Michel de M'Uzan has derived several innovative notions from his clinical experience that are relevant not only for the psychoanalyst's status of identity, which is sometimes dramatically shaken by his or her patient's unconscious, but also for the artist who is deeply destabilized by his act of creation, as well as for the caring person who lets him/herself be caught in the nets, as it were, of someone who is dying. Such are the extreme examples of the precarious nature of the boundaries of being in which the author discerns, not necessarily a pathological disposition, but rather an opportunity for the mind to construct itself and achieve authenticity. Through this invigorating recognition of the unconscious with the emergence, at the heart of analysis, of 'paradoxical thoughts', the experience of 'blurred frontiers' characteristic of a vacillating sense of identity, the perception of an 'every man's land' in which the analytic treatment unfolds, and the elaboration of an 'original grammar' specific to the formulation of the intervention/interpretation of the analyst during the session.

The book bridges the conceptual and practical gap between a psychoanalytic focus on the internal world and the dynamics of external reality by examining an array of junctures in which the two perspectives combine to enrich each other. Starting from the inherent bias of the psychoanalytic immersion in working with the internal world, the book deals with a wide array of phenomena in which a binocular perspective is potentially contributing. One such bridge is exemplified by the Group Relations approach, which richly combines psychoanalytic insights with systemic ones. This unique merger is valuable in studying a variety of phenomena both within psychoanalysis and outside it. The work of the analyst in the psychoanalytic setting implies situating oneself on several boundaries internal and external, love and admiration as well as death and destructive impulses and the courage and sacrifice demanded by taking up this role. This binocular perspective has significant implications for the formation and maintenance of identity and particularly for the psychoanalytic identity. A study of Moses and Monotheism provides a deeper look into Freud's anguish about his leadership and its aftermath for the survival of his legacy, and along the way to an understanding of the roots of Jewish identity and the anti-Semitism it arouses, which stem from the explosive act Freud attributes to both Moses and himself. The focus of the book then shifts to other pertinent areas, such as the psychoanalytic contribution to the discontent of the contemporary subject; the inherent difficulty in the relationship of psychoanalysis with the university; the place of the enemy intrapsychic and real and the problems inherent in discourse with him; and the impact of external trauma, such as terror attacks, on the psychoanalytic space and setting. Finally, a number of organizational implications and practices are presented and discussed: the place and meaning of the subject in understanding the organization; the special role of corruption in paranoiagenesis and regression in groups and organizations; a consultative intervention in a severely traumatized mental health center; and finally, some current perspectives on organizational and consultative intervention in psychoanalytic societies.The importance of this book is its uncompromising adherence to both sides of the divide: a psychoanalytic depth of fathoming the inner world of drives and experience, coupled with a systemic view of the external social conditions in which the psychoanalytic enterprise unfolds and the lives of individuals, institutions and organizations transpires."

Theoretical and clinical progress in psychoanalysis continues to develop new concepts and to reconsider old ones, often in contradiction with each other. By confronting and opening these debates, we might find points of convergence but also divergences that cannot be reconciled; the ensuing tension among these should be sustained in a pluralistic dialogue.

This is a new translation of the classic 1932 "Dictionary" by Dr. Richard Sterba, for which Freud wrote a Preface praising the "precision and correctness" of Sterba's work and calling it a "fine achievement." The dictionary is not only an important source of information about psychoanalysis in Vienna in the 1930s but is also an insight into its author, as movingly attested by the Epilogue to this edition written by his daughter Katherine J. Michels, son-in-law Robert Michels, and grand-daughter Verena Sterba Michels. This new edition also includes a transcript of an interview with Dr. Streba by Dr. William Langford, Chairman of the Department of Child Psychiatry at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Betrayal underlies all psychic trauma, whether sexual abuse or profound neglect, violence or treachery, extramarital affair or embezzlement. When we betray others, we violate their confidence in us. When others betray us, they pierce the veil of our innocent reliance. Betraying and feeling betrayed are ubiquitous to the scenarios of trauma and yet surprisingly neglected as a topic of specific attention by psychoanalysis.This book fills this gap. Its first part deals with developmental aspects and notes that while the experience of betrayal might be ubiquitous in childhood, its lack of recognition by the parents is what leads to fixation upon it. The second part of the book deals with literature and elucidates the myriad ways in which the theme of betrayal appears in Shakespeare s writings and in Oscar Wilde s poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol." Its final part pertains to clinical matters and has chapters on the compulsion to betray others and the unconscious need to be betrayed, the betrayal of a sacred trust in the form of childhood sexual abuse, extra-marital affairs, and the betrayal of patients by their analysts in the form of boundary violations."

When the late Heinz Kohut defined psychoanalysis as the science of empathy and introspection, he sparked a debate that has animated psychoanalytic discourse ever since. What is the relationship of empathy to psychoanalysis? Is it a constituent of analytical technique, an integral aspect of the therapeutic action of analysis, or simply a metaphor for a mode of observation better understood via 'classical' theory and terminology? The dialogue about empathy, which is really a dialogue about the nature of the analytic process, continues in this two-volume set, originally published in 1984. In Volume I, several illuminating attempts to define empathy are followed by Kohut's essay, 'Introspection, Empathy, and the Semicircle of Mental Health.' Kohut's paper, in turn, ushers in a series of original contributions on 'Empathy as a Perspective in Psychoanalysis.' The volume ends with five papers which strive to demarcate an empathic approach to various areas of artistic endeavour, including the appreciation of visual art. Volume II continues the dialogue with a series of developmental studies which explore the role of empathy in early child care at the same time as they chart the emergence of the young child's capacity to empathize. In the concluding section, 'Empathy in Psychoanalytic Work,' contributors and discussants return to the arena of technique. They not only theorize about empathy in relation to analytic understanding and communication, but address issues of nosology, considering how the empathic vantage point may be utilized in the treatment of patients with borderline and schizophrenic pathology. In their critical attention to the many dimensions of empathy - philosophical, developmental, therapeutic, artistic - the contributors collectively bear witness to the fact that Kohut has helped to shape new questions, but not set limits to the search for answers. The product of their efforts is an anatomical exploration of a topic whose relevance for psychoanalysis and psychotherapy is only beginning to be understood.

When the late Heinz Kohut defined psychoanalysis as the science of empathy and introspection, he sparked a debate that has animated psychoanalytic discourse ever since. What is the relationship of empathy to psychoanalysis? Is it a constituent of analytical technique, an integral aspect of the therapeutic action of analysis, or simply a metaphor for a mode of observation better understood via 'classical' theory and terminology? The dialogue about empathy, which is really a dialogue about the nature of the analytic process, continues in this two-volume set, originally published in 1984. In Volume I, several illuminating attempts to define empathy are followed by Kohut's essay, 'Introspection, Empathy, and the Semicircle of Mental Health.' Kohut's paper, in turn, ushers in a series of original contributions on 'Empathy as a Perspective in Psychoanalysis.' The volume ends with five papers which strive to demarcate an empathic approach to various areas of artistic endeavour, including the appreciation of visual art. Volume II continues the dialogue with a series of developmental studies which explore the role of empathy in early child care at the same time as they chart the emergence of the young child's capacity to empathize. In the concluding section, 'Empathy in Psychoanalytic Work,' contributors and discussants return to the arena of technique. They not only theorize about empathy in relation to analytic understanding and communication, but address issues of nosology, considering how the empathic vantage point may be utilized in the treatment of patients with borderline and schizophrenic pathology. In their critical attention to the many dimensions of empathy - philosophical, developmental, therapeutic, artistic - the contributors collectively bear witness to the fact that Kohut has helped to shape new questions, but not set limits to the search for answers. The product of their efforts is an anatomical exploration of a topic whose relevance for psychoanalysis and psychotherapy is only beginning to be understood.

The Ferenczi-Jones correspondence presented here is an important document of the early history of psychoanalysis. It spans more than two decades, and addresses many of the relevant issues of the psychoanalytic movement between 1911-1933, such as Freud's relation to Stekel, Adler and Jung; the First World War, the debates of the 1920s regarding the theoretical and technical ideas of Rank and Ferenczi; problems of leadership, structure, and finding a center for the psychoanalytical movement; as well as issues related to telepathy and lay analysis. It includes thirty-seven letters and six postcards, as well as original documents waiting to be found for eight decades; these belong to the "private," personal history of psychoanalysis and help to decode diverse aspects of the experience preserved in these documentary memories of former generations. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this correspondence is how it allows us to build up a far more nuanced picture of the development of an extraordinary relationship between Ferenczi and Jones. It could hardly be termed harmonious, and was not devoid of rivalry and jealousy, sometimes even of hidden passion and outright hostility. Nevertheless, friendship, sympathy, collegiality and readiness for cooperation were just as important for Ferenczi and Jones as rivalry, mistrust and suspicion. This volume celebrates the 100th anniversary of the foundation in 1913 of both the British and the Hungarian Psychoanalytical Societies.

Unconscious sexuality is made up of passions that can only travel and move if there is form attached. And these first forms come initially from another. What gives living form to the child's first affectual ties is the maternal response. A return and mimesis of the baby's passions which is the same but different: passions with maternal form added. Time and rhythm is arguably the initial form which enters into unconscious passionate life, and without necessary rhythm or time our unconscious experience is too immediate: the trauma that results when repetition can't yield to time and difference.In re-reading the lost book of affects in Freud's work, this study utilizes various contemporary thinkers on psychoanalysis, affect and literary form to argue for psychoanalysis as a theory and practice of the living forms that can carry our passions. Psychoanalysis is like Literature in that it is a living form that exists between people; producing the readings, travels, translations and re-inventions of our sexual and romantic passions. As lived form, psychoanalysis is a genre that moves constantly between our past, present and future, enabling repetitions of sameness and difference. When we are depressed or stuck within dead genres, dead passions or dead mothers, then the issue of lived form becomes something that psychoanalysis as a clinical practice becomes concerned with. Literature is another cultural means through which we can bring our passions back into a world of lived form and therefore being. The first half of this book explores central tenets of Freudian thinking in relation to the passage of affects. Chapters on the role of rhythm, hysteria, sexuality, telepathy, phobias and the styles of the body ego in Freud's thinking are explored further, in the second half of the book, in terms of readings of such classic literary texts as "Sense and Sensibility, Daniel Deronda" and "To The Lighthouse." And yet, this is not just a book on Freud and literature. It is a book on how psychoanalysis and literature are both lived forms of sexuality. Mrs. Ramsay in "To The Lighthouse" is the "straight as an arrow passion" who lacks a dress sense that can only be elaborated by styles of the ego. How are these styles of the ego, also rhythms that carry our affects? This is a central issue, not just for literature but for the practice and theory of psychoanalysis. Literature is the clinical case history that exemplifies the living forms and passions of psychoanalysis, and vice versa.

This book makes an original contribution to the study of the psychoanalytic process from a relational point of view, and at the same time serves as a textbook on the theory of technique. It provides a general exposition of the theory of psychoanalytic practice from a process perspective that emphasizes the analytic relationship, the dyadic nature of the psychoanalytic situation, and the impact of unconscious interaction between its two parties, and also includes the authors personal point of view and contributions on the subject."

There is a moment at every level of psychological development in which the mind comes face to face with a challenge. This moment can last for a literal moment in time or it can extend for years becoming the leading edge of development. Disordered Thought and Development: Chaos to Organization in the Moment explores the processes around that moment. The exploration begins with a psychotic analysand in which these processes loudly reveal themselves. From there, the exploration extends to a young child with pervasive developmental disorder and then on to four other cases, each revealing the elements and dynamics necessary for development to proceed. One of the elements includes the vicissitudes of affect from its raw, unprocessed form that is initially experienced as chaotic bodily sensations without meaning to one that carries meaning, purpose, and direction. Another element is the organizational capacities that help to solve a problem that has never been solved before. The dynamics of the moment can be understood within the context of non-linear systems theory as the mind is conceptualized as a self-organizing system in the process of evolving. This book provides clinicians with a touchstone that can help guide development of all the individuals they are called on to assist whether they are anxious, obsessional, psychotic or neurotic, and whether they are children, adolescents, or adults."

Besides constituting a fundamental milestone in contemporary Western thought, Sigmund Freud's monumental corpus of work laid the theoretical-technical foundations on which psychoanalysts based the construction and development of the comprehensive edifice in which they abide today. This edifice, so varied in tones, so heterogeneous, even contradictory at times, has stood strong because of these foundations. Indeed, this book attempts to show, through its various chapters written by psychoanalysts from different parts of the world and sustaining varied paradigms, this enriching heterogeneity coupled with the invisible thread which strings together the diversity lent to it by its Freudian foundations. One of the characteristics of the Freudian opus highlighted in this context is the fact that when we are able to study it in perspective, it is possible to glimpse a path of incessant improvement, where ideas and concepts are constantly reformulated and become more complex as clinical facts and methodological and epistemological resources call for it. Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety is the irrefutable proof of this affirmation.

Migration in the last decades resulted in mayor conflicts in all aspects of society. This book addresses the psychological response to migration and explores the emotional response to both, the change of habitat and changes in life cycle. Quite often the migrant idealizes the new habitat and the country of origin is devalued and sometimes there is a swing in the opposite direction.Although other psychoanalytical concepts describe the emotional reactions and enduring pathological problems, Migration provide a wider and deeper understanding towards the capacity and possibilities of adaptation to a new situation.The chapters are structured according to the Life Cycle and in addition we have included chapters where the authors address socio-cultural issues.Freud and post Freudian theories are further developed of our understanding of the function of the mind. The reader will become aware of the importance of internal migration.The exploration of migration phenomenon enables a deeper and wider view of the emotional vicissitudes activated by significant moves or geographical changes or developmental changes. Migration highlights the sense of identity, psychic development and creativity.Psychoanalysis contributes to a deeper exploration of the mental functioning of migrants and internal migration and this has improved the therapeutic possibilities of helping individuals, couples families."

The book Psychoanalysis and Severe Handicap: The Hand in the Cap introduces an original look at handicap, a look aiming at capturing the subjectivity, no matter how weak or uncertain it may be, of the ill Other. In this light the work of operators can become an invaluable support to the creation of the self, a crucial help to self-narration, and a valid contribution to making one's way through the entangled intricacies of language. The text falls into six chapters, which elegantly and accurately lead us into the core of the problem tackled. Focusing on the difficulties implied by the recognition of the ill Other and the acceptance of the otherness, the author attacks those cultural policies which set autonomy and integration as absolute objectives to be achieved in the work on handicap. Instead, the author highlights the need of a path aiming at the structuring of the individuality of the disabled and at the molding of their subjectivity, starting from the subject's peculiarities.

"Anatomy of Regret" has a highly clinical focus, with cases that illustrate how critical psychic change can emerge from the mourning of the grief of psychic regret. This book highlights the developmental achievement of owning the guilt of aggression, and of tolerating insight into the losses one had produced. The author uses the term psychic regret to capture the essence of the process of facing regret consciously. This is in contrast to the split-off and persecutory dynamics of unconscious guilt. Unconscious guilt exposes itself through visceral and cognitive impingements, which are related to internal world enactments, and it relies on unconscious avoidance of the pain and loss involved in facing psychic regret.Dr. Kavaler-Adler s theory of developmental mourning is illustrated in this book through in-depth lively clinical processes (cases and vignettes). The reader is able to witness how those who have faced consciousness of their resistances to experiences of loss and guilt (as referred to by Melanie Klein in her theory of the depressive position) go through the critical psychological transformation, which allows for authentic psychic change. This is a psychological change that has meaning and meaning creativity within it."Anatomy of Regret" weaves the themes of psychoanalysis in its early days with those of current practice. It simultaneously offers vivid case examples, where theory becomes a retrospective way of organizing the progress in the clinical work, and in the lives of patients. Dr. Kavaler-Adler addresses both theoretical and clinical conundrums, as she offers the opportunity for readers to immerse themselves in the journey from internal emptiness to both internal and external richness."

"Midlife" is a concept used everywhere and from many different vertexes, though mostly imprecisely, even within the psychoanalytic paradigm. This book tries to settle its proper meaning through the challenge of laying the foundations for the development of a true psychoanalytic metapsychology for "midlife", something that the editors believe in psychoanalysis was lacking. From this viewpoint, they invited fourteen renowned psychoanalysts to share their ideas about the issue. The outcome of that work is Updating Midlife: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, which, in addition to the various contributions, includes an introductory paper by the editors. This book is a true step forward in the development of a specific metapsychology for "midlife".

The main theme of this book concerns the continuing psychic centrality of parents for their children. Several chapters examine an author and his works, outlining that author s relationships with parents, good-and-bad, and making descriptive comments about these based both on information gleaned from the author s life and writings as well as from observations found in autobiographies, biographies and critical works. Since these studies in part concern stories of child abuse and deprivation, the book predominantly illustrates bad parenting that seems to have contributed to the child s psychopathology. Yet in most cases there has also been an evocation by the trauma and deprivation of adaptive and even creative reactions--this positive effect also of course largely attributable to concomitant good parenting--and yet there are some cases where little of this seems to have existed and yet the children still turn out to be able to make something of themselves. The conditions that make for psychic health in a traumatized childhood are mysterious and can t always be accounted for.The central mental and emotional importance of the parents in the earliest development of the child s body and mind is generally accepted. The continuing lifelong centrality of parental actual and (predominantly unconscious) psychic presences that can motivate emotions, thoughts, and actions, and persist for the rest of a person s life, is frequently not recognized, acknowledged, nor denied. As the author notes, "We spend so much of our lives, especially as middle age and old age approaches, waiting for a magically endowed good parent who will fulfill the promise of our earliest years, waiting, as Becket puts it, for Godot to restore us to our narcissistic beginnings, at least intermittently full of the promise of eternal happy existence."

This book is Francoise Dolto s 1939 medical thesis and is dedicated to medical practitioners, paediatricians, and parents without prior knowledge of psychoanalysis. Francoise Dolto s aim was to sensitize people to the unconscious dimensions of many problems in children. She demonstrates here, through sixteen case studies, how often children s difficulties at school and at home be they behavioral or due to impaired learning abilities are the expression of psychological issues linked with their developing sexuality and castration anxiety, and result in physical symptoms such as enuresis and encopresis.Dolto points out that the awareness of the self and self-responsibility often develops for young people in families in which the parents do not know how to listen or even more importantly cannot be listened to with trust. There is also a summary of Freud s theories of the different stages of the evolution of the drives, as well as the central developmental role played by the castration complex, castration anxiety, and the Oedipus Complex."

"Understanding Religion and Spirituality in Clinical Practice" is a volume in the clinical practice monograph series from the Society of Analytical Psychology. This series is intended primarily for trainees on psychotherapy and psychodynamic counselling courses, and for those who are newly qualified.Here, Margaret Clark considers the difficulties clinicians may encounter when patients talk about God or about their spiritual life, and how necessary it is for therapists to examine their own image of God and their own understanding of spirituality, so that they can distinguish these from those of their patients. She emphasizes how varied are people s images and understanding of what God stands for, and how in healthy development these will change over time.The book demonstrates, through numerous clinical vignettes, how clinicians can understand a patient s talking about religion or about God hearing the voice of God, having a vision of God, or being convinced that God wants them to act in a particular way; or, equally, seeing the Devil.The book differentiates between religion and spirituality, and between religious and spiritual aims and practices. It also distinguishes some mystical and spiritual experiences from those which are considered psychotic.There is reference to major theorists throughout, particularly to Freud, Jung, and Winnicott."

"On beginning the treatment" (1913) is one of the most important of Freud's technical articles, a theme he examined between 1904 and 1918. This text, which sets out the basis of the treatment and the conditions of psychoanalysis, still provides a solid reference for the analytic practice. Far from a group of rigid rules, Freud spoke of the technique as an art, thinking always of the singularity of each case, even if the fundamental methods of free association and suspended attention specify the psychoanalytical method that differentiates it from the suggestion. In this book, ten eminent analysts, coming from different schools of psychoanalytic thought, confront the contemporary technical proposals to the freudian precepts. The book reexamines, in the light of the latest advances in the analytic practice, such important questions as: the conditions of starting an analysis today; tranference and associativity; the play of the person of the analyst and intersubjectivity; the fundamental rule enunciation in contemporary practice; the conditions and functions of the interpretation; and the energetic drives in action during the treatment.Contributors: Alice Becker Lewkowicz, Hugo Bleichmar, Marie-France Dispaux, Antonino Ferro, Theodore Jacobs, Lewis A. Kirshner, Sergio Lewkowicz, Norberto Marucco, Patrick Miller, Rene Roussillon, Gennaro Saragnano, Christian Seulin, Rogelio Sosnik"

The systems approach to the family is based on the assumptions that there is equality between men and women in the family, and that women and men are treated equally in clinical practice. The contributors to this book challenge these hidden assumptions, discussing the issues from both a conceptual and clinical viewpoint. They argue strongly that questions of gender and power should be central to family therapy training and practice.

This book comprises a collection of the distinguished psychoanalyst Elisabeth Young-Bruehl s papers ranging from Psychoanalysis and Social Democracy, Civilization and its Dream of Contentement, Reflections on Women and Psychoanalysis and Reflections on Psychobiography . Each essay is of value in its own right, and the collection together will be found to make an important contribution to our understanding of the history of psychoanalysis."

Mary J. Maher writes for all those interested in the dynamics of racism, from professionals in counseling, group analysis and psychotherapy working in multiracial and multicultural societies to those exposed to racism who need help in dealing with the impact of their experiences. She also addresses the concept of victims becoming perpetrators if support is not given to contain the process. Herself a group analyst, the author experienced at first-hand racial discrimination within the system, but rather than succumb has instead produced an enduring and proficient work that draws heavily on personal experience. Combining years of counseling skill with a natural compassion, she makes the subject of racism approachable, thus motivating all those wanting to explore the issues. For people whose experience of broken attachments crosses racial lines, this book is possibly the first to use Bowlby s Attachment Theory as a framework for understanding racism. In her endeavor to create harmony among differing cultures, Maher has written an insightful must-read for working with, and understanding, people of diverse races."

This book presents a detailed account of two analytic treatments viewed through the prism of creativity. The book is unique in that it examines analysis from this particular viewpoint, as illustrated by these case studies.The first part of the book contains a review of the classical and contemporary literature on the source and function of creativity. Creativity is then examined from the perspective of several analytic models Freudian, Kleinian, and post-Kleinian.The second and third parts of the book present case illustrations that deal with the use of creative activity in analysis. The creative use of biblical stories in the case of David, or the use of paintings and poems in the case of Rachel, portrayed the inner reality of these patients. David s violent and incestuous biblical stories reflected his world of incestuous and destructive wishes towards his primary objects (and towards the therapist in the transference). Rachel s paintings and poems conveyed her unconscious conflicts, depressive fantasies and anxieties, stemming from her fusion with her mother who was a child Holocaust survivor. Working through their relationships with their primary objects and their self perception, as revealed by these creative activities in analysis, facilitated the patients mourning. The work of mourning incurred in this process helped both David and Rachel achieve a better perception of reality and of their self, unite the fragmented aspects of the self into a whole, and improve their relationships with their primary objects.The book concludes with the therapist s role in facilitating the creative process, which in turn facilitates the therapeutic process. It contains a summary of the role of creative activity in treatment, a discussion of some of the ways in which the therapist facilitated the creative process in order to arrive at the amazing discoveries which it engenders, and a discussion of the way in which the patients creativity was successfully incorporated in their treatment.The therapist s awareness of the patients creativity and its important role in solving the patients conflicting life and death wishes enabled her to help them recognize their aggressive and destructive wishes and work them through. Both patients emerged from a long analysis better integrated."

The book reviews psychoanalytic theory with the aim of developing a evolutionarily feasible model of social behavior and personality that can help to bridge the gap between psychoanalysis and neuroscience.In bringing together various psychoanalytic theories with aspects of ethology, sociology, and behaviorism, the book seeks to overcome the theoretical impasse faced by cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience in their endeavors to understand how the brain has evolved to organize complex social behavior in humans. The book is of academic interest, addressing those working in behavioral sciences who want to gather what can be learned from the rich body of psychoanalytic theory for the sake of advancing the goal shared by all behavioral sciences: to elucidate the principles of regulation of social behavior and personality and understand where and how we can find their neural underpinnings. It advocates that brain-social behavior relationship can only be understood if we learn from and integrate psychoanalytic insights gained across the last century from clinical work by what are often considered to be rival schools of thought. The book should also be of interest to psychoanalysts looking for a systematic and integrative overview of psychoanalytic theories, an overview that reaches across ego psychology, object relations theory, attachment theory, self psychology, and Lacanian theory. The book is not, however, a critique of psychoanalytic theory or a review of its historical development; it emphasizes consistencies and compatibilities rather than differences between psychoanalytic schools of thought.