ph.D. ABPP
Psychologist Psychoanalyst
295 Central Park West
New York, N.Y. 10024
www.sheldonitzkowitzphd.com
Email Sheldon Itzkowitz
Elizabeth F. Howell, Ph.D.
280 Park Avenue South, 12H
New York, NY 10010
www.elizabethhowellphd.com/
Email Elizabeth Howell