Name: The psychoanalyic ethic of honesty - Implications for self-defeating patients
Start: 2026-05-24T18:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-05-24T20:00:00+02:00
Location: Anti

The psychoanalyic ethic of honesty - Implications for self-defeating patients

During the spring of 2026 Aning - Association for Philosophy and Psychoanalysis will present 5 lectures loosely knit together with the topic of "Truth and knowledge". We will discuss the clitoris, truth in art, the psychoanalytical ethic of honesty, masochism, truth that disrupts knowledge and much more.
All lectures will be in english are free of charge and will take place at Anti Bookstore (Stora Nygatan 18, Malmö) between 18.00 and 20.00. To guarantee a seat you will have to be there some time before it starts.
If you have any questions you can send an email to [email protected] or [email protected]. The events are made possible in cooporation with Psykoterapicentrum, Folkuniversitetet, Folkuniversitetsföreningen and Bertil Wennborgs Stiftelse.
8/2 - Clitoris' Saga - Rise, Triumph, and Decline of the Clitoris (Sergio Benvenuto)
12/3 - Truth and Psychoanalysis - The Poetry, Art and Science of Psychoanalysis in Bion’s O
(Annie Reiner)
26/4 -Truth or Knowledge - A psychoanalytic point of view
(Judith Mitrani)
24/5 - The psychoanalyic ethic of honesty - Implications for self-defeating patients
(Nancy McWilliams)
13/6 - Is Psychoanalysis a Truth-Procedure?
(Lorenzo Chiesa)
------------------------------------------------------
Abstract for 24/5:
Therapists are often frustrated by patients they see as somehow essentially dishonest with themselves. One such group includes individuals with self-defeating patterns, who are usually reluctant to look at their own contributions to their recurrent difficulties. “Characterological masochism,” or “aggrieved” or “self-defeating” schemas have been a concern of therapists for decades, through many paradigm shifts. But because "self-defeating personality disorder is absent from the DSM and ICD, our official taxonomies give clinicians little guidance in addressing recurrent self-sabotaging behavior. When do certain powerful human strivings - to surrender to something greater than the self, to sacrifice one’s own well-being for a higher good - become pathological? How can therapists help pathologically self-defeating clients, especially those who rationalize behavior their in terms of commitment to high ideals? Dr. McWilliams will explore these questions via the literature from clinical psychoanalysis, personality psychology, empirical work in attachment and neuroscience, and her own case material.
------------------------------------------------------
Nancy McWilliams is Visiting Professor Emerita at Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Applied & Professional Psychology and has a private practice in Lambertville, New Jersey. She is a former president of the Division of Psychoanalysis (39) of the American Psychological Association and is on the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Psychology. McWilliams is on the Board of Trustees of the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge and an honorary member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, the Institute for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy of Turin, Italy, and the Warsaw Scientific Association for Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. She has written extensively on topics such as psychoanalytic psychotherapy, the relationship between diagnosis and treatment, integration of feminist theory and psychoanalytic knowledge and much more. McWilliams is Associate Editor of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual . She have received multiple awards for her writings and have been translated into twenty languages.