Maciej Duda

The Varieties of Psychoanalysis

The text is an introduction to the journal issue devoted to the changes and metamorphoses of doctrines formed in the field of psychoanalytic thought. The authors point out the polyphonic nature of psychoanalysis and emphasize the special value of its susceptibility to transformation. In this introductory essay, emphasis is placed on both psychoanalytic theory and practice. The authors try to prove that the methods of interpreting literary works emerging from psychoanalysis today should take into account perspectives derived directly from analytical practices. The authors aim to prove that among the most important of these is a relational understanding of humanistic work (based on reading and writing practices), as well as a pluralistic account of the constantly renewed acts of interpretation.

Andrzej Stasiuk’s Forms and Metaphors. Description of Borderline States and Attempts to Get out of Fears

The text is an attempt at a psychotherapeutic reading of fiction written by Andrzej Stasiuk. The method assumes the application of psychodynamic theory and practice in the process of literary reading. The structure of the text corresponds to the story of the patient (case study). The article contains a presentation of the biographies of the characters and narrators of Stasiuk’s prose. The analysis focuses on their fears and attempts to overcome these fears. The synthesis includes metaphors and the sequence of scenes, the arrangement of the text. Reading of Stasiuk’s prose is based on the theory of unconscious expression, which proves that the sequences of our utterances reveal lines of unconscious thinking.

Malady Readings. On Monica Ładoń’s Book Choroba jako literatura

This article reviews Choroba jako literatura [Illness as Literature] by Monika Ładoń. Ładoń’s essays establish malady studies in the field of Polish literature. She analyses fictions and autobiographies that cover the experience of disease. The scope of her research spans Polish and European prose of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (including Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Maria Dąbrowska, Anna Kowalska, Jerzy Pilch, Krystyna Kofta, and Grażyna Jagielska). Ładoń’s theoretical perspectives are set by Emil Cioran, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Catherine Malabou, and the duo of Julia Kristeva and Jean Vanier.

Masculinity and Myth: Therapeutic Readings

The article presents an overview of the selected psychoanalitical concepts which concern the problem of masculinity with reference to the mythical model. The author presents and comments on the position of Gunnar Karlsson, Donald Moss, Jean Shinody Bolen, David Tacey and Polish psychotherapists – Karol Furmaniak and Wojciech Eichelberger. The overview of the aforementioned theories indicates that there is need for revindication of the myths which form the cultural models of masculinity. The change should uncover the normativity and oppressiveness of these models.