Offering a fresh and innovative perspective on psychodynamic psychotherapy, this book captures the possibilities of using psychodynamic theory in service of progressive and socially relevant application. It takes the reader on a journey through the sensitive and often painful realities of contemporary South African life. Psychoanalysis as a long-term modality is inaccessible to the average South African, and in this book the authors describe how psychoanalytically orientated or psychodynamic psychotherapy can be practiced as a short-term endeavor and applied to contemporary issues facing the country. Psychodynamic work is currently undertaken by clinical psychologists, therapists, clinicians, trainers, teachers, clinical supervisors, consultants, and researchers working in university settings, state hospitals, community projects, private practice, and research. The debates, clinical issues, therapeutic practice, and nature of research covered in the book are widely representative of the work being done in the country. The need for shorter term therapy models and evidence-based interventions is as acute in global practice as it is locally. The lessons learned in South Africa have broader implications for international practitioners, and the authors stress the potential inherent in psychoanalytic theory and technique to tackle the complex problems faced in all places and settings characterized by increasing globalization and dislocation.

This volume comprehensively explores the life trajectories of nine child/adolescent Holocaust concentration camp survivors as recollected when the subjects were elders. Based on extensive face to face interview material, enduring psychological and symptomatic effects were evident. Survivors retained vivid recollections of the horror of internment and expressed ongoing grief for the multiple losses they had experienced. Unresolved grief contributed to a sense of existential loneliness, particularly prominent in their late life reflections.  Despite indications of resilience and life productivity, a ‘Trauma Trilogy’ of inter-linked catastrophic grief, anger and survivor guilt contributed to a sense of pain and struggle in negotiating Erikson’s final life task of Integrity versus Despair.