Publications and Presentations Announcement by Sandra Buechler (USA)
King Lear and the Challenges of Retirement
(2021). International Forum of Psychoanalysis, online, doi.org/10.1080/0803706X.2020.1851047
Shakespeare’s great play King Lear traces the downfall of a man who retired without sufficient insight into the impact of his decision. The author uses the play to frame questions about the course of her own retirement from psychoanalytic practice, on May 31, 2019. How might the decision to retire change the analyst’s sense of her own identity, and her patients’ perceptions of who she really is? What are some of the challenges of living in retirement, without the structure and purpose an analytic practice provides?
Empathy with Strangers: Personal Reflections
(2021). Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 57(3-4): 446-472, DOI: 10.1080/00107530.2021.1996997
This essay explores my reactions to evident suffering in strangers. How are they (partially) a product of many years of personal and professional experiences of witnessing pain? What are some results of defensively avoiding registering these moments? In addition to my own reflections, I call upon statements by some well-known poets, including Sherman Alexie, W. H. Auden, Emily Dickinson, and Rainer Marie Rilke. The interpersonal analytic writings of H. S. Sullivan offer one description of the process of defensive avoidance. More generally, when my “mind’s eye” looks away, it might be imitating my reluctance to stare at sufferers on the visual plane. While this may offer me some protection, how does it limit my capacity for empathy?
Review of “Character: The History of a Cultural Obsession” by Marjorie Garber
(2021). Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 57(3-4): 637-647, DOI: 10.1080/00107530.2021.1933776
Review of “Traumatic Narcissism and Recovery: Leaving the Prison of Shame and Fear” by Daniel Shaw
(2022). Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, online, DOI: 10.1080/24720038.2021.2019259
Review of “Blooming in December: Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Older Adults” by Amy Schaffer
(2021). Contemporary Psychoanalysis, online, DOI: 0.1080/00107530.2021.196486
The Writing Cure
(2022). Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 69(5): 1023-1025, DOI: 10.1177/00030651211036111
An essay about how writing can be helpful to clinicians.
Shame About Desire: A Discussion of Peter Shabad’s Paper, “Shame.”
(2022). Annual Conference, American Psychoanalytic Association, Boston, June 1-5.
This session addresses how shame leads to self-inhibition and loss of confidence in one’s own authority to make decisions based on one’s own set of ethical values. As a result of these self-doubts, individuals cede decision-making for their lives to others, first to parents and then later in life to peers and the social norms of one’s society. From this point of view, the shame of one’s individual uniqueness underlies both neurotic self-doubt and the “normality” of closely adhering to social norms. The session then examines the alternative of individuals forming their own self-creating ethics
Sandra Buechler, Ph.D.
New York, NY
Email Sandra Buechler