The third volume in the Practice of Psychotherap series, "Elusive Elements in Practice," brings together a collection of papers examining the ideas and theories more commonly regarded as off-centre, or indeed elusive, in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The papers in this volume concentrate on the religious and spiritual dimensions of the therapeutic encounter, the "aesthetic experience," creativity, and mysticism. These "moments of relatedness," or meetings of minds, are discussed and examined with the help of clinical examples. This is an innovative collection that demonstrates that the theories and experiences on the margins of practice can further develop our ultimate understanding of the entire process."'[psychotherapists] tend to agree on what is just too eccentric and is to be regarded with reserve and suspicion. These ideas are left on the margins and, getting less attention, they are more elusive. They will not get concentrated consideration either in the consulting room or in the study. This is one reason why they are more elusive. But such neglect may cause potentially good ideas to be lost, as well as ridiculous ones." -- From the Introduction"The therapeutic elements this collection deals with may be elusive, but they are also eminently practical. Steven Mendoza (following Bion) writes on 'faith', Josephine Klein on the importance of true 'recognition' for the patient; others write on the consequences of the baby's experience of the mother's beauty. These therapists venture to look into a more affirmative territory, most of it impeccably psychoanalytic but hitherto obscured, perhaps, by Freud's celebrated pessimism. The result is a courageous and original collection of papers, which offer a great deal of 'food for thought'." -- David M. Black, British Psycho-Analytical SocietyContributors include Patricia Allen, Bernardine Bishop, Faye Carey, Nathan Field, Angela Foster, Josephine Klein, Steven Mendoza, Victoria O'Connell

The first title in the Practice of Psychotherapy Series that explores the limits of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Each of the five chapters in this book takes up an aspect of this challenge. In an open and enquiring manner, the authors invite readers to share in their thinking as they describe how they use their psychoanalytic skills to understand the nature of particular challenges. The Practice of Psychotherapy Series is intended to address a wide variety of important and challenging issues confronting those working in diverse contexts as psychoanalytic psychotherapists. Written by members of the respected London Centre for Psychotherapy, this volume offers an honest and stimulating first contribution.

Difference is a complex and often disturbing issue. The purpose of this book is to encourage a culture of open enquiry into an emotionally charged subject which, the editors argue, has been largely avoided by the profession. Theoretically psychoanalysis is all about recognition and appreciation of difference, yet the psychoanalytic profess

The third volume in the The Practice of Psychotherapy series, Elusive Elements in Practice brings together a collection of papers, examining their ideas and theories more commonly regarded as off-centre, or indeed elusive, in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The papers in this volume concentrate on the religious and spiritual dimension of

Difference is a complex and often disturbing issue. The purpose of this book is to encourage a culture of open enquiry into an emotionally charged subject which, the editors argue, has been largely avoided by the profession. Theoretically psychoanalysis is all about recognition and appreciation of difference, yet the psychoanalytic profession itself does not have a good reputation in this area. This is a courageous collection of papers. All contributors have been prepared to go into print about situations in which difference is a significant element in their work and one around which they have felt uneasy and uncertain as they have found themselves in uncharted territory. Through painstaking analysis of their experience and that of their patients and clients, each contributor provides the reader with some useful insights and guidelines for future reference as well as some clear and stimulating illustrations of effective thinking in strange and disturbing situations. What makes this thinking effective is the demonstrated ability of all contributors to preserve their analytic functioning whatever the circumstances.

The first title in the Practice of Psychotherapy Series that explores the limits of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Each of the five chapters in this book takes up an aspect of this challenge. In an open and enquiring manner, the authors invite readers to share in their thinking as they describe how they use their psychoanalytic skills to understand the nature of particular challenges. The Practice of Psychotherapy Series is intended to address a wide variety of important and challenging issues confronting those working in diverse contexts as psychoanalytic psychotherapists. Written by members of the respected London Centre for Psychotherapy, this volume offers an honest and stimulating first contribution.

Comprising the second volume in the series The Practice of Psychotherapy, this volume brings together six contributors, all members of the London Centre for Psychotherapy, presenting psychoanalytic ideas lucidly illustrated by clinical observatioins taken from the consulting room. Focusing upon such issues as sibling attachment and the impact of maternal absence, this collection of essays offers uniquely personal insights and new idrom psychotherapeutic encounters. The author believes that in each of these papers there is the spark of an original idea...grounded indeed in psychoanalytic theory, but influenced by individual experience and observation in the consulting room.

There's more going on in The Street than its inhabitants realise . . . In the course of this delightful, quirky and perceptive novel an elderly soldier with incipient Alzheimer's saves the life of a remarkable child, a resting actor finds real purpose, a woman starved of love discovers it in an unexpected place and a beloved cat achieves immortality.

Shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Novel Award Cecilia Banks has a great deal on her plate. But when her son Ian turns up on her doostep with the unexpected consequence of a brief fling, she feels she has no choice but to take the baby into her life. Cephas's arrival is the latest of many challenges Cecilia has to face. There is the matter of her cancer, for a start, an illness shared with her novelist friend Helen. Then there is Helen herself, whose observations of Cecilia's family life reveal a somewhat ambivalent attitude to motherhood. Meanwhile Tim, Cecilia's husband, is taking self-effacement to extremes, and Ian, unless he gets on with it, will throw away his best chance at happiness. Cecilia, however, does not have to manage alone. In a convent in Hastings sits Sister Diana Clegg who holds the ties that bind everyone not only to each other, but to strangers as yet unmet. As events unfold and as the truth about Cephas is revealed, we are invited to look closely at madness, guilt, mortal dread and the gift of resilience. No one will remain unchanged. 'Frank, courageous and entertaining. I felt better for reading it' Margaret Drabble

SOMETHING HAS FALLEN AWAY. We have lost a part of ourselves, our history, what we once were. That something, when we encounter it again, look it straight in the eyes, disgusts us, makes us retch. This is the horror of the abject. Following the success of Comma's award-winning New Uncanny anthology, The New Abject invites leading authors to respond to two parallel theories of the abject - Julia Kristeva's theory of the psychoanalytic, intimate abject, and Georges Bataille's societal equivalent - with visceral stories of modern unease. As we become ever-more isolated by social media bubbles, or the demands for social distancing, our moral gag-reflex is increasingly sensitised, and our ability to tolerate difference, or 'the other', atrophies. Like all good horror writing, these stories remind us that exposure to what unsettles us, even in small doses, is always better than pretending it doesn't exist. After all, we can never be wholly free of that which belongs to us.

There's more going on in The Street than its inhabitants realise . . . In the course of this delightful, quirky and perceptive novel an elderly soldier with incipient Alzheimer's saves the life of a remarkable child, a resting actor finds real purpose, a woman starved of love discovers it in an unexpected place and a beloved cat achieves immortality.

'Outdoes Muriel Spark and Evelyn Waugh' Margaret Drabble, Observer Accused of child abuse, Father Roger Tree confesses at once; it masks a darker secret. Meanwhile his sister Romola faces a future without their beloved brother, the novelist Hereward Tree. Can she live with the ending of his last book? And then there is Hereward's much younger lover, Carina, who takes fate into her own hands. But it is Betty Winterborne, forced to re-examine the death of her son Mark twenty years before, who has the courage to face the truth. There are the lies we tell others, and the lies we tell ourselves. This is a story about the difference.