Leading gestalt therapist Michael Kriegsfeld led therapy groups around the world. Gestalt therapy focuses on conflicts between aspects of the self, and the attempt by patients to avoid responsibility for their choices and behavior. When Kriegsfeld died suddenly in 1992, he left 170 three-hour-long videotapes of his work with groups in the United States and Europe. Through excerpts from these tapes, author Lee Kassan provides examples of Kriegsfeld's methods that will be of use to every therapist regardless of his or her field.

Divided into five main sections, "Who Could We Ask? The Gestalt Therapy of Michael Kriegsfeld" delivers a revealing, personal portrait of Kriegsfeld. Kassan explains Kriegsfeld's theory of the gestalt model as an alternative to the medical model that dominates the therapy field today.

Kassan brilliantly illustrates and explains the procedures that Kriegsfeld used in gestalt therapy. Informative and intimate, "Who Could We Ask?" is a rare glimpse of a master therapist at work.

"Literature and the Relational Self is a tribute to the rich complexity of human nature--as poets, novelists, and relational models of contemporary psychoanalysis mutually attest."
--"Psychoanalytic Psychologist"

While psychoanalytic relational perspectives have had a major impact on the clinical world, their value for the field of literary study has yet to be fully recognized. This important book offers a broad overview of relational concepts and theories, and it examines their implications for understanding literary and aesthetic experience as it reviews feminist applications of relational-model theories, and considers D. W. Winnicott's influential ideas about creativity and symbolic play.

The eight incisive essays in this volume apply these concepts to a close reading of various nineteenth and twentieth-century literary texts: an essay on Wordsworth, for instance, explores the poet's writing on the imagination in light of Winnicott's ideas about transitional phenomena, while an essay on Woolf and Lawrence compares identity issues in their work from the perspective of feminist object relations theories.

The cultural influences that have led to the development of the relational paradigm in the sciences at this particular historical moment have also affected contemporary art and literature. Essays on John Updike, Toni Morrison, Ann Beattie, and Alice Hoffman examine self-other relational dynamics in their texts that reflect larger cultural patterns characteristic of our time. The author reviews feminist applications of relational-model theories and applies these models to works by William Wordsworth, Virginia Woolf, John Updike, Toni Morrison, and others.

Harcum maintains that the proper assumptions about human nature are established by their relative utility in solving existing human problems. In order to facilitate solutions to familiar problems of daily living, the author advocates a definition of the science of psychology that includes the concepts of human freedom and intrinsic dignity. The author emphasizes the importance of the free will concept to behavioral scientists and practitioners as well as to citizens of the general population who, perhaps without realizing it, are forced users of behavioral science. The author's intention is to show that our cherished beliefs in the concepts of freedom and dignity are consistent with scientific principles and thus will become a vital part of a scientifically designed culture.

As both a theoretician and clinician, Donald Winnicott left a legacy of concepts, ideas and attitudes whose importance continues to grow. In this volume the editors have assembled ninety-two works half of them previously unpublished that will be of particular interest to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. "Psycho-Analytic Explorations" will stand as the sourcebook of Winnicott s thought for those in his own field.This collection spans the years from World War II to Winnicott s death in 1971, and testifies to the wide range of his intellectual interests and clinical experience. It includes previously unpublished critiques of the ideas of Melanie Klein and comments on the work of other psychoanalysts, as well as clinical examples, case studies, and gems of thought extracted from his files. Many of the topics will be of direct use to clinicians: for example, play in the analytic situation, the use of silence; psychosomatic disorder, interpretation in analysis, and seven chapters on psychotherapy with children and adolescents. Other chapters treat such themes as the fate of the transitional object, fear of breakdown, the split-off male and female elements, the basis for self in body. Also included are Winnicott s writing on convulsion therapy and leucotomy; his memoir by his widow, Clare; and, as a postscript, a talk he gave late in life discussing the influences that shaped his work."

This collection of papers has been developed by an interdisciplinary group of contributors. They present a variety of new perspectives on creativity, spirituality, and transcendence as experienced in adulthood. The discussions in this volume, address the interplay of variables from theoretical, experimental, and clinical vantage points. This book is written for academic and clinical audiences, as well as for those who are interested in-and wrestle with-unexpressed aspects of their own creativity and spiritual yearnings. Unlike the current cognitive trend in creativity research that seeks rational and biological explanations for human phenomena, these essays give consideration to the power of extraordinary sources of inspiration. The research and theoretically based articles presented make a captivating collection that challenges our thinking about what it means to be a creative adult striving toward personal integrity and wisdom at the dawn of the 21st century.

Studying narratives is often the best way to gain a good understanding of how various aspects of human information are organized and integrated-the narrator employs specific informational methods to build the whole structure of a narrative through combining temporally constructed events in light of an array of relationships to the narratee and these methods reveal the interaction of the rational and the sensitive aspects of human information. Computational and Cognitive Approaches to Narratology discusses issues of narrative-related information and communication technologies, cognitive mechanism and analyses, and theoretical perspectives on narratives and the story generation process. Focusing on emerging research as well as applications in a variety of fields including marketing, philosophy, psychology, art, and literature, this timely publication is an essential reference source for researchers, professionals, and graduate students in various information technology, cognitive studies, design, and creative fields.

Computational psychoanalysis is a new field stemming from Freudian psychoanalysis. The new area aims to understand the primary formal structures and running mechanisms of the unconscious while implementing them into computer sciences. Computational Psychoanalysis and Formal Bi-Logic Frameworks provides emerging information on this new field which uses psychoanalysis and the unconscious mind to make advancements in computational research. While highlighting the challenges of applying analytical logic trends to primary formal structures, readers will learn the valuable outputs to society when these trends are successfully implemented. This book is an important resource for computer scientists, researchers, academics, and other professionals seeking current research on applying psychoanalysis and Freudian concepts to computational structures.

This project engages with scholarship on Paul by philosophers, psychoanalysts, and historians to reveal the assumptions and prejudices that determine the messiah in secularism and its association with the exception.

This volume celebrates the first quarter century of publishing Research in Organizational Behavior. From its inception, Research in Organizational Behavior has striven to provide important theoretical integrations of major literatures in the organizational sciences, as well as timely examination and provocative analyses of pressing organizational issues and problems.
In keeping with this tradition, the current volume offers an eclectic mix of scholarly articles that address a variety of important questions in organizational theory and do so from a diverse range of disciplinary perspectives and theoretical orientations. A number of the chapters also directly engage contemporary events and dilemmas of considerable importance.

Philosophers have usually argued that the right way to explain people's actions is in terms of their beliefs and intentions rather than in terms of objective facts. Rowland Stout takes the opposite line in his account of action. Appeal to teleology is widely regarded with suspicion, but Dr Stout argues that there are things in nature, namely actions, which can be teleologically explained: they happen because they serve some end. Moreover, this teleological explanation is externalist: it cites facts about the world, not beliefs and intentions which only represent the world. Such externalism about the explanation of action is a natural partner to externalism about knowledge and about reference, but has hardly ever been considered seriously before. One dramatic consequence of such a position is that it opens up the possibility of a behaviourist account of beliefs and intentions.

In recent years, music theorists have been increasingly eager to incorporate findings from the science of human cognition and linguistics into their methodology. In the culmination of a vast body of research undertaken since his influential and award-winning Conceptualizing Music (OUP 2002), Lawrence M. Zbikowski puts forward Foundations of Musical Grammar, an ambitious and broadly encompassing account on the foundations of musical grammar based on our current understanding of human cognitive capacities. Musical grammar is conceived of as a species of construction grammar, in which grammatical elements are form-function pairs. Zbikowski proposes that the basic function of music is to provide sonic analogs for dynamic processes that are important in human cultural interactions. He focuses on three such processes: those concerned with the emotions, the spontaneous gestures that accompany speech, and the patterned movement of dance. Throughout the book, Zbikowski connects cognitive research with music theory for an interdisciplinary audience, presenting detailed musical analyses and summaries of the basic elements of musical grammar.

Totem and Taboo is work employing the application of psychoanalysis to the fields of archaeology, anthropology, and the study of religion. The four chapters are entitled: The Horror of Incest; Taboo and Emotional Ambivalence; Animism, Magic and the Omnipotence of Thoughts; and The Return of Totemism in Childhood.

How do people change? Longing for personal growth and transformation is a central theme of our times. Psychotherapy seeks to change the dynamics behind people's symptoms and conflicts. Writers, too, are fascinated by this theme, and have explored it frequently in their stories and characters. In this book, Barbara and Richard Almond, both psychoanalysts, explore a variety of novels that describe internal, personal change. They discover that there are fascinating parallels between the processes that lead to change in literary characters and the mechanisms observed in psychotherapeutic change.

From Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" to Frances Hodgson Burnett's "The Secret Garden" to Anne Tyler's "IThe Accidental Tourist," the plot begins with a character struggling with personality limitations. A new person appears in the story; a bond is formed with the central character. In the relationship that follows, the two struggle. Confrontational and loving interactions lead the protagonist through a process of gradual change. The authors delineate a therapeutic narrative: the plot of change in both psychotherapy and literature. By comparing a variety of novels, they elaborate the elements of this therapeutic narrative and draw provocative conclusions about the mechanisms of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

'Few people would be better qualified than the author to write this innovative and eagerly anticipated post-Kleinian book. Deeply versed in the opus of Bion and Meltzer, the author enhances the concept of "catastrophic change". The analyst who "eschews memory and desire" observes the subtle interplay of transference and countertransference (Meltzer's "counter dreaming") as it works through aesthetic conflicts. The ensuing reciprocity of the patients and analysts unconscious is revealed as the aesthetical and ethical basis of psychoanalysis. In that sense the psychoanalytical process parallels that of poetic and artistic inspiration. They are all generated by creative internal objects. Harris Williams' intellectual tour de force demonstrates convincingly the human capacity for symbolic thinking that underlies literary, artistic and psychoanalytic creativity. Her encyclopaedic understanding of literature, art and psychoanalysis contributes to this book's virtuosity.'- Irene Freeden, Senior Member of the British Association of Psychotherapists

An ambitious trainee therapist, determined to make her mark in the therapy world, seeks supervision and guidance. In her meetings with the 3-Point Therapist, she gains much more than she had bargained for. "The 3-Point Therapist" is the charming story of one trainee s journey in search of professional success and recognition. What she learns is unexpected and changes her predicted path. The characters and situations in this book are purely fictional but the principles, the learning and the practice points are drawn from the author s thirty years experience working with families in different paediatric and mental health settings. The book s style is light, very readable and at times humorous--but the messages are strong with far-reaching effect. The trainee and her professional practice are profoundly changed forever."

Dr. Edward Hoffman, a world-renowned thinker and writer in humanistic psychology, reveals how the Kabbalah exerted a profound influence on the establishment and growth of Western psychological thought through such towering thinkers as Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Abraham Maslow. With a new introduction and updated bibliography, The Way of Splendor: The 25th Anniversary begins with an historical presentation of Kabalistic metaphysics and cosmology, then discusses the psychological dimensions of Kabbalah on such topics as dreams, meditation, sexuality, community, health and emotions. The Way of Splendor is a classic yet timely book that shows how to integrate spirituality with counseling, emphasizing the day-to-day relevance of the visionary experience.

This book shows us how rather than abandoning psychology once he liberated phenomenology from the psychologism of the philosophy of arithmetic, Edmund Husserl remained concerned with the ways in which phenomenology held important implications for a radical reform of psychology throughout his intellectual career. The author fleshes out what such a radical reform actually entails, and proposes that it can only be accomplished by following the trail of the transcendental reduction described in Husserl's later works. In order to appreciate the need for the transcendental even for psychology, the book tracks Husserl's thinking on the nature of this relationship between phenomenology as a philosophy and psychology as a positive science as it evolved over time. The text covers Husserl's definition of phenomenology as "descriptive psychology" in the Logical Investigations, rejecting the hybrid form of "phenomenological psychology" described in the lectures by that name, and ends with his proposal for a "fundamental refashioning" of psychology by situating it within the transcendental framework of The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. The Author argues for a re-grounding of psychology by virtue of a "return to positivity" after having performed the reduction to transcendental intersubjectivity. What results is a phenomenological approach to a transcendentally-grounded psychology which, while having returned to the life-world, no longer remains transcendentally naive. A phenomenologically-grounded psychology thus empowers researchers, clinicians, and clients alike to engage in social actions that move the world closer to achieving social justice for all. This text appeals to students and researchers working in phenomenology and psychology.

In Why It Is Good to be Good, John H. Riker argues that modernity, by undermining traditional religious and metaphysical grounds for moral belief, has left itself no way to explain why it is personally good to be a morally good person. Furthermore, modernity's regnant concept of the self as an independent agent organized around the optimal satisfaction of desires and involved in an intense economic competition with others intensifies the likelihood that modern persons will see morality as a set of limiting constraints that stand in the way of personal advantage and will tend to cheat when they believe there is little likelihood of getting caught. This cheating has begun to severely undermine modernity's economic and social institutions. Riker proposes that Heinz Kohut's psychoanalytic understanding of the self can provide modernity with a naturalistic ground for saying why it is good to be good. Kohut sees the self as a dynamic, unconscious structure which, when coherent and actively engaged with the world, provides the basis for a heightened sense of lively flourishing. The key to the self's development and sustained coherence is the presence of empathically responsive others persons Kohut terms selfobjects. Riker argues that the best way to sustain vitalized selfobject relations in adulthood is by becoming an ethical human being. It is persons who develop the Aristotelian moral virtues empathy for others, a sense of fairness, and a resolute integrity who are best able to engage in the reciprocal selfobject relations that are necessary to maintain self-cohesion and who are most likely to extend empathic ethical concern to those beyond their selfobject matrixes. Riker also explores how Kohut's concept of the self incorporates a number of the most important insights about the self in the history of philosophy, constructs an original meta-psychology that differentiates the ego from the self, re-envisions ethical life on the basis of a psychoanalytically informed view of human nature, explores how pe"

With a foreword by Slavoj Zizek, this book explores the Father Function in the East in the process of 'Modernisation', arguing that 'Modernisation' and 'Westernisation' are euphemisms for the advent of capitalism in Asiatic and African societies which lead to fatal transformations of the cultural and political incarnatations of the Oriental Father.

This timely study examines the emotional and behavioral reactions to mergers and acquisitions. Astrachan's central focus is on separation anxiety-the cognitive and emotional state caused by cues of impending departures. He used a simulation of a merger situation to examine the effects of anxiety about employee departures on individuals and work groups in an existing company. Specific questions addressed include: Is separation anxiety stimulated by the anticipated termination of work group members? Does the number of people who are leaving a group affect anxiety? How do the experiences of those who are leaving differ from those who are staying?

Astrachan begins with two chapters that explore the relationship between mergers, acquisitions, and separation anxiety at the individual and group levels and look at the specific patterns of behaviors and emotions that result from separation anxiety. He then describes the design of the mergers and ecquisitions simulation that served as the study's primary method. The fourth and fifth chapters describe, quantitatively and in the participants' own words, the results of the simulation exercise and the study's findings. Exploring work group members' behaviors and emotions during the simulation, Astrachan addresses such issues as the similarities among groups within the company and the effects of mergers on various employee groups. Finally, the author addresses the implications of his research for a greater understanding of separation anxiety in everyday life. In an era of recurrent corporate mergers and acquisitions, their effects on the employees who are let go, on those who stay, and on the organization are important issues for human resources executives, organizational consultants, and stress management specialists. Astrachan's study marks an important beginning to the examination of these critical issues.