Political Pathologies from The Sopranos to Succession argues that highly praised prestige TV shows reveal the underlying fantasies and contradictions of upper-middle class political centrists. Through a psychoanalytic interpretation of The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Wire, House of Cards, Dexter, Game of Thrones, and Succession, Robert Samuels reveals how moderate "liberals" have helped to produce and maintain the libertarian Right. Samuels' analysis explores the difference between contemporary centrists and the foundations of liberal democracy, exposing the myth of the "liberal media" and considers the consequences of these celebrated series, including the undermining of trust in modern liberal democratic institutions. Political Pathologies from The Sopranos to Succession contributes to a greater understanding of the ways media and political ideology can circulate on a global level through the psychopathology of class consciousness. This book will be of great interest to academics and scholars considering intersections of psychoanalytic studies, television studies and politics.

As inequality widens in all sectors of contemporary society, we must ask: is psychoanalysis too white and well-to-do to be relevant to social, economic, and racial justice struggles? Are its ideas and practices too alien for people of color? Can it help us understand why systems of oppression are so stable and how oppression becomes internalized? In A People's Historyof Psychoanalysis: From Freud to Liberation Psychology, Daniel Jose Gaztambide reviews the oft-forgotten history of social justice in psychoanalysis. Starting with the work of Sigmund Freud and the first generation of left-leaning psychoanalysts, Gaztambide traces a series of interrelated psychoanalytic ideas and social justice movements that culminated in the work of Frantz Fanon, Paulo Freire, and Ignacio Martin-Baro. Through this intellectual genealogy, Gaztambide presents a psychoanalytically informed theory of race, class, and internalized oppression that resulted from the intertwined efforts of psychoanalysts and racial justice advocates over the course of generations and gave rise to liberation psychology. This book is recommended for students and scholars engaged in political activism, critical pedagogy, and clinical work.

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."

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.

Lacan: A Genealogy provides a genealogical account of Lacan's work as a whole, from his early writings on paranoid psychosis to his later work on the real and surplus enjoyment. Beistegui argues that Lacan's work requires an in-depth genealogy to chart and interpret the his key concept of desire. The genealogy is both a historical and critical approach, inspired by Foucault, which consists in asking how - that is, by what theoretical and practical transformations, by the emergence of which discourses of truth, which institutions, and which power relations - our current subjectivity was shaped. Desire is a crucial thread throughout because it lies at the heart not only of liberal political economy, psychiatry and psychopathology, and the various discourses of recognition (from philosophy to psychology and the law) that shape our current politics of identity, but also, and more importantly, of the manner in which we understand, experience and indeed govern ourselves, ethically and politically. A novel reading of Lacan that foregrounds the radicality and urgency of his concepts and the relationship between desire, norm and the law.

The Freudian Matrix of Andre Green presents seven papers, never previously published in English, that will allow readers to more closely follow and more fully understand the development of Green's unique psychoanalytic thinking. The chapters in this book provide valuable insight into Green's response to a perceived crisis in psychoanalysis. His thinking synthesizes the work of Lacan, Winnicott, Bion and other post-Freudian authors with his own extensive clinical experience, and results in a much needed extension of psychoanalytic theory and practice to non-neurotic patients. Green's focus on drives, affect and the work of the negative and his introduction and exploration of the Dead Mother complex, narcissism, negative hallucination and the Death Instinct constitute a vital expansion of Freudian metapsychology and its application to the clinical setting. The Freudian Matrix of Andre Green will be essential reading for psychoanalysts in practice and in training, and for any reader looking to understand more about the enormity of his contribution.

This book blazes a trail in Freud research. Ilse Grubrich-Simitis, a prominent authority on Freud, examines and deciphers Freud's original manuscripts - which had remained disregarded for decades. From these she analyzes Freud's method of working and points out what the writings reveal of his psychological states, the events in his life, and the development of his thinking over time. The book is at once a study of Freud's creativity as a scientist and writer, an important reference on the texts themselves, and a commentary on previously unexplored aspects of Freud's life and work. Examining many hitherto unknown texts, Grubrich-Simitis provides a fresh and authentic picture of the discoverer of the unconscious at work: observing, listening to his patients, gathering the raw material for his oeuvre, fantasizing, drawing conclusions, drafting, rewriting, and correcting. She refutes the legend of the facility of Freud's production, for the notes, drafts, fair copies, and variants she identifies bear witness to the fact that almost every work actually came into being by a process of consuming hard labor. Grubrich-Simitis's analysis of Freud's manuscripts is flanked by two shorter sections on Freud's printed texts: in one she recounts the history of the editions from the beginnings in Vienna to the present day, and in the other she offers a detailed plan for a new historical-critical edition of his works.

Interviews with a broad range of senior analysts. International selection of interviewees. Personal questions providing unique insight into their motivations and career experiences.

Has an internationally renowned list of contributors * Covers theory and practice * Offers a range of visions of likely futures for psychotherapy and psychoanalysis

- presents new areas of research within the field of Gestalt therapy - contributors are veterans in the field

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."

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.

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.

Alcibiades attempted to seduce Socrates, he wanted to make him, and in the most openly avowed way possible, into someone instrumental and subordinate to what? To the object of Alcibiades desire agalma, the good object. I would go even further. How can we analysts fail to recognize what is involved? He says quite clearly: Socrates has the good object in his stomach. Here Socrates is nothing but the envelope in which the object of desire is found. It is in order to clearly emphasize that he is nothing but this envelope that Alcibiades tries to show that Socrates is desire s serf in his relations with Alcibiades, that Socrates is enslaved to Alcibiades by his desire. Although Alcibiades was aware that Socrates desired him, he wanted to see Socrates desire manifest itself in a sign, in order to know that the other the object, agalma was at his mercy. Now, it is precisely because he failed in this undertaking that Alcibiades disgraces himself, and makes of his confession something that is so affectively laden. The daemon of (Aidos), Shame, about which I spoke to you before in this context, is what intervenes here. This is what is violated here. The most shocking secret is unveiled before everyone; the ultimate mainspring of desire, which in love relations must always be more or less dissimulated, is revealed its aim is the fall of the Other, A, into the other, a. Jacques Lacan

Many scholars have struggled with Irigaray's focus on sexuate difference, in particular with her claim that it is "ontological," wondering if this implies a problematically naive or essentialist account of sexuate difference. As a result, the ethical vision which Irigaray elaborates has not been taken up in a robust way in the fields of philosophy, feminism, or psychoanalysis. By tracing the notion of relation throughout Irigaray's work, this book identifies a rigorous philosophical continuity between the three self-identified "phases" in Irigaray's thought (despite some critics' concerns that there is a discontinuity between these phases) and clarifies the relational ontology that underlies Irigaray's conceptualization of sexuate difference - one that always already implies an ethical project. The text demonstrates that an understanding of Irigaray's Heideggerian inheritance - especially prominent in her later texts - is essential to grasping the sense of the idea that sexuate difference is ontological - it concerns Being, rather than beings. This book further develops potential applications of this ontological notion of a "relational limit" for the fields of philosophy, feminism, and psychotherapy.

Contains chapters from internationally respected authors * Includes material from all schools of psychoanalytic thought * Looks at the likely future directions of psychoanalytic theory, practice and influence

Symbiosis and Ambiguity is the first English edition of the classic study of early object relations by influential Argentinian psychoanalyst Jose Bleger (1922-1972). It is rooted in Kleinian thinking and rich in clinical material. Bleger's thesis is that starting from primitive undifferentiation, prior to the paranoid-schizoid position described by Klein, autism and symbiosis co-exist as narcissistic relations in a syncretic 'agglutinated' nucleus. In symbiosis part of the mind is deposited in an external person or situation; in autism it is deposited in the patient's own mind or body. The nucleus is ambiguous and persists in adults as the psychotic part of the personality. Symbiosis tends to immobilise the analytic process, so the analyst must mobilise, fragment and discriminate the agglutinated nucleus, whose ambiguity tends to 'blunt' persecutory situations. The psychoanalytic setting functions as a silent refuge for the psychotic part of the personality, where it creates a 'phantom world'. At some point, therefore, the setting itself has to be analysed and the analytic relationship de-symbiotised, as Bleger observes in a celebrated chapter on the setting. Jose Bleger's work demonstrates the need to analyse early narcissistic object relations as they arise clinically, especially in the setting. More widely, he regards undifferentiation and participation as operating throughout life: in groups, institutions, and society as a whole.

Although Freud makes only occasional, brief references to China and Chinese culture in his works, for almost a hundred years many leading Chinese intellectuals have studied and appropriated various Freudian theories. However, whilst some features of Freud's views have been warmly embraced from the start and appreciated for their various explanatory and therapeutic values, other aspects have been vigorously criticized as implausible or inapplicable to the Chinese context. This book explores the history, reception, and use of Freud and his theories in China, and makes an original and substantial contribution to our understanding of the Chinese people and their culture as well as to our appreciation of western attempts to understand the people and culture of China. The essays are organised around three key areas of research. First, it examines the historical background concerning the China-Freud connection in the 20th century, before going on to use reconstructed Freudian theories in order to provide a modernist critique of Chinese culture. Finally, the book deploys traditional Chinese thought in order to challenge various aspects of the Freudian project. Both Freudianism's universal appeal and its cultural particularity are in full display throughout the book. At the same time, the allure of Chinese cultural and literary expressions, both in terms of their commonality with other cultures and their distinctive characteristics, are also scrutinized. This collection of essays will be welcomed by those interested in early modern and contemporary China, as well as the work and influence of Freud. It will also be of great interest to students and scholars of psychology, psychoanalysis, literature, philosophy, religion, and cultural studies more generally.

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.

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."

"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"

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 normal approach to the study of the foundations of psychoanalysis is to focus on Sigmund Freud's classical texts. In this book, however, Vesa Talvitie approaches the issue from the perspective of the foundations of behavioral sciences in general. He studies the nature of psychological terms and explanations, and the relation between neuroscience and psychology. Due to the wide perspective, the author is able to create a fresh view to the stubborn debate concerning the scientific status of psychoanalysis.The author shows that both advocates and critics of psychoanalysis have a tendency to misconstrue the nature of psychoanalytic theorizing, and thus have had unrealistic expectations of psychoanalytic explanations. The book tries to differentiate between those aspects of psychoanalysis which should be considered scientific, and those aspects of psychotherapies in general which should not come into the scientific category. This book will be found to be a valuable contribution to the field of psychoanalytic studies.