The Psychic Home: Psychoanalysis of Consciousness and the Human Soul develops, from a number of different viewpoints, the significance of home in our lives. Roger Kennedy puts forward the central role of what he has termed a 'psychic home' as a vital psychic structure, which gathers together a number of different human functions. Kennedy questions what we mean by the powerfully evocative notion of the human soul, which has important links to the notion of home and he suggests that what makes us human is that we allow a home for the soul. As an illustration of this concept he explores how it can help to understand a vital element of William Wordsworth's development as a poet. The word soul is both abstract and yet also powerfully emotive. Kennedy shows that it can be approached from a number of different angles, from psychoanalysis, philosophy, religion, sociology, literature and neuroscience. The Psychic Home, discusses the mysteries and complexities of the soul, and aims to evoke some restoration of its place in our thinking. It illustrates how the word soul and similar key words, such as spirit and inwardness, express so much that is essential for humans, even if we cannot be too precise about their meanings. Insightful, enlightening and broad reaching, The Psychic Home brings the concept of the soul centre stage as an entity that is elemental, an essence, irreducible, and what makes us human as subjects of experience. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, neuroscientists, philosophers and those interested in spirituality and religion.

A psychoanalyst sits in his consulting room waiting for the next patient. Thoughts, feelings and anxieties about his own current life begin to assault him. Partly as a way of dealing with the crisis in his own life, he begins to write fictional stories loosely based upon his patients' stories. Between each story the analyst produces a journal which comments upon the stories as well as his own developing personal situation. Couch Tales is a work of pure fiction, for the psychoanalyst and the patients are imaginary. However, they also reflect Roger Kennedy's work as a psychoanalyst, and the way that psychoanalysis reflects in depth on peoples' lives and narratives.

This book presents a coherent and readable narrative review of current views on the effects and role of psychoanalytic psychotherapy in the treatment of children and adults who have experienced childhood abuse and neglect. Recent decades have seen an explosion of research into the extent of child abuse and into the effects of early relational trauma on the developing minds and brains of children. The lasting effects on survivors are increasingly recognized and can be addressed psychotherapeutically. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy After Child Abuse is unique in two ways. Firstly, in bringing together for the first time the considerable scientific evidence of effectiveness and the vast body of accumulated clinical experience using psychoanalytical approaches in the treatment of people who have experienced childhood abuse. Secondly, in being the product of the widest collaboration of individuals and organizations concerned about the effects of child abuse, and experts on child abuse and psychotherapy. These include experts by experience, survivor groups, activists, academics, and clinicians: paediatricians, physicians, child and adult psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, psychologists, and psychoanalytic psychotherapists.

The Many Voices of Psychoanalysis spans over thirty years of Roger Kennedy's work as a practicing psychoanalyst, providing a fascinating insight into the process of development of psychoanalytic identity.

The introduction puts the papers into context, charting the development of the author's practice and understanding of psychoanalysis and his position as part of the British Independent tradition. The intention of the chapters is to address the 'many voices' of psychoanalysis - the many roles and approaches a psychoanalyst may take, while adhering to the established ideas of psychoanalysis. The author takes into account the various influences which shape the psychoanalytic voice, drawing on literature, philosophy and sociology as well as analytic ideas. Subjects covered include:

• aspects of consciousness - one voice or many?
• handling the dual aspect of the transference
• bearing the unbearable - working with the abused mind
• the internal drama - psychoanalysis and the theatre
• a psychoanalyst in the family court.

This book will be of use not only to practicing psychoanalysts, but also to psychoanalytic psychotherapists and other mental health workers. It will also appeal to anyone interested in the relationship between psychoanalysis and related disciplines.

Clinical psychoanalysis since Freud has put reconstruction of the patient's history at the forefront of its task but in recent years, this approach has not been so prominent. This book aims to explore and re-evaluate the relationship between history and psychoanalysis.
Roger Kennedy develops new perspectives on historiography by applying psychoanalytic insight to the key issues of narrative, time and subjectivity in the construction of historical accounts. He also throws new light on the importance of history for and within psychoanalytic treatment. It is argued that human subjectivity is a major element in any historical enterprise, both the subjectivity of the historian or clinician and that of those being studied. Illustrated with clinical examples, Psychoanalysis, History and Subjectivity covers areas such as postmodernism, the nature of memory, clinical evidence and the place of trauma.
Psychoanalysis, History and Subjectivity will be of great interest both to professionals in the psychoanalytic and therapeutic fields and to historians.

Related link: Free Email Alerting

The Psychic Home: Psychoanalysis of Consciousness and the Human Soul develops, from a number of different viewpoints, the significance of home in our lives. Roger Kennedy puts forward the central role of what he has termed a 'psychic home' as a vital psychic structure, which gathers together a number of different human functions. Kennedy questions what we mean by the powerfully evocative notion of the human soul, which has important links to the notion of home and he suggests that what makes us human is that we allow a home for the soul. As an illustration of this concept he explores how it can help to understand a vital element of William Wordsworth's development as a poet. The word soul is both abstract and yet also powerfully emotive. Kennedy shows that it can be approached from a number of different angles, from psychoanalysis, philosophy, religion, sociology, literature and neuroscience. The Psychic Home, discusses the mysteries and complexities of the soul, and aims to evoke some restoration of its place in our thinking. It illustrates how the word soul and similar key words, such as spirit and inwardness, express so much that is essential for humans, even if we cannot be too precise about their meanings. Insightful, enlightening and broad reaching, The Psychic Home brings the concept of the soul centre stage as an entity that is elemental, an essence, irreducible, and what makes us human as subjects of experience. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, neuroscientists, philosophers and those interested in spirituality and religion.

"A psychoanalyst sits in his consulting-room waiting for the next patient. Thoughts, feelings and anxieties about his own current life begin to assault him. Partly as a way of dealing with the crisis in his own life, he begins to write fictional stories loosely based upon his patients stories. Between each story the analyst produces a journal which comments upon the stories as well as his own developing personal situation.""Couch Tales" is a work of pure fiction, for the psychoanalyst and the patients are imaginary. However, they also reflect Roger Kennedy 's work as a psychoanalyst, and the way that psychoanalysis reflects in depth on people 's lives and narratives.

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is one of many possible treatments proven to be helpful to people who have experienced sexual and physical abuse and neglect in their childhood.It has not proven possible to predict reliably who will respond to which specific psychotherapy. Different individuals will be able to benefit from different approaches and treatments at different stages of their lives, depending on their wishes, circumstances, level of support and need.There is considerable scientific evidence of effectiveness and a considerable body of accumulated clinical experience using psychoanalytical approaches in the treatment of people who have experienced childhood sexual, physical and emotional abuse and neglect.This guideline brings together this evidence for the first time. It covers the use of psychoanalytic psychotherapies in the treatment and care of individuals who have experienced sexual and associated abuse and neglect in their childhood. It also highlights the treatment and care needs of victims and survivors of childhood sexual and other associated abuse and neglect from a psychoanalytic perspective. It covers children, adolescents and adults.The guideline is intended for practitioners of psychiatric, psychological and psychoanalytic therapies and providers of other health and mental health services.

The book describes the author's extensive experience of working as an expert witness in family courts. Although he acts as a psychiatrist trying to see what is in the child's best interests in often very complex situations, his core identity as a psychoanalyst is fundamental to his approach. The work entails looking at the inner worlds of children and parents, as well as whole family functioning, including aspects of the wider professional network as well as the court processes. The book gives clinical examples of how the author uses his approach.Being a psychoanalyst offers a particular clinical stance, where unconscious motives, impulses and emotions have to be faced. Tackling negative attitudes and behaviour, as well as promoting more positive aspects of functioning, based on a psychoanalytical approach, can help the more intractable families to change. A psychoanalytical approach can also help to inform decision-making in the courts. It can offer a space for calm thinking in an otherwise crisis-led field. But it means having to find a clear and communicable language for complex states of mind, a far from easy task, but one which may be worthwhile if psychoanalysis is to survive.The book provides detailed guidance for assessing families for the courts, as well giving many detailed clinical examples to illustrate points made. Topics covered include guidance for experts, assessment of families, contact issues, fostering, adoption and rehabilitation issues.

Roger Kennedy has written a masterful investigation into the concept of evil. He begins with a general view of the subject before moving into more detailed analysis. First is a review of the science of evil, including evidence from neuroscience and social psychology. This is followed by psychoanalytical studies of the individual and groups before presenting an overview of the philosophy of evil. Also included are historical and social studies which inform an understanding of evil in action. Kennedy goes on to examine the nature of genocide using a main focus on the Holocaust and of slavery. Both of these "journeys to evil" remain relevant for understanding contemporary society and issues. The Nazi past continues to disturb and resonate decades on. The politics and social fabric of Western society was reliant on slavery as a foundation of economic wealth and is haunted by its inability to process the harsh reality of slavery and its continuing after-effects. Kennedy moves from there to a discussion on the genius of Shakespeare and his encapsulation of the essential features of how evil can develop and take over a person's inner world. The book concludes with a summary of the main themes and a look at those who have resisted evil and what we can learn from them if we are to build a society that can resist the forces of evil. The book is informed by a psychoanalytic approach, with its emphasis on the power and influence of unconscious processes underlying human actions, and on the role of inner conflicting and elemental fears and anxieties often driving individual and group behaviours. It brings fresh insight to an eternal discourse.

In this interdisciplinary and wide-ranging study, Roger Kennedy looks at the roots of tolerance and intolerance as well as the role of the stranger and strangeness in provoking basic fears about our identity. He argues that a fear of a loss of attachment to one's home might account for many prejudiced and intolerant attitudes to refugees and migrants; that basic fears about being displaced by so-called 'strangers' from our precious and precarious sense of a psychic home can tear communities apart, as well as lead to discrimination against those who appear to be different. Present day intolerance includes fears about the 'hordes' of immigrants confused with realistic fears about terrorist attacks, populist fears about loss of cultural integrity and with it a sense of powerlessness, and fearful debates about such basics as truth, including the so-called 'post truth' issue. Such fears, as explored in the book, mirror old arguments going back centuries to the early enlightenment thinkers and even before, when the parameters of discussion about tolerance were mainly around religious tolerance. There is urgency about addressing these kinds of issue once more at a time when the 'ground rules' of what makes for a civilized society seem to be under threat. Kennedy argues that society needs a 'tolerance process', in which critical thinking and respectful judgment can take place in an atmosphere of debate and reasonably open communication, when issues around what can and cannot be tolerated about different beliefs, practices and attitudes in people in our own and other cultures, are examined and debated. Tolerating Strangers in Intolerant Times, with the help of psychoanalytic, literary, social and political thinking, looks at what such a tolerance process could look like in a world increasingly prone to intolerance and prejudice. It will appeal to psychoanalysts as well as scholars of politics and philosophy.

Emotion is an integral aspect of musical experience; music has the power to take us on an emotional and intellectual journey, transforming the listener along the way. The aim of this book is to examine the nature of this journey, using a variety of perspectives. No one discipline can do justice to music's complexity if one is to have a sense of the whole musical experience, even if one has to break up the whole experience into various elements for the purposes of clarification. The issues raised have some relationship to psychoanalytic understanding and listening, as after all psychoanalysis is a listening discipline; its bedrock is listening to the patient's communications. While of course there are significant differences between understanding of, and listening to, a musical performance and a patient in a consulting room, the book explores common ground. Evidence from neuroscience indicates that music acts on a number of different brain sites, and that the brain is likely to be hard-wired for musical perception and appreciation, and this offers some kind of neurological substrate for musical experiences, or a parallel mode of explanation for music's multiple effects on individuals and groups. After various excursions into early mother/baby experiences, evolutionary speculations, and neuroscientific findings, the book's main emphasis is that it is the intensity of the artistic vision which is responsible for music's power. That intense vision invites the viewer or the listener into the orbit of the work, engaging us to respond to the particular vision in an essentially intersubjective relationship between the work and the observer or listener. This is the area of what we might call the human soul. Music can be described as having soul when it hits the emotional core of the listener. And, of course, there is 'soul music', whose basic rhythms reach deep into the body to create a powerful feeling of aliveness. One can truly say that music of all the arts is most able to give shape to the elusive human subject or soul.

In this interdisciplinary and wide-ranging study, Roger Kennedy looks at the roots of tolerance and intolerance as well as the role of the stranger and strangeness in provoking basic fears about our identity. He argues that a fear of a loss of attachment to one's home might account for many prejudiced and intolerant attitudes to refugees and migrants; that basic fears about being displaced by so-called 'strangers' from our precious and precarious sense of a psychic home can tear communities apart, as well as lead to discrimination against those who appear to be different. Present day intolerance includes fears about the 'hordes' of immigrants confused with realistic fears about terrorist attacks, populist fears about loss of cultural integrity and with it a sense of powerlessness, and fearful debates about such basics as truth, including the so-called 'post truth' issue. Such fears, as explored in the book, mirror old arguments going back centuries to the early enlightenment thinkers and even before, when the parameters of discussion about tolerance were mainly around religious tolerance. There is urgency about addressing these kinds of issue once more at a time when the 'ground rules' of what makes for a civilized society seem to be under threat. Kennedy argues that society needs a 'tolerance process', in which critical thinking and respectful judgment can take place in an atmosphere of debate and reasonably open communication, when issues around what can and cannot be tolerated about different beliefs, practices and attitudes in people in our own and other cultures, are examined and debated. Tolerating Strangers in Intolerant Times, with the help of psychoanalytic, literary, social and political thinking, looks at what such a tolerance process could look like in a world increasingly prone to intolerance and prejudice. It will appeal to psychoanalysts as well as scholars of politics and philosophy.

What is the relationship between psychoanalysis and human freedom? Does psychoanalysis enhance it? Is it coercive? What are the limits? These may appear to be deceptively simple questions, but Roger Kennedy addresses them head-on. He draws on his own clinical work to shed light on conceptions of freedom and how they relate to the psychoanalytic process. Ideas from ancient, medieval, 17th-century, Enlightenment and recent philosophy, including hermeneutics, are employed in his explorations. He also addresses himself to recent pessimistic and postmodernist writings on culture and the human condition.

Contents:
Introduction, or Swimming in the Past. Who Killed President Kennedy? A History of the Closure Threat to the Cassel Hospital, 1990. In my End is my Beginning. Greeks and Jews. Dreaming History. Fragmentation and Cohesion. One History or Many? Subject as Foundation. The Fragmented Subject. The Subject of Narrative. The Now of the Past.