What astonishing success the Name-of-the-Father has had! Everyone finds something in it. Who one's father is isn't immediately obvious, hardly being visible to the naked eye. Paternity is first and foremost determined by one's culture. As Lacan said, "The Name-of-the-Father creates the function of the father." But then where does the plural stem from? It isn't pagan, for it is found in the Bible. He who speaks from the burning bush says of Himself that He doesn't have just one Name. In other words, the Father has no proper Name. It is not a figure of speech, but rather a function. The Father has as many names as the function has props. What is its function? The religious function par excellence, that of tying things together. What things? The signifier and the signified, law and desire, thought and the body. In short, the symbolic and the imaginary. Yet if these two become tied to the real in a three-part knot, the Name-of-the-Father is no longer anything but mere semblance. On the other hand, if without it everything falls apart, it is the symptom of a failed knotting. - Jacques-Alain Miller

Psychoanalysis offers many concepts that are extremely useful clinically but not always accessible in the original. In Psychoanalysis and Literature: The Stories We Live, Marilyn Charles pairs case vignettes with examples from literature to highlight the essential human struggles that play out in the consulting room. This pairing depathologizes those struggles and offers a conceptual framework that can help the clinician facilitate these journeys of discovery. Describing first how literature affords an opportunity for vicarious engagement with struggles endemic to the human condition, she then focuses on trauma, dreams, and 'cultural collisions' turning more explicitly to the developmental challenges of identity, relatedness, aging, and generativity. Psychoanalysis and Literature is accessible, relevant, and timely.

A Psychoanalytical-Historical Perspective on Capitalism and Politics explores how empathy once shaped the collective unconscious, before being replaced by rampant individualistic drive to power. Mino Vianello uses "radical federalism" to define a new approach to democracy, hoping for an end to the repetition of outdated political and economic ideals to solve the world's democratic crisis. The book brings together a multitude of disciplines and perspectives, including Marxism, history, class, feminism, politics and empathy, to provide a comprehensive and honest history of power from the Enlightenment to the present day. This interdisciplinary study will be key reading for academics and scholars of Jungian studies, politics, sociology, history and economics.

This book explores the life and theories of Michael Balint, who kept alive Ferenczi's analytic traditions in Budapest and brought them to London, where they became a vital part of the Independent Group's theory and practice. Balint's theoretical understanding of regression, 'new beginnings', 'basic fault', as well as his profound impact on medicine, are all described. The work in the Balint groups by general practitioners, psychiatrists, and physicians are explored. Whole person and psychosomatic medicine, championed by Balint, is contrasted with today's more compartmentalised approach to medicine, including the increasing separation of the GP from the family.In the second part of the book Dr Sklar reflects on the complex tasks involved in psychodynamic assessment. Vignettes illustrate the importance of understanding the forces in family dynamics, the value of an early memory and a dream, and the sexual life of the patient. The author argues that Balint's ideas are of particular significance to us today, in our world of quick fixes and the overspecialisation of medicine.

Lectures on Technique by Melanie Klein is based on a series of six lectures given by Melanie Klein to students at the British Psychoanalytical Society in 1936 and repeated several times in subsequent years. They were discovered in the Melanie Klein Archives housed in the Wellcome Medical Library and have been previously described by Elizabeth Spillius but never before published. In this book, John Steiner explores what characterises Kleinian Technique, how her technique changed over the years, what she saw as the correct psychoanalytical attitude and how psychoanalytic technique has changed since Klein's death. Melanie Klein, who moved to England from Berlin in 1927, became one of the leading psychoanalysts, following Freud and making an important contribution in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. A pioneer in child analysis, her work remains widely influential throughout the world. This book consists of the full text of the original six lectures, accompanied by a critical analysis from John Steiner who is known internationally as a leading Kleinian analyst and writer. Steiner demonstrates the importance of the lectures in understanding Klein's work and their continued relevance for contemporary psychoanalysis. In addition, also published for the first time, this book includes annotated transcripts of a preserved recording of a seminar Klein held in 1958 with young analysts of the British Psychoanalytical Society. In this seminar, close to the end of her life, many of the points made in the earlier lectures were elaborated upon and brought further up to date in light of developments in Klein's thinking during the intervening years. Featuring rare, previously unpublished material, Lectures on Technique by Melanie Klein provides a new and significant contribution to understanding of the Kleinian paradigm. It will be essential reading for all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists interested in and influenced by Klein's work and legacy.

This is the first book dedicated to the Contemporary Freudian Tradition. In its introduction, and through its selection of papers, it describes the development and rich diversity of this tradition over recent decades, showing how theory and practice are inseparable in the psychoanalytic treatment of children, adolescents and adults. The book is organized around four major concerns in the Contemporary Freudian Tradition: the nature of the Unconscious and the ways that it manifests itself; the extension of Freud's theories of development through the work of Anna Freud and later theorists; the body and psychosexuality, including the centrality of bodily experience as it is elaborated over time in the life of the individual; and aggression. It also illustrates how within the Tradition different exponents have been influenced by psychoanalytic thinking outside it, whether from the Kleinian and Independent Groups, or from French Freudian thinking. Throughout the book there is strong emphasis on the clinical setting, in, for example, the value of the Tradition's approach to the complex interrelationship of body and mind in promoting a deeper understanding of somatic symptoms and illnesses and working with them. There are four papers on the subject of dreams within the Contemporary Freudian Tradition, illustrating the continuing importance accorded to dreams and dreaming in psychoanalytic treatment. This is the only book that describes in detail the family resemblances shared by those working psychoanalytically within the richly diverse Contemporary Freudian Tradition. It should appeal to anyone, from student onwards, who is interested in the living tradition of Freud's work as understood by one of the three major groups within British psychoanalysis.

Enchantment and Gestalt Therapy is a personal exploration of Erving Polster's remarkable career, the value of the Gestalt approach, and the power of enchantment in psychotherapy. Polster points ahead to a vision of a psychotherapy that includes the population as a whole rather than focusing on individuals, highlights common aspects of living, and focuses on creating an ethos for a shared understanding. The book outlines the six Gestalt therapy concepts that have formed the basis of Polster's work and describes Life Focus Groups, with an emphasis on the communal relationship between tellers and listeners. Polster also describes the phenomenon of enchantment in psychotherapy in detail, with reference to his own experiences. This unique work is essential reading for Gestalt therapists, other professionals interested in Gestalt approaches, and readers looking for a deeper insight into community and connection. In the below link, Erving Polster speaks to Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb, the series editor of The Gestalt Therpay Book Series, about Enchantment and Gestalt Therapy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PVG9JgpTQQ&feature=youtu.be

The aim of this book is to awaken creative desire and expand the imagination of the psychotherapist and, in turn, her patient. Each chapter is meant to surprise the reader and help him see the world in a new way. Many varieties of imagination are explored -- the spiritual, the relational, the dreamworld, the aesthetic and the adaptive. The author offers space to reflect, to daydream, to remember; space to pursue goals, to make new connections; space to take risks and space to be wrong. The psychotherapist is encouraged to find her own voice, be poetic, dare to create, converse with other disciplines and, most especially, enter the world of dreams. This is all passed onto the patient as the dyad enters the intersubjective field. Both scholarly and practical, this volume elegantly and persuasively synthesizes for the first time research in many fields, including spirituality and Kabbalah, neuroscience, the arts, biology and artificial intelligence, to give an in depth and original understanding of the current pressing problems in the rapidly changing field of psychotherapy: how do we work with unconscious processes and early memories to help our patients become more imaginative, creative, hopeful and resilient, and in so doing, heal. The relationship between the body and creative imagination is fully explored as well as the disruptive effect of trauma on the imagination and how to address this. The emphasis on surprise, uncanny communication, interdisciplinary inquiry, use of dreamwork and the imagination of the body - how it spontaneously meets new challenges- all stimulate the creativity of the reader. Through numerous case studies, the author illustrates the practical implications of how this exploration allows for deeper understanding and more effective treatment. With the innovative synthesis and specific techniques the author provides, the clinician has tools to carry on the work of moving the field of psychotherapy forward as well as work ever more effectively with patients.

Dionysus, god of dismemberment and sponsor of the lost or abandoned feminine, originates both Jungian psychology and literature in Remembering Dionysus. Characterized by spontaneity, fluid boundaries, sexuality, embodiment, wild nature, ecstasy and chaos, Dionysus is invoked in the writing of C. G. Jung and James Hillman as the dual necessity to adopt and dismiss literature for their archetypal vision of the psyche or soul. Susan Rowland describes an emerging paradigm for the twenty-first century enacting the myth of a god torn apart to be re-membered, and remembered as reborn in a great renewal of life. Rowland demonstrates how persons, forms of knowing and even eras that dismiss Dionysus are torn apart, and explores how Jung was Dionysian in providing his most dismembered text, The Red Book. Remembering Dionysus pursues the rough god into the Sublime in the destruction of meaning in Jung and Jacques Lacan, to a re-membering of sublime feminine creativity that offers zoe, or rebirth participating in an archetype of instinctual life. This god demands to be honoured inside our knowing and being, just as he (re)joins us to wild nature. This revealing book will be invigorating reading for Jungian analysts, psychotherapists, arts therapists and counsellors, as well as academics and students of analytical psychology, depth psychology, Jungian and post-Jungian studies, literary studies and ecological humanities.

This second edition of Ronald Britton's personal reappraisal of psychoanalytic theories is based on further clinical experience, further study of current neuroscience and continued reflection on the relationship of brain and mind, selfhood and self-awareness, belief and knowledge, and certainty and uncertainty. Divided into three parts - "Hysteria," "The ego and superego," and "Narcissism" - this new edition adds content on brain, mind and self, the death instinct and a discussion on the biological, psychological and sociological basis of gender. It suggests that our increasing knowledge necessarily produces a dissolution of our coherent concepts of mind and brain, and that during this phase of creative dissolution we need to reassess what we know and what we don't know. Fundamental to the book is the notion that human beings have to live with probability but that we long for certainty, and create it for ourselves. This book will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in clinical practice and academia, as well as other mental health professionals and those with an interest in psychoanalytic theory.

In Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Freud explores theories on group dynamics and how psycho-sociological forces shape personality. He argues that an individual derives security from being part of a group, what he terms 'the Herd Instinct.' However, this feeling of belonging leads to a loss of the individual's consciousness. Other topics covered include Being in Love, Suggestion and Libido, and Identification.

This book explores the practice and transmission of Lacanian and Freudian theory. It discusses the pure versus applied analysis of Lacanian and Freudian theory in practice; and the hierarchical versus circular transmissions within psychoanalytic organizations. Underpinned by extensive practical knowledge of the clinic, this work examines the differences between Freud and Lacan in their understanding of the subject and the unconscious and pushes them in new directions. The book also offers an analysis and commentary of several key Lacanian texts including an accessible study of the notoriously challenging text L'etourdit. Offering both divergent and reinforcing takes on Lacan, the author explores the traits that separate out the psychoanalyst from other twentieth-century thinkers and theorists. This book offers a clear clinical picture of where Lacanian psychoanalysis is today, both in the US and internationally.

In The Power of Specificity in Psychotherapy: When Therapy Works-And When It Doesn't Howard Bacal presents specificity theory, a contemporary process theory of psychotherapy that holds that therapy happens at the fit between the patient's particular therapeutic needs and the therapist's capacity to respond to them, both of which will emerge and change within the unique process of each particular dyad. Specificity theory challenges the traditional method and epistemology of psychoanalysis, wherein the understanding of the patient and the therapeutic response are apprehended through rules and prescriptions that are generated through the application of structure theories. The therapeutic engagement must necessarily and continually be monitored and adjusted to fit the specific and changing needs, capacities, and limitations of both participants, regardless of the therapist's formal working theories. Grounded in the innovative thinking of Sandor Ferenczi and drawing as well from the creative work of Michael Balint, Wilfred Bion, Donald Winnicott, Marion Milner, and Heinz Kohut, the perspectives of specificity theory are corroborated by cutting-edge findings in contemporary neurobiology and infant research. The Power of Specificity in Psychotherapy challenges psychotherapists to reconsider how treatment is optimally practiced.

"A chance meeting of a sewing machine and an umbrella. The impossible face-off between a whale and a polar bear. One was devised by Lautreamont; the other punctuated by Freud. Both are memorable. Why so? They certainly tickle something in us. Lacan says what it is. It's about man and woman. There is neither accord nor harmony between man and woman. There's no programme, nothing has been predetermined: every move is a shot in the dark, which in modal logic is called contingency. There's no way out of it. Why is it so inexorable, that is, so necessary? It really has to be reckoned that this stems from an impossibility. Hence the theorem: 'There is no sexual relation.' The formula has become famous. In the place of what thereby punctures a hole in the real, there is a plethora of luring and enchanting images, and there are discourses that prescribe what this relation must be. These discourses are mere semblance, the artifice of which psychoanalysis has made apparent to all. In the twenty-first century, this is beyond dispute. Who still believes that marriage has a natural foundation? Since it's a fact of culture, one devotes oneself to inventing. One cobbles together different constructions from whatever one can. It may be better ... or worse. 'There is Oneness.' At the heart of the present Seminar, this aphorism, which hitherto went unnoticed, complements the 'there is no' of sexual relation, stating what there is. It should be heard as One-all-alone. Alone in jouissance (which is fundamentally auto-erotic) and alone in significance (outside any semantics). Here begins Lacan's late teaching. Everything he has already taught you is here, and yet everything is new, overhauled, topsy-turvy. Lacan had taught the primacy of the Other in the order of truth and the order of desire. Here he teaches the primacy of the One in its real dimension. He rejects the Two of sexual relation and that of signifying articulation. He rejects the Big Other, the fulcrum of the dialectic of the subject, disputing its existence, which he consigns to fiction. He depreciates desire and promotes jouissance. He rejects Being, which is mere semblance. Henology, the doctrine of the One, here outclasses ontology, the theory of Being. What about the symbolic order? Nothing more than the reiteration of the One in the real. Hence the abandoning of graphs and topological surfaces in favour of knots made of rings of string, each of which is an unlinked One. Recall that Seminar XVIII sighed for a discourse that would not be semblance. Well, with Seminar XIX, we have an attempt at a discourse that would take its point of departure in the real. The radical thought of modern Uni-dividualism." --Jacques-Alain Miller

• Links the cultural agency of imaginative discourse to its capacity to address, challenge, and evoke a deep sociality characteristic of humans; • Brings together two prominent currents informing contemporary literary theory—affective and neurocognitive-evolutionary literary studies and work calling for renewed attentiveness to ethical and aesthetic qualities in literary works; • Develops and illustrates his arguments through analyses of a wide range of literary works

This book describes the ways in which space can be created to strengthen the capacity to withstand suffering, as well as the application of systemic and narrative psychology to develop interventions at an individual, team, group, and organisational level.

In this book, Marcus Evans makes a strong case for the importance of psychoanalytic supervision in mental health practice and its role in helping frontline staff to "tune in" to their patients' unconscious communications or the "psychotic wavelength".

Contextual Transactional Analysis: The Inseparability of Self and World offers a novel and comprehensive reworking of key concepts in transactional analysis, offering insight into the causes of psychological distress and closing the gap between training and clinical practice. By providing a bigger picture - as much sociological as psychological - of what it means to be human, the book makes an essential contribution to current debates about how best to account for and work with the social and cultural dimensions of client experience. James M. Sedgwick captures the ongoing importance of what happens around us and the distinctive kinds of psychological distress that arise from persistent and pervasive environmental disadvantage. Beginning with a view of people as always situated and socialised, the book highlights the many ways that the world always and everywhere constrains or enables thought and action. Ranging through ideas about the kinds of contextual conditions which might make psychological distress more likely and illuminating the complex relationship between socialisation and autonomy, the book suggests what the implications of these conclusions might be for clinical understanding and practice. Sedgwick's insightful and compassionate work revises the theoretical framework, fills a current gap in the clinical literature and points the way to greater practitioner efficacy. Contextual Transactional Analysis will be an insightful addition to the literature for transactional analysts in practice and in training, for professionals interested in the theory and practice of transactional analysis and anyone seeking to understand the contribution of context to psychological distress. See the below link for an interview about the book with Mark Head: https://vimeo.com/488738427

What are our values as psychotherapists and clients regarding differing notions of masculinity? Furthermore, what stops us thinking about them? This book explores our thoughts and expressions about masculinity and determines whether they are inhibited and indeed prevented by cultural, social and intellectual forces. Leading exponents in this book explore psychotherapists and their clients' issues of masculinity including: How tied up is masculine authority with suspect patriarchy? What might it mean to be strong enough to put a client, whether man or woman, first? To what extent can a psychotherapist's resistance to changing notions of masculinity create a stumbling block for the clients? What is the relation of masculinity to changing notions of femininity and gender identities? What's castration got to do with it? Can one be critical without being reactionary? What are the masculinities that psychotherapists encounter and what direction, if any, should psychotherapists encourage men and women towards? Through these questions and many others, this book contributes to the debates and therapeutic practices around masculinity and explores the biases and assumptions around gender and its social construct. This volume will be beneficial to professionals, academics, researchers, and students of Psychology, Psychotherapy, Counselling, Psychoanalysis and Gender Studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling.

In a work of startling originality, Professor Brett Kahr has resurrected Donald Winnicott from the dead and has invited him for a memorable cup of tea at 87 Chester Square - his former London residence - where the two men discuss Winnicott's life and work in compelling detail. With original drawings by Alison Bechdel, best-selling author and illustrator of Fun Home and Are You My Mother?, this 'posthumous interview' will be the perfect guide for students and the ideal present for colleagues.

Includes discussion of virtual analytic sessions. Addresses new and different social and technological realities, the internet, the new sexual discourse. Leading psychoanalytic contributors.

This book places Freud's theory of the reality principle in relation to both everyday experience and global issues of the 21st century and illustrates how it may be practically applied. Arguing against more critical recent accounts of Freud's science, the author seeks to show how one might apply the scientific method to everyday life. It demonstrates how Freud contributes to a better understanding of reason and how this in turn can be used to unravel the role of unreason in both politics and personal relationships. Including critical examinations of topics such as Narcissism, Victimhood and Empathy, this engaging reappraisal of Freud's relevance to contemporary life offers fresh insights for psychology, psychoanalysis and cultural theory; as well as practical guidance for a general reader.

Builds on the work of Bion and Ogden, both of whom remain very fashionable in psychoanalysis * Contains new theory and practical guidance * Dreams remain a core topic in psychoanalysis

Builds on the work of Bion and Ogden, both of whom remain very fashionable in psychoanalysis * Contains new theory and practical guidance * Dreams remain a core topic in psychoanalysis