The Drive to Relate: How Modern Psychoanalysis can Join with Modern Medicine to Improve the Doctor-Patient Relationship

Emotional Regulation in Women with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Depression: Internal Representations and Adaptive Defenses

“…The present study applies psychoanalytic concepts in an effort to clarify underlying psychological factors that might allow a better understanding of people suffering with CFS and depressive disorders. Although currently out of fashion in mainstream medical and psychiatric settings, psychoanalytic thinking potentially has much to contribute to individualizing and humanizing the treatment of people suffering many kinds of physical symptoms (Nash, Kent, and Muskin 2009; O’Reilly-Landry 2013), including those with CFS (Kempke et al 2011; Van Houdenhove and Luyten 2011). Specifically, this study applies psychoanalytic ideas about emotional regulation and somatization including (a) the capacity to form internal representations and (b) adaptiveness of defenses against painful affects.…”