This book provides easy-to-read, concise, and clinically useful explanations of over 1000 terms and concepts from the field of psychoanalysis. The history of each term is included as is the name of its originator. An attempt is made to demonstrate how the meanings of the term under consideration might have changed, with new connotations accruing with the passage of time and with growth of knowledge. Where possible, the glossary includes diverse perspectives on a given idea and highlights how different analysts have used the same term for different purposes and with different theoretical aims in mind.Ranging from abreaction and abstinence, metapsychology and malignant narcissism to xenophobia and zoophilia, the terms and ideas covered in the book make for a panoramic view of the psychoanalytic universe. The collection is wide-ranging, eclectic, and fundamentally generous: it includes the old, new, controversial, odd-sounding, familiar, unfamiliar all sorts of terms and phrases from the one hundred years history of psychoanalysis. While generally crisp and pithy, a definition here and there also includes an endearing anecdote, a wry remark regarding the hidden ironies in the concept at hand, and a deliciously surprising linkage with another idea in the book."

This book provides easy to read, concise, and clinically useful explanations of over 1800 terms and concepts from the field of psychoanalysis. A history of each term is included in its definition and so is the name of its originator. The attempt is made to demonstrate how the meanings of the term under consideration might have changed, with new connotations accruing with the passage of time and with growth of knowledge. Where indicated and possible, the glossary includes diverse perspectives on a given idea and highlights how different analysts have used the same term for different purposes and with different theoretical aims in mind.

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."

The author's focus in this book is upon the intrapsychic vicissitudes of what it means to be truly alive and how death accompanies us at each step of our life's journey. He attempts to show that, psychologically-speaking, death is always present in life and life in death. He discovers what is emotionally central to being alive and how death and awareness of death--conscious or unconscious--silently color our subjective experience. The fundamental thrust of these socio-clinical meditations is to enhance appreciation of aspects of life that have been inoptimally addressed in psychoanalytic literature and to expand the view of death in ways that might be personally and technically enriching.

In this volume, Akhtar addresses the intricacies of in-depth psychotherapy. He has deliberately limited his exploration five specific areas in order to be able to explore them thoroughly: initial assessment; boundaries; money; disruptions; and suicidal crises.Akhtar s more than three decades of clinical experience has taught him that most problems in the course of dynamic psychotherapy involve these areas; therefore their proper understanding and management is key to productive therapeutic work. Each chapter of this compact book tackles one of these areas in detail, outlining not only the conceptual issues at hand but also the technical strategies that emanate from them. While theoretical grounding does serve as a preamble for the delineation of its technical strategies, the book is replete with clinical vignettes and explicatory comments that illustrate the interventions. This work is designed to introduce the younger generation of therapists to ways of thinking and working that experienced practitioners have found clinically useful."

'Joseph Breuer's celebrated patient, Anna O., designated psychoanalysis to be a "talking cure". She was correct insofar as psychoanalysis does place verbal exchange at the center stage. However, the focus upon the patient's and therapist's speaking activities diverted attention from how the two parties listen to each other. Psychoanalysis is a listening and talking cure. Both elements are integral to clinical work. Listening with no talking can only go so far. Talking without listening can mislead and harm. And yet, the listening end of the equation has received short shrift in analytic literature. This book aims to rectify this problem by focusing upon analytic listening. Taking Freud's early description of how an analyst ought to listen as its starting point, the book traverses considerable historical, theoretical, and clinical territory. The ground covered ranges from diverse methods of listening through the informative potential of the countertransference to the outer limits of our customary attitude where psychoanalytic listening no longer helps and might even be contraindicated.'- Salmon Akhtar, from his Introduction

In this tribute to Selma Kramer, eminent child analyst and colleague and close friend of the late Margaret Mahler, senior analysts explore the continuing relevance of Mahler's separation-individuation theory to developmental and clinical issues. Editors Salman Akhtar and Henri Parens have grouped the original contributions to Beyond the Symbiotic Orbit into sections that reevaluate Mahler's theory. Section I is a timely reassessment of Mahler's working model from the standpoint of contemporary clinical and research findings. It includes comparisons of Mahler with Winnicott and Kohut, and commentaries on the status of separation-individuation theory in relation to psychosexual theory, early ego development, and observational infancy research. Section II addresses the contribution of separation-individuation theory to our understanding of pathogenesis. Neurosis, severe character pathology, psychosomatic phenomena, eating disorders, and sexual perversions are among the topics of specific chapters. The final section explores the role of separation-individuation theory in the treatment of analysands of different ages and with different kinds of psychopathology; it also considers separation-individuation theory with respect to specific aspects of the treatment process, including reconstruction, transference, and termination. A fresh reappraisal of a major perspective on early development, Beyond the Symbiotic Orbit is a fitting testimonial to Selma Kramer, who has played so important a role in elaborating Mahler's theory. Following from Kramer's own example, the contributors show how separation-individuation theory, in its ability to accomodate ongoing clinical and research findings, is subject to continuing growth and refinement. They not only advance our understanding of Mahler's working model, but pursue the implications of this model in new directions, underscoring the many areas of exploration that separation-individuation theory opens to us.

Intimacy: Clinical, Cultural, Digital and Developmental Perspectives applies a contemporary, psychoanalytic lens to the many facets of intimacy between people, from romantic and sexual relationships, to friendliness, as well as the ways intimacy is mediated by new digital technologies. Identifying commonalities and differences between a range of approaches, including Classical Freudian, attachment theory, and interpersonal theory, the book includes case studies that highlight how intimacy is framed in a variety of relationships. It examines the line between privacy and intimacy, as well as how intimacy changes at different stages of one's lifespan. From the friends we have to the pets we own, or the faith we follow, a cross-cultural perspective ensures that intimacy is conceived of as a broad, essential element underlying all human relationships. The intimacy between analyst and analysand is also examined. This far-reaching book will interest both practicing and training psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, as well as those in related disciplines.

Written by experienced practitioners in the fields of addiction and psychoanalysis, and illustrated by a range of moving vignettes, this groundbreaking book examines the psychological foundations of addiction in the areas of food, sex, gambling, internet usage, shopping, and work. This book not only explores the roots of addictive behavior, explaining why popular treatment options such as the 12-Step Program often fail, it also provides insights for emotional resolution and strategies for behavioral change. Beyond the Primal Addiction seeks to understand rather than pathologize addictive behaviours, now so pervasive in contemporary societies. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and other mental health professionals, as well as their clients.

Jealousy is a human feeling experienced by everyone in varying intensities, at different times and phases of growth. Frequently confused, jealousy and envy are often intertwined. Even within the psychoanalytic literature confusion persists and much less has been written about jealousy than envy. However, unlike envy, jealousy involves three entities and affects all people involved. It can be painful as other difficult-to-bear feelings (e.g. shame, guilt anger, hatred) underlie jealousy. Yet, total absence of jealousy renders a person less human, less relational. In analytic terms jealousy is a defense against emotional anguish. This book begins with an extensive overview of the nature, developmental origins and poignant cultural (especially poetic) allusions to jealousy, emphasizing that it is through artistic expression that a true understanding of this frequently deeply disturbing feeling is achieved. It closes with a thoughtful summary, synthesis and critique of the chapters by 12 distinguished analysts.

With contributions from Salman Akhtar, Patricia Boguski, Ann Eichen, April Fallon, Theodore Fallon, Jr., Rama Rao Gogineni, Mark Moore, Sonja Ware. Collectively authored by psychoanalytic colleagues of multiple nationalities, ages, genders, religious origins, and meta-theoretical persuasions, Besides Family goes far beyond the usual orbit of parents and siblings. Casting a wide net, the contributors look at a number of key figures who may affect an individual’s psychic development and functioning. Each character receives a full chapter which highlights both the beneficial and adverse possibilities within these relationships. The book opens with a chapter on nannies, tracing the centuries-old history in the West and focusing on four renowned psychoanalysts: Sigmund Freud, Sándor Ferenczi, John Bowlby, and Wilfred Bion. Next comes a discussion of neighbours, using material from religious texts, fiction, and poetry. This is followed by a chapter on childhood playmates and friends, which examines the nature of friendship and how it develops across the lifespan. School teachers come next, using literature on teacher–student relationships synthesised with psychoanalytic developmental theory. Clergy is the next subject of discussion, blending Judeo-Christian religious customs with psychoanalytic developmental theory. The developmental significance of adolescent peers is examined next using a blend of neurophysiology, endocrine studies, behavioral observations, social–cultural vectors, and psychoanalytic insights. A discussion of lovers and the myriad ways in which romantic relationships mirror early development is the penultimate chapter. The book ends on the role of mentors and the evolution of the mentor–mentee relationship, taking into account the impact of age, race, and gender. The authors integrate material from history, anthropology, sociology, religion, literature, and film studies alongside vignettes from clinical practice and day-to-day life to bring theory to life. This fascinating exploration is essential reading for practising clinicians and trainees to broaden their understanding of the impact of the wide network that surrounds us all.

More and more individuals with ego defects, severe object relations conflicts, affective turbulence, and unassimilated contradictions are seeking help from psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. Contributors to this book explore hereditary and constitutional factors, environmental influences and unconscious fantasies in the development of the psychotic core in such patients and provide guidance for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists to hear and therapeutically respond to these patients' uncanny ways of describing their internal worlds. This volume includes contributions by experienced clinicians from Europe and the United States, as well as case histories illustrating the transformation of the psychotic core and how these patients can develop healthier internal structures. The editors' introductory and closing summaries integrate knowledge dealing with especially difficult patients. By reading this book, psychoanalysts and therapists will be prepared to gain insights as newer neurobiological and psychological research findings become available and, hopefully, enthusiasm about working with individuals with "the seed of madness."

This book offers ten distinguished analysts' insights on shame from various perspectives, which include its developmental substrate, vicissitudes during adolescence, and manifestations in the course of aging and infirmity. It seeks to advance clinicians' empathy and therapeutic skills in this realm.

This book seeks to underscore the multifaceted ways in which we encounter suffering in clinical and social settings. The fear, greed, and guilt cause an individual to suffer privately, while the deception, betrayal, and revenge lead others to suffer.

The editors and contributors examine research regarding the ways the relationships of people and animals are reflected in human psychopathology. They describe how animals figure in psychiatric symptoms, and how people project their concerns onto animals or describe an aspect of their thinking in terms of animals and their behaviors. They continue by examining case studies of patients and pathologies with connections to animals, such as the horses of Little Hans and the image of the Wolfman, and presenting research in how dogs, birds, snakes, spiders, and cats figure in both diagnosis and therapy. Episodes of cruelty to animals are described.

In this book, North American psychiatrists explore the psychic bond between humans and animals and its importance in the normal development of the human mind, animals in human dreams, transformations of humans to animals in literature, animals generally in adult and children's literature and art, animals in religion, and how animals relate to immigration and national identity.

More and more individuals with ego defects, severe object relations conflicts, affective turbulence, and unassimilated contradictions are seeking help from psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. Contributors to this book explore hereditary and constitutional factors, environmental influences and unconscious fantasies in the development of the psychot

"The question whether God is a subject for psychoanalysis is something that must be tackled at the very outset of our enterprise. However as we pay attention to it, the question reveals itself to be the product of a tension that exists between those who believe in the existence of God and those who do not. Sigmund Freud, by the very act of making God a subject of metapsychological deconstruction, took ... a resolutely atheistic position...the Illusion monograph is a literary battlefield where Freud, the Atheist is involved in a bloody combat with Freud, the Believer His pupils and followers adhered religiously to the arguments and declarations he made in The Future of Illusion.The contributors to this book are robust atheists as well as firm believers. There are also those who seem decidedly uncommitted. They come from different regions of the world, represent different ethno-religious backgrounds, and speak in different psychoanalytic tongues. The questions they raise largely pertain to what literal and metaphorical, conscious and unconscious, adaptive and maladaptive, self-soothing and masochistic, and generous and sadistic uses belief in God can be, has been, and is still being put to. Clearly, Freud s intrapsychic debate on whether God exists or not has mushroomed into concerns of much larger scope. Knowing his unflappable willingness to learn, grow, and change his opinions, it is safe to assume that this smorgasbord of conceptual diversity would have been welcomed by Freud, even if he chose to use it for arguing even more forcefully for his position " -- Taken from the Introduction by Salman Akhtar"

Ever since Freud proposed that certain ideas can be permitted to become conscious only in their inverted and negative forms, interest has grown into the entire realm of the presence of absence, so to speak. Or, perhaps, it is better to term such mental contents as the presence in the form of absence. These two ways of conceptualizing Freud's negation have led to a panoply of ideas that include negative hallucination, psychic holes, negative narcissism, selfishly motivated erasure of the Other, and the so-called "work of the negative". This volume elucidates these concepts and refines the distinction between Freud's negation and subsequently described mental mechanisms of denial, repudiation, isolation, and undoing. The book also provides contemporary perspectives on the developmental underpinnings of negation and the technical usefulness of the concept, including its implicit role in negative therapeutic reactions. A thought-provoking and conceptually illuminating volume.

If there ever was one word that could represent the essence of Freud's work, that word would be 'unconscious'. Indeed, Freud himself regarded his 1915 paper 'The Unconscious' as central to clarifying the fundamentals of his metapsychology. The paper delineates the topographic model of the mind and spells out the concepts of primary and secondary process thinking, thing and word presentations, timelessness of the unconscious, condensation and symbolism, unconscious problem solving, and the relationship between the system Ucs and repression. Examining these proposals in the light of contemporary psychoanalytic theory as well as from the perspective of current neurophysiology and ethology, nine distinguished analysts take Freud's ideas further in ways that have implications for both psychoanalytic theory and practice.

"The Future of an Illusion" reveals Freud's reflections about religion as well as his hope that in the future science will go beyond religion, and reason will replace faith in God. The discussion with an imaginary critic revealed his internal debate, mirroring the debate about this subject in the outside world. However, it also enlightens his way of thinking: deconstructing and constructing at the same time. This volume considers Freudian ideas and their implications today, while focusing on the contradictions and gaps in Freud's proposals. The question of the coexistence between religion and psychoanalysis, as well as the place of ideals, belief, illusion, and imagination - and, no less important, the benevolent and destructive aspects of religion - also come into play.

Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle constitutes a major landmark and a real turning point in the evolution of psychoanalytic theory. Pushing aside the primacy of the tension-discharge-gratification model of mental dynamics, this work introduced the notion of a "daemonic force" within all human beings that slowly but insistently seeks psychic inactivity, inertia, and death. Politely dismissed by some as a pseudo-biological speculation and rapturously espoused by others as a bold conceptual advance, "death instinct" became a stepping stone to the latter conceptualizations of mind's attacks on itself, negative narcissism, addiction to near-death, and the utter destruction of meaning in some clinical situations. The concept also served as a bridge between the quintessentially Western psychoanalysis and the Eastern perspectives on life and death. These diverse and rich connotations of the proposal are elucidated in On Freud's "Beyond the Pleasure Principle". Other consequences of Freud's 1920 paper - namely, the marginalization of ego instincts and the "upgrading" of aggression in the scheme of things - are also addressed.

Radical departures from the set and familiar rules of technique often become necessary in the course of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. These can include conducting a session outside the office, giving advice, not charging fees, talking about oneself, giving a gift to the patient, and so on. Such interventions have so far remained imbued with mystery or, worse, have been the staple of cocktail party conversations. Unusual Interventions brings a variety of exceptional measures together to highlight their indications, risks, and their potential anchors in psychoanalytic theory of human relatedness. In accomplishing this, the book itself becomes an unusual addition to the literature on the technique of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

This book is devoted to the developmental substrate of regret and of its vicissitudes over the life span. It deals with fiction, poetry, and movies pertaining to regret. The book elucidates the psychopathological dimension of ego restriction associated with regret.

This book is about death, loss, grief and mourning, but with an unusual twist. It explores specific kinds of deaths encountered within families and households, rather than general concepts of mourning and addresses the death of a different loved one.