Critical theory draws on Marxism, psychoanalysis, postmodern and poststructuralist theorists. Marxism and psychoanalysis are rooted in the Enlightenment project, while postmodernism and poststructuralism are more indebted to Nietzsche, whose philosophy is rooted in anti-Enlightenment ideas and ideals. Marxism and psychoanalysis contributed mightily to our understanding of fascism and authoritarianism, but were distorted and disfigured by authoritarian tendencies and practices in turn. This book, written for clinicians and social scientists, explores these overarching themes, focusing on the reception of Freud in America, the authoritarian personality and American politics, Lacan's "return to Freud," Jordan Peterson and the Crisis of the Liberal Arts, and the anti-psychiatry movement.

- first volume to address the philosophical and psychological parameters of Critical Theory in psychoanalysis - broad market potential, namely academics and scholars in a variety of disciplines with interdisciplinary interests i.e. philosophers, psychoanalysts, political scientists, cultural theorists, sociologists, psychologists, religious studies

This is the first full-scale intellectual biography in English of Erich Fromm, perhaps the most widely read psychoanalyst after Freud, whose contributions to clinical and social psychology and the history of the psychoanalytic movement have long been underrated. Though considered a pedant, a popularizer--"Escape from Freedom," "The Sane Society," and "The Art of Loving," among others, were best-sellers -and an "outsider" in many psychoanalytic circles, Fromm played a historic role in the development of the discipline. As a member of Freud's "loyal opposition" with strong leanings toward the "dissident fringe;' he helped effect the transfer of productive ideas from the periphery to the mainstream of the psychoanalytic movement. Daniel Burston's meticulous elucidation of these ideas unravels the numerous strands--philosophical, literary, and social--that formed a part of Freud's own work and of Fromm's sympathetic, but not uncritical, reaction to Freudian orthodoxy. Despite his grounding in the tradition of Freud, contemporaries and former associates persistently misunderstood Fromm's work.

Insofar as he attempted to decipher the ideological subtexts to Freudian theory, analytically oriented theorists doing clinical or social research avoided his ideas. His Marxist leanings and his radically historical approach to human behavior made it all but impossible for mainstream academic psychologists to grasp his meaning, much less to grant it any validity. At the same time, his humanistic and ethical concerns struck many psychologists as grossly unscientific.

Practical and intellectual constraints have conspired to ensure that Fromm's impact has been peripheral at best. Burston's eloquent, evenhanded reassessment of Fromm's life and work cuts through the ideological and political underbrush to reveal his pivotal role as a theorist and a critic of modern psychoanalysis. It leads readers back to Freud, whose theoretical and clinical contributions Fromm refracted and extended, and on to controversies that remain a vital part of contemporary intellectual life.

- first volume to address the philosophical and psychological parameters of Critical Theory in psychoanalysis - broad market potential, namely academics and scholars in a variety of disciplines with interdisciplinary interests i.e. philosophers, psychoanalysts, political scientists, cultural theorists, sociologists, psychologists, religious studies

Winner of the Internationl Association for Jungian Studies (IAJS) Book Award for Best Applied Book 2021 Carl Jung angrily rejected the charge that he was an anti-Semite, yet controversies concerning his attitudes towards Jews, Zionism and the Nazi movement continue to this day. This book explores Jung's ambivalent relationship to Judaism in light of his career-changing relationship and rupture with Sigmund Freud and takes an unflinching look at Jung's publications, public pronouncements and private correspondence with Freud, James Kirsch and Erich Neumann from 1908 to 1960. Analyzing the religious and racial, Christian and Muslim, high-brow and low-brow varieties of anti-Semitism that were characteristic of Jung's time and place, this book examines how Muslim anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism intensified following the Balfour Declaration (1917), fostering the resurgence of anti-Semitism on the Left since the fall of the Soviet Empire. It urges readers to be mindful of the new and growing threats to the safety and security of Jewish people posed by the resurgence of anti-Semitism around the world today. This book explores the history of the controversy concerning Jung's anti-Semitism both before and after the publication of Lingering Shadows: Jungians, Freudians and Anti-Semitism (1991), and invites readers to reflect on the relationships between Judaism, Christianity and Zionism, and between psychoanalysis and analytical psychology, in new and challenging ways. It will be of considerable interest to psychoanalysts, historians and all those interested in the history of analytical psychology, anti-Semitism and interfaith dialogue.

Over the past 15 years, there has been a 300 percent increase in the use of psychotropic medications with girls and boys under the age of 20, and prescriptions for preschoolers have skyrocketed. A stellar group of authors from across disciplines explains this increase, questions the causes, and presents disturbing thoughts regarding this phenomenon as they describe the risks it creates for children. While there are certainly extreme cases where drugs are the only option, medication rather than psychotherapy and counseling has become the first choice for treatment rather than a last resort. The experts who joined forces for this book take an in-depth look at the conditions that have led to "drugging our children," and stress how emotional, social, cultural, and physical environments can both damage and heal young minds. The so-called medical model, one maintaining that psychological disturbance is genetic and thus requires medication, is challenged in this volume. Contributors range from a pediatrician who has testified before Congress and been featured in a Time magazine cover story, to a top child psychiatrist who is an official for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, along with a well-known child psychiatrist, psychologists, environmentalists, and a public policy consultant. This is riveting reading for all who care about the youngest members of society. Among other issues, this work looks at controversy over whether psychiatric medications are safe or effective for children--and what little we know about their effect on still-developing brains--as well as the role of corporate interests in the increased use of psychotropics for children. Chapters address the roleof environment in both causing and curing disorders more and more often diagnosed in our youngsters: from ADHD, depression, and anxiety to eating disorders. The core questions addressed by this sage group of contributors are these: Why are so many children being diagnosed with "psychiatric" disturbances and given drugs? Why have drugs become the first treatment of choice to deal with those disorders?

Erik Erikson and the American Psyche is an intellectual biography which explores Erikson's contributions to the study of infancy, childhood and ethical development in light of ego psychology, object-relations theory, Lacanian theory and other major trends in psychoanalysis. It analyses Erikson's famous portraits of Luther, Gandhi and Jesus, and his own ambiguous religious identity, in the context of his anguished childhood and adolescence, and his repeated emphasis on the need for strong intergenerational bonds to insure mental health throughout the life cycle. Given Erikson's persistent efforts to harmonize psychoanalysis with history and the human sciences, it interprets his invention of psychohistory as a 'pseudo-schism' which enabled Erikson to throw off the stifling constraints of Freudian orthodoxy, disclosing the personal and intellectual tensions that prevailed between him and many leaders of the International Psychoanalytic Association. Finally, it demonstrates the enduring relevance of Erikson's unique perspective on human development to our increasingly screen-saturated, drug addled postmodern - or 'posthuman' - culture, and the ways in which his posthumous neglect foreshadows the possible death of psychoanalysis in North America.

This book explores the life and work of a neglected figure in the history of psychoanalysis, Karl Stern, who brought Freudian theory and practice to Catholic (and Christian) audiences around the world.Karl Stern was a German-Jewish neurologist and psychiatrist who fled Germany in 1937 - first to London, then to Canada, where he taught at McGill University and the University of Ottawa, becoming Chief of Psychiatry at several major clinics in Ottawa and Montreal between 1952 and 1968, when he went into private practice. In 1951 he published The Pillar of Fire, a memoir that chronicled his childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, his medical and psychiatric training, his first analysis, and his serial flirtations with Jewish Orthodoxy, Marxism and Zionism - all in the midst of the galloping Nazification of Germany. It also explored the long-standing inner-conflicts that preceded Stern's conversion to Catholicism in 1943.

Critical theory draws on Marxism, psychoanalysis, postmodern and poststructuralist theorists. Marxism and psychoanalysis are rooted in the Enlightenment project, while postmodernism and poststructuralism are more indebted to Nietzsche, whose philosophy is rooted in anti-Enlightenment ideas and ideals. Marxism and psychoanalysis contributed mightily to our understanding of fascism and authoritarianism, but were distorted and disfigured by authoritarian tendencies and practices in turn. This book, written for clinicians and social scientists, explores these overarching themes, focusing on the reception of Freud in America, the authoritarian personality and American politics, Lacan's "return to Freud," Jordan Peterson and the Crisis of the Liberal Arts, and the anti-psychiatry movement.

One of the great rebels of psychiatry, R. D. Laing challenged prevailing models of madness and the nature and limits of psychiatric authority. In this brief and lucid book, Laing's widely praised biographer distills the essence of Laing's vision, which was religious and philosophical as well as psychological.

The Crucible of Experience reveals Laing's philosophical debts to existentialism and phenomenology in his theories of madness and sanity, family theory and family therapy. Daniel Burston offers the first detailed account of Laing's practice as a therapist and of his relationships -- often contentious -- with his friends and sometime disciples. Burston carefully differentiates between Laing and "Laingians", who were often clearer, more confident, and more simplistic than their teacher.

While he examines Laing's theories of madness, Burston focuses most provocatively on Laing's views of sanity and normality and on his recognition, toward the end of his life, of the essential place of holiness in human experience. In a powerful last chapter, Burston shows that Laing foresaw the present commercialization of medicine and asked pointed questions about what the meaning of sanity and the future of psychotherapy in such a world could be. In this, as in other matters, Laing's questions of a generation ago remain questions for our time. At once critical and sympathetic, Burston wrestles with many of the latent contradictions in Laing's work that have gone unnoticed until now.

Daniel Burston chronicles Laing's meteoric rise to fame as one of the first media psycho-gurus of the century, and his spiraling decline in the late seventies and eighties. Here are the successes: Laing's emergence as a unique voice on the psychiatric scene with his first book, The Divided Self, in 1960; his forthright and articulate challenges to conventional wisdom on the origins, meaning, and treatment of mental disturbances; his pioneering work on the families of schizophrenics, Sanity, Madness and the Family (coauthored with A. Esterson). Here as well are Laing's more dubious moments, personal and professional, including the bizarre experiment with psychotic patients at Kingsley Hall. Burston traces many of Laing's controversial ideas and therapeutic innovations to a difficult childhood and adolescence in Glasgow and troubling experiences as an army doctor; he also offers a measured assessment of these ideas and techniques. The R. D. Laing who emerges from these pages is a singular combination of skeptic and visionary, an original thinker whose profound contradictions have eclipsed the true merit of his work. In telling his story, Burston gives us an unforgettable portrait of an anguished human being and, in analyzing his work, recovers Laing's achievement for posterity.