Drawing on a broad range of psychoanalytic, cultural and social influences, the author examines the concept of toxic masculinity for how it brings into focus a widespread anxiety about toxicity throughout daily life: in nature, society and personal relationships. Aggressive, misogynistic masculinity has become a major topic in recent years, spreading throughout popular culture, the media and research. Often called 'phallic', it simmers in everyday life and hits the headlines for turning florid and violent in maintaining its dominance, especially towards women. But at the extreme, phallic masculinity has recently crystallized in a very different form, as toxic masculinity; and 'toxic' has become the near-universal epithet for all forms of extreme destructiveness in a 'toxic culture'. It has brought into focus, and named as masculine, an anxiety over a toxicity in every corner of everyday life. Exploring toxic masculinity in depth brings out a misogynistic current that pervades individual and social realms, but also throws a sharp light on normal masculinity. By elaborating the roots of this toxicity, Figlio is able to draw out a different, more positive alternative for masculinity, with particular reference to the underlying fears around fertility and the seminal. With a strong research and clinical base, this book is essential reading for all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, and cultural and social theorists interested in exploring concepts of masculinity.

Drawing on a broad range of psychoanalytic, cultural and social influences, the author examines the concept of toxic masculinity for how it brings into focus a widespread anxiety about toxicity throughout daily life: in nature, society and personal relationships. Aggressive, misogynistic masculinity has become a major topic in recent years, spreading throughout popular culture, the media and research. Often called 'phallic', it simmers in everyday life and hits the headlines for turning florid and violent in maintaining its dominance, especially towards women. But at the extreme, phallic masculinity has recently crystallized in a very different form, as toxic masculinity; and 'toxic' has become the near-universal epithet for all forms of extreme destructiveness in a 'toxic culture'. It has brought into focus, and named as masculine, an anxiety over a toxicity in every corner of everyday life. Exploring toxic masculinity in depth brings out a misogynistic current that pervades individual and social realms, but also throws a sharp light on normal masculinity. By elaborating the roots of this toxicity, Figlio is able to draw out a different, more positive alternative for masculinity, with particular reference to the underlying fears around fertility and the seminal. With a strong research and clinical base, this book is essential reading for all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, and cultural and social theorists interested in exploring concepts of masculinity.

This book offers a psychosocial perspective on political violence, employing a strong current of psychoanalytic thinking. In the course of its chapters an international roster of researchers and scholars offers a richly complex and insightful view of diverse forms of political violence and its build-ups. The authors discuss the processes by which the ground for political violence is prepared, and how violent acts are facilitated. They question how social, cultural and political constellations can develop in such a way that, for certain people in this constellation, violence becomes a logical - perversely reasonable - response. This collection demonstrates what a psychoanalytic perspective can bring to existing approaches to political violence, going beyond the social movement approach by unfolding the inherent ambiguity in accepted concepts within the study of political violence.

This book offers a psychosocial perspective on political violence, employing a strong current of psychoanalytic thinking. In the course of its chapters an international roster of researchers and scholars offers a richly complex and insightful view of diverse forms of political violence and its build-ups. The authors discuss the processes by which the ground for political violence is prepared, and how violent acts are facilitated. They question how social, cultural and political constellations can develop in such a way that, for certain people in this constellation, violence becomes a logical - perversely reasonable - response. This collection demonstrates what a psychoanalytic perspective can bring to existing approaches to political violence, going beyond the social movement approach by unfolding the inherent ambiguity in accepted concepts within the study of political violence.

This book brings together psychoanalysis, clinical and theoretical, with history in a study of remembering as reparation: not compensation, but recognition of the actuality of perpetration and the remorseful urge to rejuvenate whatever represents this damage. Karl Figlio argues that this process, intensively studied by Melanie Klein, is shadowed by manic reparation, which simulates, but is antithetical, to it. Both aim for peace of mind: the former in a guilt-induced attitude of making better a damaged 'good object', internal and external; the latter, supported by defences thoroughly studied in psychoanalysis, in claiming liberation from an accusatory object. This psychoanalytic line of thinking converges with historical scholarship on post-war German memory and memorialization. Remembering is posited as ambivalent - it is reparative, in 'remembering true', with respect and self-respect. It is also manic reparative, in 'remembering false', shedding bonds to the actuality of history through acts of triumph and liberation. This thoughtful book highlights new features of history and memory work, especially the importance of emotion, and will be of great value to students, academics and practitioners across the fields of psychoanalysis, memory studies, German studies and modern history.