Addictive Pornography: Psychoanalytic Considerations with Claudia Spadazzi, MD and Jose Zusman, MD

Psychoanalysis On and Off the Couch

"We are all dependent and potentially addicted as well. We regularly use addictive objects whenever we are confronted with a circumstance that brings a lot of pain, emotional pain, more pain than we can bare."

Episode Description: We begin by reviewing how remarkably pervasive pornography is on the internet. Claudia discusses the impact that viewing arousing scenes on a screen can have on one's psychosexual development. She describes its effects on our neurochemistry as well as on one's capacity to develop creative sublimations. The fundamental issue as seen by both guests involves detours from intimacy which Jose describes as involving dehumanization. This intolerance for what he calls “mature dependency” is seen as underlying the turn to "impoverished, desolate and concrete internal scenarios." We close with a conversation on the challenges of treating patients who experience themselves as dehumanized and unknowingly treat their analysts similarly. Despite these difficulties, the analyst's acceptance of such moments contains the seeds for hope and renewal.

Our Guests: Claudia Spadazzi, MD, Full Member Italian Psychoanalytic Society (SPI) and International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). Clinical psychologist, gynecologist, sexual therapist. Visiting Professor in Psychosomatic Gynecology at Università Politecnica delle Marche. She has been part of the IPA Committees: IPA/IPSO, COWAP, Public Information, CAPSA, and currently is a member of IPA Health Committee. Co-founder of Italian Psychoanalytic Dialogues. Founder of the Freud’s bar, an outreach initiative. Founder of the Section of Cinema and Psychoanalysis, Festival of the Two Worlds, Spoleto.

Jose Zusman, MD President and Training Analyst at Rio de Janeiro’s Psychoanalytic Society, Post Doc at The Institute of Psychiatry of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro/ Harvard under the mentorship of Edward Khantzian, Member of IPA Health Committee and Chair of IPA Subcommittee on Addiction

Linked Interviews:

The Mind, Body and Soul Podcast: Ep.9: A Gynecologist/ Psychoanalyst Treats Amenorrhea with Claudia Spadazzi, MD

https://harveyschwartzmd.com/2021/06/04/ep-9-a-gynecologist-psychoanalyst-treats-amenorrhea/

Psychoanalysis On and Off the Couch Podcast: Ep.8 A Psychoanalyst Encounters Patients with Addictions

http://ipaoffthecouch.org/2019/06/29/episode-8-a-psychoanalyst-encounters-patients-with-addictions/

Recommended Readings:

Applying Psychoanalysis in Medical Care, edited by Harvey Schwartz

Neuroscience of Internet Pornography Addiction: A Review and Update. Behav Sci 5(3): 388–433.

Kahn, M. .M. .R. (1979). Alienation in Perversion, London: Karnac

Doidge N. (2008).The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science, London: Penguin

Solms M., Zellner M., Watts D., Panksepp J. (2011) Affective Neuroscientific and Neuropsychoanalytic Approaches to Two Intractable Psychiatric Problems: Why Depression Feels so Bad and What Addicts Really Want Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 2011

Balint, M. (1968/1979). The Basic Fault: Therapeutic Aspects of Regression. Tavistock Publication. London.

Dodes, L (2003). The Heart of Addiction: A New Approach to Understanding and Managing Alcoholism and Other Addictive Behaviors, HarperCollins Publishers. New York.

Fairbairn, W: Then and Now (2014). Routledge Publishers. New York.

Khantzian, E.J. -Treating Addiction as a Human Process (1997). Jason Aronson.

New York

McDougall, J (1995). The Many Faces of Eros. W.W. Norton Company, Inc., New York.