Bonnie E Litowitz
Biographic Data
| ID | 241407 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bonnie E Litowitz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Bonnie E |
| FAMILY NAME | Litowitz |
| SIGNATURE | LITOWITZ B E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis |
| ORCID | 0009-0009-7212-4495 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 59 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Representation and Interpretation in Psychoanalysis: A Semiotic Perspective
Psychoanalytic understanding depends on interpretations of evidence from speech and behaviors within clinical encounters. A clinician’s particular theoretical perspective orients them to favor one interpretation over another. Yet, this continuous processing of evidence often proceeds without a careful examination of the underlying basic concept: the representation being interpreted. This essay is an application of Charles Sanders Peirce’s theory …
Writing to be Part of the Conversation
Construire l’infantile
Cet article traite des multiples dimensions qui participent aux constructions de l’infantile, telles qu’elles émanent des différentes perspectives psychanalytiques. Il prend en compte trois dimensions : le corps, l’esprit, la psyché de l’enfant. Il fait une brève revue de nos connaissances actuelles sur la condition physique du nourrisson et sur ses processus mentaux, à partir de méthodologies fondées sur l’observation et l’expérience. L’auteure …
Constructing the infantile
This paper addresses three dimensions that contribute to the constructions of the infantile, as they inform different psychoanalytic perspectives: the infantile body; the infantile mind; and the infantile psyche. Brief reviews of our current knowledge of the infant's physical state and earliest mention, derived from observational and experimental methodologies are presented; raising the question whether psychoanalysts should incorporate such know…
What Can I Say? Contested Words and Contested Thoughts in the Contemporary Moment
Of Construction, or, if it is Preferred, of Reconstruction”
Introduction to Sidney Phillips’s Clinical Plenary
Comings and Goings
Journal Watch review of The social origins of sustained attention in one-year-old human infants
Comings and Goings
Road Trips on the Via Regia: Introduction to Levy and Finnegan
Comings and Goings
Continuity and Change Redux
Coming to Terms with Intersubjectivity: Keeping Language in Mind
Recent reports of clinical experiences, from multiple theoretical perspectives using different terminologies, converge on the topic of the origin and nature of intersubjectivity as it emerges in clinical interactions. Intersubjectivity is explored from the point of view of language and communication, and the distinctive properties of language that create a shared intrapsychic world, on which intersubjectivity subtends, are discussed. This viewpoi…
Introduction to Translations
Introduction to Julia Kristeva
From switch‐words to stitch‐words
During the course of treatment with some patients a word or phrase reappears that functions to connect layers of fantasies and to identify a history of conflicts and defenses. These stitch-words are compared to the switch-words proposed by Freud as points of condensation in dreams, as well as to other forms of idiolectic evidence (e.g. metaphors) that inform therapeutic listening. Stitch-words expand on Freud's concept by taking into account synt…
Why this Question? Commentary on Vivona
Textbook of psychoanalysis
From Dyad to Dialogue: Language and the Early Relationship in American Psychoanalytic Theory
The centrality of language for a Freudian theory of mind and treatment has not been retained by most post-Freudian theorists. American writers have turned to academic developmental research on mother-child interactions to depict the preoedipal period as preverbal, presymbolic, nonconscious. This view presents the early relationship as developing in linear stages in which visual observational data (e.g., contingent behavior action patterns between…
Introduction: Creativity, Psychopathology, and Clinical Theory
Academic Exchange: Time, Music, and Reverie
An Academic Exchange on Empathy
Looking Back and Moving Forward: A Commentary on “Instinct and The Ego during Infancy”
Unconscious Fantasy: A Once and Future Concept
The concept of unconscious fantasy should be retained as fundamental to any psychoanalytic approach. The concept is reexamined in the face of two challenges: today's theoretical pluralism and the recent integration of findings from academic research. The first section reviews post-Freudian theoretical contributions to Freud's original concept, concluding that in its evolved form it is flexible enough to serve multiple perspectives. The second sec…
Unconscious Fantasy: A Once and Future Concept
The concept of unconscious fantasy should be retained as fundamental to any psychoanalytic approach. The concept is reexamined in the face of two challenges: today's theoretical pluralism and the recent integration of findings from academic research. The first section reviews post-Freudian theoretical contributions to Freud's original concept, concluding that in its evolved form it is flexible enough to serve multiple perspectives. The second sec…
An Expanded Developmental Line for Negation: Rejection, Refusal, Denial
Freud's 1925 paper on negation provides the foundation for exploring an expanded developmental line of negation. Incorporating evidence from child language studies and explanations from the philosophy of language, this paper describes three types of negation that emerge in a developmental sequence: rejection, refusal, and denial. Clinical examples illustrate each type of negation, demonstrating how it might appear in clinical interactions. Along …
From Dyad to Dialogue: Language and the Early Relationship in American Psychoanalytic Theory
The centrality of language for a Freudian theory of mind and treatment has not been retained by most post-Freudian theorists. American writers have turned to academic developmental research on mother-child interactions to depict the preoedipal period as preverbal, presymbolic, nonconscious. This view presents the early relationship as developing in linear stages in which visual observational data (e.g., contingent behavior action patterns between…
The Second Person
Unlike third-person sciences, psychoanalysis is the science of the second person. Briefly tracing the history of our focus on a second person, this paper contrasts two different approaches--the dyadic and the dialogic, proposing the latter as the better model for our field and the one that marks our unique contribution to other disciplines
Sexuality and Textuality
Post-Freudian theories have been criticized for abandoning what is basic to psychoanalysis: the biological body and sexuality as the source of intrapsychic motivation. Arguably, however, they are more present than ever before—for example, in explanations by theorists who propose therapeutic actions beyond interpretation, presymbolic enactments of procedural memories, or disclosures of the analyst's bodily states as an aspect of intersubjectivity.…
Introduction to Julia Kristeva
Moving Towards Literacy by Making Definitions
Defining can be as simple and natural as the common practice between mother and child, or an erudite exercise pursued by scientists and an area of scrutiny for lexicographers. This paper examines the question of how members of a literate society progress from a natural beginning towards a mastery of increasingly formalized definition-making. We suggest that formal definition-making is one aspect of becoming literate, where literacy is defined as …
Representation and Interpretation in Psychoanalysis: A Semiotic Perspective
Psychoanalytic understanding depends on interpretations of evidence from speech and behaviors within clinical encounters. A clinician’s particular theoretical perspective orients them to favor one interpretation over another. Yet, this continuous processing of evidence often proceeds without a careful examination of the underlying basic concept: the representation being interpreted. This essay is an application of Charles Sanders Peirce’s theory …
Constructing the infantile
This paper addresses three dimensions that contribute to the constructions of the infantile, as they inform different psychoanalytic perspectives: the infantile body; the infantile mind; and the infantile psyche. Brief reviews of our current knowledge of the infant's physical state and earliest mention, derived from observational and experimental methodologies are presented; raising the question whether psychoanalysts should incorporate such know…
Continuity and Change Redux
Coming to Terms with Intersubjectivity: Keeping Language in Mind
Recent reports of clinical experiences, from multiple theoretical perspectives using different terminologies, converge on the topic of the origin and nature of intersubjectivity as it emerges in clinical interactions. Intersubjectivity is explored from the point of view of language and communication, and the distinctive properties of language that create a shared intrapsychic world, on which intersubjectivity subtends, are discussed. This viewpoi…
From switch‐words to stitch‐words
During the course of treatment with some patients a word or phrase reappears that functions to connect layers of fantasies and to identify a history of conflicts and defenses. These stitch-words are compared to the switch-words proposed by Freud as points of condensation in dreams, as well as to other forms of idiolectic evidence (e.g. metaphors) that inform therapeutic listening. Stitch-words expand on Freud's concept by taking into account synt…
The View From Inside, the View From Outside
Commentary on Perinat and Sadurni: The Ontogenesis of Meaning: An Interactional Approach
Learning to make definitions
The ability to define words by means of other words, which forms a part of many standardized tests, must be learned by a child. The nature of the ‘definitional task’ and the development of language responses (from children 4; 5 to 7; 5) are discussed in terms of a linguistic analysis of the definitional form and its semantic relations. Progress in definitional strategies by children moves along two continua: conceptually from the individually exp…
Individual and shared meanings
Hypothetical speech: A developmental perspective
Lexical-Semantic Relations: A Comparative Survey
Buku ini merupakan hasil survey yang dilakukan oleh beberapa peneliti yang pusat perhatiannya berasal dari berbagai disiplin ilmu. Dengan latar belakang pengetahuan seperti antropologi, psikologi, linguistik dan ilmu komputer, para peneliti ini berusaha menjawab pertanyaan-pertanyaan seperti bagaimana caranya menciptakan mesin yang dapat menjawab pertanyaan linguistik, bagaimana anak-anak mempelajari makna, bagaimana anggota kebudayaan memperoleh…
Expression of the part–whole semantic relation by 3- to 12-year-old children
The present study investigated the expression of the part–whole semantic relation by children 3 to 12 years of age. Controlling both task format (structured vs. open-ended) and dimensions associated with experimental stimuli (part-word vs. part-object; known whole vs. unknown whole), the verbal responses of two age groups of children were analysed. While results revealed the part–whole semantic relation expressible by even the youngest children, …
Moving Towards Literacy by Making Definitions
Defining can be as simple and natural as the common practice between mother and child, or an erudite exercise pursued by scientists and an area of scrutiny for lexicographers. This paper examines the question of how members of a literate society progress from a natural beginning towards a mastery of increasingly formalized definition-making. We suggest that formal definition-making is one aspect of becoming literate, where literacy is defined as …
An Expanded Developmental Line for Negation: Rejection, Refusal, Denial
Freud's 1925 paper on negation provides the foundation for exploring an expanded developmental line of negation. Incorporating evidence from child language studies and explanations from the philosophy of language, this paper describes three types of negation that emerge in a developmental sequence: rejection, refusal, and denial. Clinical examples illustrate each type of negation, demonstrating how it might appear in clinical interactions. Along …
Commentary on Perinat and Sadurni: The Ontogenesis of Meaning: An Interactional Approach
Continuity and Change in Psychoanalytic Theory
Sexuality and Textuality
Post-Freudian theories have been criticized for abandoning what is basic to psychoanalysis: the biological body and sexuality as the source of intrapsychic motivation. Arguably, however, they are more present than ever before—for example, in explanations by theorists who propose therapeutic actions beyond interpretation, presymbolic enactments of procedural memories, or disclosures of the analyst's bodily states as an aspect of intersubjectivity.…
The View From Inside, the View From Outside
When “Something More” Is Less: Commentary On the Boston Change Process Study Group
Bonnie Litowitz
Where Does Nothing Come From? Commentary On Wilson
Looking Back and Moving Forward: A Commentary on “Instinct and The Ego during Infancy”
Unconscious Fantasy: A Once and Future Concept
The concept of unconscious fantasy should be retained as fundamental to any psychoanalytic approach. The concept is reexamined in the face of two challenges: today's theoretical pluralism and the recent integration of findings from academic research. The first section reviews post-Freudian theoretical contributions to Freud's original concept, concluding that in its evolved form it is flexible enough to serve multiple perspectives. The second sec…
The Second Person
Unlike third-person sciences, psychoanalysis is the science of the second person. Briefly tracing the history of our focus on a second person, this paper contrasts two different approaches--the dyadic and the dialogic, proposing the latter as the better model for our field and the one that marks our unique contribution to other disciplines
Academic Exchange: Time, Music, and Reverie
An Academic Exchange on Empathy
Introduction: Creativity, Psychopathology, and Clinical Theory
From Dyad to Dialogue: Language and the Early Relationship in American Psychoanalytic Theory
The centrality of language for a Freudian theory of mind and treatment has not been retained by most post-Freudian theorists. American writers have turned to academic developmental research on mother-child interactions to depict the preoedipal period as preverbal, presymbolic, nonconscious. This view presents the early relationship as developing in linear stages in which visual observational data (e.g., contingent behavior action patterns between…
Why this Question? Commentary on Vivona
Textbook of psychoanalysis
From switch‐words to stitch‐words
During the course of treatment with some patients a word or phrase reappears that functions to connect layers of fantasies and to identify a history of conflicts and defenses. These stitch-words are compared to the switch-words proposed by Freud as points of condensation in dreams, as well as to other forms of idiolectic evidence (e.g. metaphors) that inform therapeutic listening. Stitch-words expand on Freud's concept by taking into account synt…
Continuity and Change Redux
Psychology (36 works) · Psychoanalysis (22 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · Linguistics (12 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications (8 works) · Psychoanalytic theory (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (5 works)