"Crossing Borders - Integrating Differences" is a collection of the papers delivered by psychoanalysts and analytic psychotherapists from the various countries of Europe at the Fifth Conference of the Adult Section of the European Federation for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in the Public Sector (EFPP), in the year 2005. Held in Dresden, this conference brought together almost 400 analytic psychotherapists from Europe, all of them engaged within the EFPP, through their various national societies, in the different applications of psychoanalytic methods in the public healthcare sector either in healthcare systems subject to public law or in those run by the state for in-patient and out-patient treatment and during rehabilitation. The theme of the conference Crossing Borders - Integrating Differences required the speakers, as psychoanalytic psychotherapists, to give thought to their daily task of crossing borders and integrating differences. This book with all its papers will stimulate the readers to cross borders: between theory and practice, between research and everyday therapy, between out-patient and in-patient psychotherapy, between the view of one s own, the known and the culturally foreign. Yet it is only with an awareness of these borders, an acknowledgement and respect for them, that it will be possible to proceed towards integrating differences, where this makes sense and appears necessary.Contributors: Elitsur Bernstein; Christopher Bollas; Peter Brundl; Michael B. Buchholz; Georgia Chalkia; Bernard Golse; Stephan Hau; Grigoris Maniadakis; Luisa Perrone; Jan Philipp Reemtsma; Maurizio Russo; Hermann Staats; Martin Teising; Sieglinde Eva Toemmel; Irini Vlahaki."

In dialogue with the most famous myth for the origin of different languages - The Tower of Babel - A Psychoanalytic Exploration on Sameness and Otherness: Beyond Babel? provides a series of timely reflections on the themes of sameness and otherness from a contemporary psychoanalytic perspective. How are we dealing with communication and its difficulties, the confusion of tongues and loss of common ground within a European context today? Can we move beyond Babel? Confusion and feared loss of shared values and identity are a major part of the daily work of psychoanalytic psychotherapists. Bringing together an international range psychoanalytic practitioners and researchers, the book is divided into six parts and covers an array of resonant topics, including: language and translation; cultural identity; families and children; the cyber world; the psychotherapeutic process; and migration. Whereas the quest for unity, which underpins the myth of Babel, leads to mystification, simplification, and the exclusion of people or things, multilingual communities necessitate mutual understanding through dialogue. This book examines those factors that further or threaten communication, aiming not to reduce, but to gain complexity. It suggests that diversification enriches communication and that, by relating to others, we can create something new. As opposed to cultural and linguistic homogeneity, Babel is not only a metaphor for mangled communication, alienation, and distraction, it is also about the acceptance or rejection of differences between self and other. This book will be of great interest to psychoanalytic psychotherapists and researchers from a wide variety of backgrounds.

In dialogue with the most famous myth for the origin of different languages - The Tower of Babel - A Psychoanalytic Exploration on Sameness and Otherness: Beyond Babel? provides a series of timely reflections on the themes of sameness and otherness from a contemporary psychoanalytic perspective. How are we dealing with communication and its difficulties, the confusion of tongues and loss of common ground within a European context today? Can we move beyond Babel? Confusion and feared loss of shared values and identity are a major part of the daily work of psychoanalytic psychotherapists. Bringing together an international range psychoanalytic practitioners and researchers, the book is divided into six parts and covers an array of resonant topics, including: language and translation; cultural identity; families and children; the cyber world; the psychotherapeutic process; and migration. Whereas the quest for unity, which underpins the myth of Babel, leads to mystification, simplification, and the exclusion of people or things, multilingual communities necessitate mutual understanding through dialogue. This book examines those factors that further or threaten communication, aiming not to reduce, but to gain complexity. It suggests that diversification enriches communication and that, by relating to others, we can create something new. As opposed to cultural and linguistic homogeneity, Babel is not only a metaphor for mangled communication, alienation, and distraction, it is also about the acceptance or rejection of differences between self and other. This book will be of great interest to psychoanalytic psychotherapists and researchers from a wide variety of backgrounds.

This book will stimulate readers to cross borders: between theory and practice, between research and everyday therapy, between out-patient and in-patient psychotherapy, between the view of ones own, the known and the culturally foreign. Yet it is only with an awareness of these borders, an acknowledgement and respect of them, that it will be possib