Psychoanalytical Praxis

DI Titusz Tarnai, MSc BA pth

Psychoanalytic oriented psychotherapy.
Selfawareness.
Psychoanalysis.
Coaching.

tel: +4369917079303
mail: ttx@gmx.net

Ferdinandstr. 28/8 - 1020 Wien
Barnabiteng. 4/18 - 1060 Wien

What can we do about it?
Was können wir tun?
Mit tudunk tenni?

The text above is titled "The New Colossus”, a sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus. She wrote the poem in 1883 to raise money for the construction of a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World). In 1903, the poem was cast onto a bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal's lower level. But why is this poem reproduced here?

Many, before me, have tried to put that in words: that you are welcome, have no fear to come, that you will be in good hands and your needs will be taken care of. Allow me to try. At times one arrives at a moment where she or he finds that something is lost, finds her or himself unable to continue. Then a search to find cure, remedy or relief begins, somewhere between hope and desperation.

To admit dependency is often not easy and the outlook to another frustration might feel devastating. With the words above, which have been written in a time, where a new land promised a new beginning, the promise of liberty in the form of leaving old constraints and oppressions behind, hope has been amplified to a continental scale.

The truth that remains from then is that to achieve a sense of autonomy lies in gaining a distance to those old influences which one experiences as tying one down. For this it might be essential to find if not a continent but at least a space, an island, where the process of freeing oneself might take place.

Psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy (with a wide set of treatment techniques ranging from short term focal therapy, modified analytic psychotherapy to the classical analytical setting) has been developed to this end. (And is still today the most modern tools for communication and understanding.)

One person who is need of something because she or he experiences an impasse allows her or himself to enter into a relationship with another person who has the ability to serve as a catalyst. This is not an easy task, for neither of the two. The one has to overcome her or his reservations and resistances, the sense of senselessness to enter, while the other has to use all her and his skills and experience in understanding the needs of the other.

Yet, every now and then the relationship results in the overcoming of the felt impasse and achieving distance and a degree of freedom. In the poem, the beacon of hope is a colossal motherly figure, a statue of bronze, that with her stability, visibility signals reliability: you can trust me, you will be taken care of, I will be there to guide you.

What more could I add than the faith that in the moment you enter, even if not a golden door, and that step might be a rather big one to take for one woman or one man, in that sense that step of yours will be welcomed and treated accordingly.

About me
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Born in 1975 in Budapest, schooled in Vienna, studied and trained as an architect in Vienna, Rotterdam, and New York. Engaged in academic teaching at SUNY Buffalo New York and at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Received the State Prize for Architecture in the category of Experimental Trends in Architecture. Studied at the Sigmund Freud University Vienna, and underwent psychoanalytic training at the Psychoanalytic Seminar Innsbruck.

What I have learned in my work, in my travels, is that the human soul is more than the sum of its biological parts. Each individual biography represents a universe of its own and must be approached and delicately explored with curiosity, openness, and impartiality. While there are societal conventions, categories, norms, and perhaps models we have developed and need for communication, the psychological phenomena, between happiness and suffering, which unfold to a therapist in their work, can never be sufficiently captured and described by these. They require, in addition to professional precision, knowledge of the tools, their application, and their limitations, above all, intuition and openness.

The development of expressive forms of expression, understanding formal, structural, and social relationships, creative approaches to coping with challenges, crises, and developmental bottlenecks, the interaction of conscious and unconscious motivations, as well as intuitive, associative, and categorical thinking and experiential processes are influences that have shaped me in my work as an architect and also flow into my work as a psychotherapist.

To practice psychotherapy, to practice soul healing, means to me to take responsibility for the development of the other. It is work that involves a division of roles, but can only be carried out together. However, this means developing a passion, sharing it, helping to carry it over sometimes difficult terrain, not to fall out of the role, and yet to remain true to both professional and personal standards, to face the truth and not become a side effect in the end.

I enjoy drawing, I enjoy writing, I still build whenever the opportunity arises, I research, explore, try to encounter the diversity and beauty of life day by day, try not to deny the difficulties, but also find an appropriate place for them.

There are three languages in which I am proficient enough to offer therapy. First, there is German, the beautiful and eerie German language with its wonderful chains of associations, then English, the medium of choice for communication between the nearer continental and intercontinental hemispheres, with its pointed and lively expressions and playful variations, and then there is Hungarian, the mysterious and flowery language of my ancestors.

LANDING PAGES
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The praxis

First interview

Treatment guidelines

Psychoanalysis

Selfawareness

Coaching

Supervision

Online psychotherapy

Therapy in groups

Nervous system dysregulation

Hypersensitivity / highly sensitive person

Neurodiversity

Climate anxiety / ecotherapy

Procrastination

Resilience

Trauma

TEXTE & ESSAYS
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EINEN STEIN FREILEGEN
Ein Beitrag über die Wechselwirkung zwischen Tun und Erfahren.
Etwas entfernen, wie einen Stein, lösen, aus der Erde holen, eine befreiende Wirkung haben, Blockaden beseitigen, es sind Redewendungen, die auch im alltäglichen Diskurs der Psychotherapie vorkommen. Es sind Bilder aus der Welt, Vorbilder, die ersatzweise für den Ausdruck von Veränderungswünschen im seelischen Erleben rekrutiert werden und die, mangels echter Sinnesorgane, durch Einsicht zum Ausdruck gebracht werden. Aber was tun, wenn der Stein einmal aus der Verankerung gelöst ist?  

ON THE NATURE OF A DEATH-WISH
In this current situation of war, we might have to be careful what to wish for.
It might be that the mental pain of Mr. Putin’s aggression not only extends to us all but also feeds back to a dangerous escalation of the conflict. In recent private conversations one particular sentence keeps on popping up. I want to kill HIM. The statement at first blends in into the daily discourse, appears as an understandable emotional reaction to the current events. Do they really want? Should this be taken seriously? 

ON THE MECHANISM OF TRUTH-PAIN
A Brief Essay on a Certain Human Condition.
I can not think of any piece of truth that would not to a certain degree be disillusioning. In that sense, realising a particular truth implies to acknowledge, to gain insight. It also might be complicit with accepting a certain limit or boundary. Castration. It implies a loss, as illusion could have been boundless, maybe even infinite, being a state or medium where a fantastic freedom of travel was to be experienced. From that, a sensation of pain arises.

AUF ABSTAND
Ein kulturgeschichtlicher Streifzug — die Geschichte der Abstände. Des Abstandes.
Der Babyelefant. Sicherheitsabstand, Mindestabstand. Gegenwärtig gewinnt der Begriff des Abstandes eine zunehmende Präsenz im gesellschaftlichen Diskurs. Abstände bedingen eine Lust an der Vermessung haben aber auch eine normierende, gebietende Qualität. Abstände gehören eingehalten, können einer Kontrolle unterzogen werden, werden so einerseits zu räumlichen Normen und andererseits aber auch zu Quellen von affektiven Zuständen. Mehr als eine Brücke zwischen Psychologie und Architektur, läßt sich die Frage schön ausweiten. Welche Würzung oder Farbe erhält dieser Begriff in den unterschiedlichen Kammern menschlichen Tuns? Wie könnten wir gemeinsam lustvoll uns diesem derzeit grassierenden Wort nähern und so auch etwas über uns, gegenseitig, erfahren?

GRANDFATHER'S COMPASS
Between Avantgarde and Anachronism: 21st Century Psychoanalysis and the Vicissitudes of Time.
What I here want to explore, is how does it feel to refer back to Freud in this particular age, but also to be referred back to by those, who I introduce myself to. After all, time has it that Freud like Mozart, Einstein and others has become, maybe due to a chronic lack of attention span, an icon, a brand. Psychoanalysis yet has an insistence of working with time, mainly with time past and as such it also has to include being careful and attentive towards its own historic roots. In this sense, what I would like to do in the following, is to explore the practice of psychoanalysis from the viewpoint of craftsmanship. What this shift in perspective allows for is to understand models, theories, past and present, as tools or instruments, rather than treating them as vehicles of factual and absolute truth.

GUT DING UND WEILE
Über seelische Prozesse, Veränderung und Zeit.
Veränderungen, die unser psychischer Apparat im Laufe des Lebens durchmacht, bezeichnen wir als Wachstum, Reifung oder Anpassung. Es sind in ihrem Wesen stetige, bedächtige Veränderungen, mit einer, der vielleicht einzigen, Ausnahme, die sehr schnell von statten geht: das Trauma. Warum aber dauert alles so lange? Die Frage stellen wir oft und gerne und eben auch dann, wenn es darum geht, psychisches Leid zu überwinden. Wir probieren gerne alles, was schnelle Heilung verspricht, gehen oft von Pontius zu Pilatus, nur um irgendwann frustriert und enttäuscht am Rande der Erschöpfung anzukommen. Psychotherapie verspricht keine schnelle Heilung, aber wieso? Warum geht das nicht schneller?

INTERSUBJEKTIVITÄT IN DER PSYCHOANALYSE
Re: Orange, Atwood et al. 2015, Intersubjektivität in der Psychoanalyse.
Beim Lesen des Textes bekommt man den furchterregenden Eindruck, Analytiker mussten in einer dunklen Urzeit wohl leise und gleichmäßig röchelnde Monster gewesen sein, deren kaltes metallisches Blut von Zahnrädern uhrwerksgleich weiterbewegt wurde...

HEIMATLOSE KINDER
Re: Freud, A., Burlingham, D., 1961, Gemeinschaftsleben im frühen Kindesalter.
Der Text berichtet von sechs verwaisten jüdischen Kindern, die ihre ersten drei Lebensjahre im KZ Theresienstadt im Heim für mutterlose Kinder verbracht hatten und nach Kriegsende über eine Zwischenstation in Windemere nach England gebracht wurden und dort ca. 1 1/2 Jahre in einem separaten für sie eingerichteten Heim, Bulldogs Bank, betreut wurden. Die Kinder, 3 Mädchen und 3 Buben, teils aus Wien, teils aus Berlin, wurden von ihrer Familie samt Mutter in den ersten Lebensmonaten bzw. gleich nach der Geburt getrennt, die Eltern in Vernichtungslagern umgebracht. Eines der Kinder wurde einige Tage alt in einem öffentlichen Park in Berlin aufgefunden und zunächst in einem Kloster versorgt, bevor es dann in Theresienstadt landete.

TRACING COMMUNICATION PATTERNS IN BORDERLINE GROUPS
On Acting out, basic assumptions and counterfactual conditionals.
The borderline diagnosis is a fairly recent attempt of pinning down a rather complex and elusive clinical picture, characteristics of which is the projection of psychic conflicts into the intersubjective field. Research in the field has begun in the 1930s and has been profoundly consolidated in the course of the 1970s and on. Yet the concepts and methods as much as the developed terminology are still subject to controversies. This present work intends to contribute to the discussion in preparing the fundaments for an investigation of the borderline condition within a specific clinical setting, the therapy group. Focusing on the synthesis of relevant parameters for a subsequent analysis of therapy protocols, the emphasis is on the preparation of a conceptual map on three distinct domains. First, contemporary group and group dynamic models are explored. Second, frameworks investigating and conceptualising the borderline pathology are catalogued, and third, developments in the field of text analysis in general and conversation analysis in particular are skimmed through. Emphasis in the compilation of distinct approaches in the selected categories is on the extraction and operationalisation of working variables which may be used to inform protocol analysis of verbal and scenic interactions within the borderline therapy group.

THEY CAN EAT
The role of food in the construction of a mediated message.
Where to begin? Food is fuel. All animated beings organise the world according to their need to obtain the caloric energy necessary to make them function, to keep them alive. One of the main aspects of life is to sustain the organic machine, to actively acquire the right resources, upon which the other main function: the preservation of the species through reproduction can be achieved. This biological baseline being the shared goal, first of all binds the human race to the rest of animated lifeforms, creating an inseparable familiar relationship between us and them. Yet more interestingly, the quest for input is imprinting a structure onto mental functioning, which although primal and omnipresent, remains elusive to a complete understanding in its overall effects and consequences, as many alimentation miseries and mysteries remain up until today.

MEDIATION
On Mediation as a Form of Psychosocial Intervention
Purpose of this paper is to give a brief overview on the topic of psychosocial interventions in Austria in the context of the public mental health services provided by the welfare state, outlining the current state of affairs of the field. Which is the current mindset and political climate, in the course of which the public services are extended onto interventions into social affairs on the border of public and private domains? What is mediation in general and how are interventions promoted, implemented and regulated? Which are the main agencies vested with the public trust to carry out mediating operations? How do educational, judiciary and other institutions interact, and which is the shared vision under which the collaboration comes about?

ON QUESTIONS OF PSYCHOSOMATICS
To approach the discipline of psychosomatics, it is best to begin with contemporary scientific definitions, which have been circulating throughout the last forty years. Psychosomatic medicine thus is defined as a scientific discipline that investigates correlations between biological, psychological and social determinants of illness and health. (Lipowski, 1977) The field is described as a field of scientific medicine, where a certain openness as to the aetiology of diseases is not only the core ambition, but also the area of research.

EXISTENTIAL THERAPY
Scope of this current paper is to deliver a concise critical reflection a contemporary therapeutic practice located in the framework of existential analysis, termed existential psychotherapy. The equally titled book by Irvin D. Yalom will serve here as the backbone of the investigation. Retracing of the unique key concepts, which distinguish the existential practice from other therapeutic schools, the location of existential analysis in space and time of the therapeutic enterprise, but also the articulation of first crude critical questions that arise from a first reading of the topic shall be the “throw-ins” to this paper.

TINY CRIMINALS
Urban junkies, angry ninja joggers, cruel fuckers, almost Banksies, black mr. robot hackers.
Cities are crowded by hateful characters unleashing their tragic trajectories, shitting out pain and evil. Criminals? Violators? Outlaws? Sinners? Who are they? Is there such a thing as born bad? Mythologies and belief structures are full of bad deeds. Prometheus has stolen fire from the gods, Apollo has committed numerous accounts of rape, Zeus hardly less, and the Bible tells us that we are born in sin, and night after night we wind up in front of the tele to be enchanted by violence in a safe distance.

RE: LE SCAPHANDRE ET LE PAPILLON
The movie directed by Julian Schnabel, located and produced in France, tells the story of an accomplished man who at the height of his career one day awakens to find himself facing the biggest challenge in his life. A life event, which forces him to think, think about life, think, since thinking suddenly is the only thing left for him: The only things I still have are my imagination and my memory. The story is about coming to terms in the wake of a devastating news: You have survived due to the advances of technology. You had a cerebral stroke. And now, are you ready, Jean-Do?, now you are reduced to what people out there call a vegetable. What kind of vegetable? Une carot? Une patat? Une cornichon? There is hardly anything you can do about it. You are locked in. You are exposed to the good will of the people around you. You will have to swallow their jokes, the stupidities. Everything. You can not speak, you can not run, not hide, not rebel in any way.