First published in 1990. This is Volume 10, number 1 of Psychoanalytic Inquiry 1990 which looks at the procedure of converting psychotherapy which is seen as relatively commonplace in today's psychoanalytic practice, however there a number of unresolved questions that surround this. This is a collection of papers that deal with some of the clinical and theoretical aspects of the procedure- of shifting a patient from psychotherapy to psychoanalysis.
Conversion disorder—a psychiatric term that names the enigmatic transformation of psychic energy into bodily manifestations—offers a way to rethink the present. With so many people suffering from unexplained bodily symptoms; with so many seeking recourse to pharmacological treatments or bodily modification; with young men and women seemingly willing to direct violence toward anybody, including themselves—a radical disordering in culture insists on the level of the body. Part memoir, part clinical case, part theoretical investigation, this book searches for the body. Is it a psychopathological entity; a crossroads for the cultural, political, and biological in the form of care; or the foundation of psychoanalytic work on the question of sexuality? Jamieson Webster traces conversion’s shifting meanings—in religious, economic, and even chemical processes—revisiting the work of thinkers as diverse as Benjamin, Foucault, Agamben, and Lacan. She provides an intimate account of her own conversion from patient to psychoanalyst, as well as her continuing struggle to apprehend the complexities of the patient’s body. When listening to dreams, symptoms, worries, or sexual impasses, the body becomes a defining trope that belies a vulnerable and urgent wish for transformation. Conversion Disorder names what is singular about the entanglement of the fractured body and the social world in order to imagine what kind of cure is possible.
This book provides easy to read, concise, and clinically useful explanations of over 1800 terms and concepts from the field of psychoanalysis. A history of each term is included in its definition and so is the name of its originator. The attempt is made to demonstrate how the meanings of the term under consideration might have changed, with new connotations accruing with the passage of time and with growth of knowledge. Where indicated and possible, the glossary includes diverse perspectives on a given idea and highlights how different analysts have used the same term for different purposes and with different theoretical aims in mind.
This book addresses five areas of difficulty in psychotherapy: initial assessment, boundaries, money, disruptions, and suicidal crises. It outlines the conceptual issues and the technical details of each of the concept in detail.
In this book, an eminent psychoanalytic theoretician, clinician, educator, and researcher investigates the similarities and differences, and the evolving relationship between psychoanalysis and the dynamic psychotherapies. This book is the most systematic study of the theory and practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy that I know, and at the same time a profound and original review of leading contemporary developments of controversies in the field of psychoanalysis at large.-Otto F. Kernberg, M.D. The author's depth of experience and intimate knowledge of both psychotherapy and psychoanalysis have led him to produce a brilliant and illuminating history of their interaction. It is a fascinating book to read and indispensable as a reference work-everyone in the field should possess and absorb this lucid and scholarly work.-Joseph Sandler, PH.D, M.D., Emeritus Professor of Psychoanalysis, University of London Wallerstein's book stands alongside Reuben Fine's The History of Psychoanalysis as a major contribution. For informed readers.-Library Journal Wallerstein presents a comprehensive, precise, scholarly, and well-documented historical review and study of the theory and practice of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy...The work includes a good review of leading contemporary developments, including attention to social constructivist paradigms, and recognizes that disputes are extant and far from being settled. An important and well-referenced book, it is the best systematic study of the theory and practice of psychoanalysis available.-Choice
On the Daily Work of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy is an operating manual for the challenging, often lonely and confusing work of doing therapy. It locates clinical method in a historical tradition of many contributory workers including Freud, Breuer, Klein, Segal, Ferenczi, Waelder, Katan, Tausk, Sullivan, Lacan, Bion, and Ogden. In this way, the book links clinicians with psychoanalytic thinkers across the foreclosures of scholastic orientation and politics, to arrive at a methodology, based in interpretive reflection, and demonstrably active from the period of psychoanalytic origins as an application of the influence of mind upon mind. The authors provide the reader with a methodology of clinical thinking, of how clinicians orient themselves in clinical registration, moment by moment. It develops a route of fundamental therapeutic action, applicable under all clinical situations, from the single session consultation to intensive, long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
This important and innovative book explores a new direction in psychoanalytic thought that can expand and deepen clinical practice. Relational psychoanalysis diverges in key ways from the assumptions and practices that have traditionally characterized psychoanalysis. At the same time, it preserves, and even extends, the profound understanding of human experience and psychological conflict that has always been the strength of the psychoanalytic approach. Through probing theoretical analysis and illuminating examples, the book offers new and powerful ways to revitalize clinical practice.
