Hyman Spotnitz
Encyclopedia
Hyman Spotnitz was an American
psychoanalyst and psychiatrist
who pioneered an approach to working psychoanalytically with schizophrenics in the 1950s called modern psychoanalysis
. He also was one of the pioneers of group therapy
.
in 1939. His initial work on schizophrenia
was conducted while a consulting psychiatrist for the Jewish Board of Guardians in New York City.
At the time, most psychoanalysts did not think that schizophrenia was treatable through therapy and group approaches were not popular. His approach was considered controversial, and he left the New York Psychoanalytic Institute to continue to develop his work.
On April 18, 2008 he died of natural causes.
in which the patient relates to the therapist as if he were part of his own mind, rather than a separate person. He theorizes that most neuroses and severe mental illnesses originate in the preoedipal period, before the development of language. The transference
that develops with these patients then is largely enacted nonverbally through behavior, symptoms, symbolic communications and, importantly, the transmission of feeling states, otherwise known as induced feelings. Spotnitz feels that the "narcissistic defense" is central to most mental disturbances and is characterized by self-hate rather than self-love. Aggression is directed towards the self in order to protect the object. Treatment then emphasizes helping patients to better metabolize their aggressive drives, by gradually being able to express their aggression in treatment. Spotnitz emphasized initially joining with the patient's resistance, rather than challenging, and using the countertransference
feelings of the therapist to help understand the patient. His central focus on the objective, and hence clinically useful nature of the therapist's countertransference was later taken up by self psychology
and intersubjective approaches to psychoanalysis
. Also foreshadowing later developments in other schools (as did schools in the U.K. that preceded him,) Spotnitz's approach to the analyst's interventions are primarily intended to provide an emotional-maturational communication to the patient, rather than to promote intellectual insight. With this technique he was able to cure many patients previously deemed incurable by the psychoanalytic world.
Group Therapy
Spotnitz began developing modern psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic group therapy during the time he served as consulting psychiatrist at the Jewish Board of Guardians in the mid-1940s and 50’s. His closest students and collaborators at the time were Yonata Feldman and Leo Nagelberg. The work centered developing a new psychotherapeutic method for the treatment of narcissistic disorders, starting with schizophrenia and borderline conditions. The caseworkers who were employed by the JBG found that Spotnitz’s supervision helped them to achieve excellent results in treating severely emotionally disturbed children and their families. They were the first to embrace the school that came to be known as Modern Psychoanalysis: Evelyn Abrams, Leslie Rosenthal, Sidney and Shirley Love, and others. These early followers became the first teachers and supervisors. Not long thereafter they were followed by Avivah Sayres, Selwyn Brody, Phyllis W. Meadow, Evelyn Liegner, Leonard Liegner, Fanny Milstein, Lou Ormont, Benjamin Margolis, Ethel Clevans, Marie Coleman Nelson, Arnold Bernstein, Murray Sherman, Stanley Hayden, Gerald M. Fishbein, Harold Stern, Jacob Kesten, Jacob Kirman, William Kirman, Robert Marshall, Harold Davis and many others too numerous to mention.
Spotnitz was also one of the first psychoanalysts to advocate the use of groups. His approach to group treatment, also originally developed with schizophrenic clients, emphasized the therapist's use of his or her feelings induced by the group, and joining and reflecting rather than directly challenging group resistances. Spotnitz's work in psychoanalytic group therapy and in modern psychoanalysis in general has been continued and furthered by Stanley Hayden, Charles and Deborah Bershatsky, Leo Nagelberg, Lou Ormont, Leslie Rosenthal, Phyllis Meadow, Michael Brook and Bob Unger, among many others. Spotnitz focused on analysis of group resistances rather than individual resistances. He is the honorary president of more than 10 psychoanalytic institutes throughout the United States, including the Academy of Clinical and Applied Psychoanalysis, Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, California Graduate Institute, Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies, New Jersey Center for Modern Psychoanalysis, and The Mid-Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
psychoanalyst and psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
who pioneered an approach to working psychoanalytically with schizophrenics in the 1950s called modern psychoanalysis
Modern psychoanalysis
"Modern psychoanalysis" is the term used by Hyman Spotnitz to describe the techniques he developed for the treatment of narcissistic disorders. It has become a highly controvrsial subset in the field of psychoanalysis. Mainstream psychoanalysts, and those in thr broader fields of human psychology...
. He also was one of the pioneers of group therapy
Group therapy
Group psychotherapy or group therapy is a form of psychotherapy in which one or more therapists treat a small group of clients together as a group...
.
Background and education
Born in Boston to immigrant parents, Spotnitz attended Harvard College and received a degree in medicine from Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin in 1934. He continued his medical studies at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, earning a Medical Science degree in neurologyNeurology
Neurology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Specifically, it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and all effector tissue,...
in 1939. His initial work on schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
was conducted while a consulting psychiatrist for the Jewish Board of Guardians in New York City.
At the time, most psychoanalysts did not think that schizophrenia was treatable through therapy and group approaches were not popular. His approach was considered controversial, and he left the New York Psychoanalytic Institute to continue to develop his work.
On April 18, 2008 he died of natural causes.
Theory of technique
Spotnitz's treatment approach emphasizes the development of the narcissistic transferenceTransference
Transference is a phenomenon in psychoanalysis characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. One definition of transference is "the inappropriate repetition in the present of a relationship that was important in a person's childhood." Another definition is "the...
in which the patient relates to the therapist as if he were part of his own mind, rather than a separate person. He theorizes that most neuroses and severe mental illnesses originate in the preoedipal period, before the development of language. The transference
Transference
Transference is a phenomenon in psychoanalysis characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. One definition of transference is "the inappropriate repetition in the present of a relationship that was important in a person's childhood." Another definition is "the...
that develops with these patients then is largely enacted nonverbally through behavior, symptoms, symbolic communications and, importantly, the transmission of feeling states, otherwise known as induced feelings. Spotnitz feels that the "narcissistic defense" is central to most mental disturbances and is characterized by self-hate rather than self-love. Aggression is directed towards the self in order to protect the object. Treatment then emphasizes helping patients to better metabolize their aggressive drives, by gradually being able to express their aggression in treatment. Spotnitz emphasized initially joining with the patient's resistance, rather than challenging, and using the countertransference
Countertransference
Countertransferenceis defined as redirection of a psychotherapist's feelings toward a client—or, more generally, as a therapist's emotional entanglement with a client.-Early formulations:...
feelings of the therapist to help understand the patient. His central focus on the objective, and hence clinically useful nature of the therapist's countertransference was later taken up by self psychology
Self psychology
Self Psychology is a school of psychoanalytic theory and therapy created by Heinz Kohut and developed in the United States at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. Self psychology explains psychopathology as being the result of disrupted or unmet developmental needs...
and intersubjective approaches to psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
. Also foreshadowing later developments in other schools (as did schools in the U.K. that preceded him,) Spotnitz's approach to the analyst's interventions are primarily intended to provide an emotional-maturational communication to the patient, rather than to promote intellectual insight. With this technique he was able to cure many patients previously deemed incurable by the psychoanalytic world.
Group Therapy
Spotnitz began developing modern psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic group therapy during the time he served as consulting psychiatrist at the Jewish Board of Guardians in the mid-1940s and 50’s. His closest students and collaborators at the time were Yonata Feldman and Leo Nagelberg. The work centered developing a new psychotherapeutic method for the treatment of narcissistic disorders, starting with schizophrenia and borderline conditions. The caseworkers who were employed by the JBG found that Spotnitz’s supervision helped them to achieve excellent results in treating severely emotionally disturbed children and their families. They were the first to embrace the school that came to be known as Modern Psychoanalysis: Evelyn Abrams, Leslie Rosenthal, Sidney and Shirley Love, and others. These early followers became the first teachers and supervisors. Not long thereafter they were followed by Avivah Sayres, Selwyn Brody, Phyllis W. Meadow, Evelyn Liegner, Leonard Liegner, Fanny Milstein, Lou Ormont, Benjamin Margolis, Ethel Clevans, Marie Coleman Nelson, Arnold Bernstein, Murray Sherman, Stanley Hayden, Gerald M. Fishbein, Harold Stern, Jacob Kesten, Jacob Kirman, William Kirman, Robert Marshall, Harold Davis and many others too numerous to mention.
Spotnitz was also one of the first psychoanalysts to advocate the use of groups. His approach to group treatment, also originally developed with schizophrenic clients, emphasized the therapist's use of his or her feelings induced by the group, and joining and reflecting rather than directly challenging group resistances. Spotnitz's work in psychoanalytic group therapy and in modern psychoanalysis in general has been continued and furthered by Stanley Hayden, Charles and Deborah Bershatsky, Leo Nagelberg, Lou Ormont, Leslie Rosenthal, Phyllis Meadow, Michael Brook and Bob Unger, among many others. Spotnitz focused on analysis of group resistances rather than individual resistances. He is the honorary president of more than 10 psychoanalytic institutes throughout the United States, including the Academy of Clinical and Applied Psychoanalysis, Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, California Graduate Institute, Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies, New Jersey Center for Modern Psychoanalysis, and The Mid-Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis.
Works
- The Couch and The Circle: A Story of Group Psychotherapy, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1961, ISBN 978-0-9703923-6-7
- Modern Psychoanalysis of the Schizophrenic Patient: Theory of The Technique, Grune & Stratton 1969,YBK Publishers 2004, ISBN 0-9703923-6-2
- Treatment of the Narcissistic Neuroses, with Phyllis W. Meadow, Jason AronsonJason AronsonJason Aronson is an American publisher of books in the field of psychotherapy. Topics dealt with in these books include child therapy, family therapy, couple therapy, object relations therapy, play therapy, depression, eating disorders, personality disorders, substance abuse, sexual abuse, stress,...
, 1976, 1995, ISBN 978-1-56821-416-0 - Psychotherapy of Preoedipal Conditions: Schizophrenia and Severe Character Disorders, Jason Aronson, 1976, 1995, ISBN 978-1-56821-633-1
- Just Say Everything: A Festschirft in Honor of Hyman Spotnitz, by Sara Sheftel, Assn for Modern Psychoanalysis, 1991, ISBN 978-0-9624534-0-3
External links
- Schizophrenia, Alcoholism and Addiction Let's Talk Interviews Dr. Hyman Spotnitz, with photos
- Lou Ormont's site describing Ormont's method, based on Spotnitz's theories.