Francis Grier
Biographic Data
| ID | 4621570 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Francis Grier |
| GIVEN NAMES | Francis |
| FAMILY NAME | Grier |
| SIGNATURE | GRIER F |
| AFFILIATIONS | British Psychoanalytical Society |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3757-852X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 28 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Ijp: A place for debate and discussion
Few matters in contemporary psychoanalysis divide and even polarise opinion as sharply as questions of gender, particularly those concerning trans experience in adolescence and young people. We hav
The vital feminine – the Maenads
By now, many of us feel exhausted and fed up with men fighting each other and maltreating women and children on a massive scale across the globe. For the cover of the International Journal of Psych
Musical creativity in the line of fire
Music and war is a vast topic. This essay limits itself mainly to compositions of Western classical music written in response to World War II. I examine two masterpieces: A Ceremony of Carols (1942), by UK pacifist, Benjamin Britten, composed on a ship menaced by U-boats as he returned from voluntary exile to face the war; and the Quartet for the End of Time (1941), by the Frenchman, Olivier Messiaen, interned in a German prisoner-of-war camp, wh…
Introduction of A candidate at Work: The case of Ms. N
IJP Open relaunch
Anonymisation
Once upon a time, analysts simply wrote about their patients. Freud did. Analysts were writing to analysts. In that era, learned journals in many different fields were read by learned specialists
Illusion, musicality, and evanescence
I explore some similarities between experiences of music and of analytic sessions. I focus on qualities of evanescence, the way that music - in contrast to many other arts - in one perspective only lasts as long as it is actually being played. Then it's over. The analyst-patient discussion in a session is similar. Yet the psychic reverberations of some transient, fugitive moments may last a lifetime. And even when no verbally profound understandi…
The case of J: Returning to the office
The music of the drives, and the music of perversion: Reflections on a dream of jealous theft
I investigate the possibility that in order to reach truly disturbed parts of the patient's mind, the analyst also may need to mobilise similar areas in his own psyche. I examine the part musicality might contribute to this well-known idea, that is, I consider what is set off in the analyst's mind by the changing qualities of the actual music of the analytic couple's voices, and also by the musical events that occur in response in the analyst's m…
The case of J: Working as a psychoanalyst during the Pandemic
Upon reading the introductory remarks by J’s analyst, I was immediately struck by how she foregrounded her patient’s experience of emotional confusion when he had felt his first analyst come too cl
The inner world of Beethoven’s ninth symphony: Masculine and feminine
In this paper, I explore the principal model within classical Western music, the sonata form, in terms of its gendered narratives. Susan McClary, an eminent American musicologist, started to do this in the 1980s as part of her forceful feminist critique of academic musicology and the music considered to be “great” within the Western classical music canon. She has been especially critical of much of Beethoven’s music, particularly the Ninth Sympho…
Musicality in the consulting room
I describe the ubiquity of the musical-non-metaphorical, actually musical-dimension in the psychoanalytic encounter. I point out that this needs underlining since, strangely, it has been neglected in psychoanalytic literature until recent years, which I suggest is a legacy of Freud's aversion to music. I look at a wide range of psychoanalytic literature which invokes music metaphorically while neglecting its literal musicality. I also explore the…
La traviata and Oedipus
This paper explores the oedipal themes of Verdi's La Traviata, and proposes that it is his masterly treatment of their complexity which accounts for the psychological power of the opera. It is suggested that a particular quality of this opera lies in its ordinariness: no gross psychopathology is displayed, and yet it is mesmerizing. The claims of the eminent musicologist Joseph Kerman are explored that, in opera, music trumps words when there is …
Thoughts on Rigoletto
The author discusses the traditional interpretations of the principal dramatis personae in Verdi's Rigoletto, suggesting that the opera expresses the composer's unconscious but highly perceptive and intuitive exploration of: (i) paranoid and perverse father-daughter oedipal dynamics as enacted between Rigoletto and Gilda; (ii) a folie-à-deux sado-masochistic relationship between Rigoletto and the Duke; (iii) the avoidance of conscious guilt and r…
Musicality in the consulting room
I describe the ubiquity of the musical-non-metaphorical, actually musical-dimension in the psychoanalytic encounter. I point out that this needs underlining since, strangely, it has been neglected in psychoanalytic literature until recent years, which I suggest is a legacy of Freud's aversion to music. I look at a wide range of psychoanalytic literature which invokes music metaphorically while neglecting its literal musicality. I also explore the…
The music of the drives, and the music of perversion: Reflections on a dream of jealous theft
I investigate the possibility that in order to reach truly disturbed parts of the patient's mind, the analyst also may need to mobilise similar areas in his own psyche. I examine the part musicality might contribute to this well-known idea, that is, I consider what is set off in the analyst's mind by the changing qualities of the actual music of the analytic couple's voices, and also by the musical events that occur in response in the analyst's m…
Anonymisation
Once upon a time, analysts simply wrote about their patients. Freud did. Analysts were writing to analysts. In that era, learned journals in many different fields were read by learned specialists
Thoughts on Rigoletto
The author discusses the traditional interpretations of the principal dramatis personae in Verdi's Rigoletto, suggesting that the opera expresses the composer's unconscious but highly perceptive and intuitive exploration of: (i) paranoid and perverse father-daughter oedipal dynamics as enacted between Rigoletto and Gilda; (ii) a folie-à-deux sado-masochistic relationship between Rigoletto and the Duke; (iii) the avoidance of conscious guilt and r…
Illusion, musicality, and evanescence
I explore some similarities between experiences of music and of analytic sessions. I focus on qualities of evanescence, the way that music - in contrast to many other arts - in one perspective only lasts as long as it is actually being played. Then it's over. The analyst-patient discussion in a session is similar. Yet the psychic reverberations of some transient, fugitive moments may last a lifetime. And even when no verbally profound understandi…
La traviata and Oedipus
This paper explores the oedipal themes of Verdi's La Traviata, and proposes that it is his masterly treatment of their complexity which accounts for the psychological power of the opera. It is suggested that a particular quality of this opera lies in its ordinariness: no gross psychopathology is displayed, and yet it is mesmerizing. The claims of the eminent musicologist Joseph Kerman are explored that, in opera, music trumps words when there is …
Thoughts on Rigoletto
The author discusses the traditional interpretations of the principal dramatis personae in Verdi's Rigoletto, suggesting that the opera expresses the composer's unconscious but highly perceptive and intuitive exploration of: (i) paranoid and perverse father-daughter oedipal dynamics as enacted between Rigoletto and Gilda; (ii) a folie-à-deux sado-masochistic relationship between Rigoletto and the Duke; (iii) the avoidance of conscious guilt and r…
La traviata and Oedipus
This paper explores the oedipal themes of Verdi's La Traviata, and proposes that it is his masterly treatment of their complexity which accounts for the psychological power of the opera. It is suggested that a particular quality of this opera lies in its ordinariness: no gross psychopathology is displayed, and yet it is mesmerizing. The claims of the eminent musicologist Joseph Kerman are explored that, in opera, music trumps words when there is …
Musicality in the consulting room
I describe the ubiquity of the musical-non-metaphorical, actually musical-dimension in the psychoanalytic encounter. I point out that this needs underlining since, strangely, it has been neglected in psychoanalytic literature until recent years, which I suggest is a legacy of Freud's aversion to music. I look at a wide range of psychoanalytic literature which invokes music metaphorically while neglecting its literal musicality. I also explore the…
The case of J: Working as a psychoanalyst during the Pandemic
Upon reading the introductory remarks by J’s analyst, I was immediately struck by how she foregrounded her patient’s experience of emotional confusion when he had felt his first analyst come too cl
The inner world of Beethoven’s ninth symphony: Masculine and feminine
In this paper, I explore the principal model within classical Western music, the sonata form, in terms of its gendered narratives. Susan McClary, an eminent American musicologist, started to do this in the 1980s as part of her forceful feminist critique of academic musicology and the music considered to be “great” within the Western classical music canon. She has been especially critical of much of Beethoven’s music, particularly the Ninth Sympho…
The music of the drives, and the music of perversion: Reflections on a dream of jealous theft
I investigate the possibility that in order to reach truly disturbed parts of the patient's mind, the analyst also may need to mobilise similar areas in his own psyche. I examine the part musicality might contribute to this well-known idea, that is, I consider what is set off in the analyst's mind by the changing qualities of the actual music of the analytic couple's voices, and also by the musical events that occur in response in the analyst's m…
The case of J: Returning to the office
IJP Open relaunch
Anonymisation
Once upon a time, analysts simply wrote about their patients. Freud did. Analysts were writing to analysts. In that era, learned journals in many different fields were read by learned specialists
Illusion, musicality, and evanescence
I explore some similarities between experiences of music and of analytic sessions. I focus on qualities of evanescence, the way that music - in contrast to many other arts - in one perspective only lasts as long as it is actually being played. Then it's over. The analyst-patient discussion in a session is similar. Yet the psychic reverberations of some transient, fugitive moments may last a lifetime. And even when no verbally profound understandi…
Introduction of A candidate at Work: The case of Ms. N
Musical creativity in the line of fire
Music and war is a vast topic. This essay limits itself mainly to compositions of Western classical music written in response to World War II. I examine two masterpieces: A Ceremony of Carols (1942), by UK pacifist, Benjamin Britten, composed on a ship menaced by U-boats as he returned from voluntary exile to face the war; and the Quartet for the End of Time (1941), by the Frenchman, Olivier Messiaen, interned in a German prisoner-of-war camp, wh…
Ijp: A place for debate and discussion
Few matters in contemporary psychoanalysis divide and even polarise opinion as sharply as questions of gender, particularly those concerning trans experience in adolescence and young people. We hav
The vital feminine – the Maenads
By now, many of us feel exhausted and fed up with men fighting each other and maltreating women and children on a massive scale across the globe. For the cover of the International Journal of Psych
Psychology (11 works) · Psychoanalysis (10 works) · Art (6 works) · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications (6 works) · Literature (4 works) · Musical (4 works) · Musicology and Musical Analysis (4 works) · Psychoanalytic theory (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works) · Philosophy (3 works)