'At last we have a book that provides a comprehensive overview and assessment of the intersubjective turn in psychoanalysis, showing its logical and clinical limitations and exploring its social and cultural determinants. Bohleber emphasizes the clinical importance of real traumatic experience along with the analysis of the transference as he reviews and broadens psychoanalytic theories of memory in relation to advances in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Psychoanalytic ideas on personality, adolescence and identity are re-thought and updated. Bohleber brilliantly presents a unique understanding of malignant narcissism and prejudice in relation to European anti-Semitism and to contemporary religiously inspired terrorist violence.'- Cyril Levitt, Dr Phil, Professor and former Chair Department of Sociology, McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario. Psychoanalyst in private practice, Toronto, Ontario
"'At last we have a book that provides a comprehensive overview and assessment of the intersubjective turn in psychoanalysis, showing its logical and clinical limitations and exploring its social and cultural determinants. Bohleber emphasizes the clinical importance of real traumatic experience along with the analysis of the transference as he reviews and broadens psychoanalytic theories of memory in relation to advances in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Psychoanalytic ideas on personality, adolescence and identity are re-thought and updated. Bohleber brilliantly presents a unique understanding of malignant narcissism and prejudice in relation to European anti-Semitism and to contemporary religiously inspired terrorist violence.'- Cyril Levitt, Dr Phil, Professor and former Chair Department of Sociology, McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario. Psychoanalyst in private practice, Toronto, Ontario"--Provided by publisher.
The impact of trauma can be both destructive and transformative. This important new book presents not only a range of theoretical frameworks through which different trauma can be understood, from the effects of childhood abuse to those of war and catastrophes, but also gives readers insights into how trauma presents itself in the consulting room. In each chapter the author uses clinical vignettes and detailed case histories to discuss the multiplicity and complexity of the trauma involved, eschewing a simple binary conception of internal vs external forces. A wide range of topics are covered, including: the lasting imprint of early trauma such as neglect or abuse on subsequent development; the somatic solution involved in life-threatening illness; unmetabolized mourning and embodied memory; the vibrating relationship between catastrophic external forces such as intergenerational effects; and the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the lasting effect of war on combatants and their families. Each chapter is screened through a different theoretical viewpoint, from Freud and Fairburn to Winnicott, Bion and Ogden, while the work of several contemporary theorists is also discussed. Crucially, the final section of the book looks at those issues faced by analysts when working with traumatized patients, highlighting the key idea of dissociation, the dilemma around empathy and the factors that affect the patient’s unconscious meaning. Trauma and the Destructive-Transformative Struggle: Clinical Perspectives illuminates the resilience needed by both patient and analyst. It will be a vital resource for both clinical practitioners specializing in trauma and psychoanalytic researchers in the field of trauma studies.
Finding Unconscious Fantasy in Narrative, Trauma, and Body Pain: A Clinical Guide demonstrates that the concept of the unconscious is profoundly relevant for understanding the mind, psychic pain, and traumatic human suffering. Editors Paula L. Ellman and Nancy R. Goodman established this book to discover how symbolization takes place through the "finding of unconscious fantasy" in ways that mend the historic split between trauma and fantasy. Cases present the dramatic encounters between patient and therapist when confronting discovery of the unconscious in the presence of trauma and body pain, along with narrative. Unconscious fantasy has a central role in both clinical and theoretical psychoanalysis. This volume is a guide to the workings of the dyad and the therapeutic action of "finding" unconscious meanings. Staying close to the clinical engagement of analyst and patient shows the transformative nature of the "finding" process as the dyad works with all aspects of the unconscious mind. Finding Unconscious Fantasy in Narrative, Trauma, and Body Pain: A Clinical Guide uses the immediacy of clinical material to show how trauma becomes known in the "here and now" of enactment processes and accompanies the more symbolized narratives of transference and countertransference. This book features contributions from a rich variety of theoretical traditions illustrating working models including Klein, Arlow, and Bion and from leaders in the fields of narrative, trauma, and psychosomatics. Whether working with narrative, trauma or body pain, unconscious fantasy may seem out of reach. Attending to the analyst/ patient process of finding the derivatives of unconscious fantasy offers a potent roadmap for the way psychoanalytic engagement uncovers deep layers of the mind. In focusing on the places of trauma and psychosomatic concreteness, along with narrative, Finding Unconscious Fantasy in Narrative, Trauma, and Body Pain: A Clinical Guide shows the vitality of "finding" unconscious fantasy and its effect in initiating a symbolizing process. Chapters in this book bring to life the sufferings and capacities of individual patients with actual verbatim process material demonstrating how therapists and patients discover and uncover the derivatives of unconscious fantasy. Finding the unconscious meanings in states of trauma, body expressions, and transference/countertransference enactments becomes part of the therapeutic dialogue between therapists and patients unraveling symptoms and allowing transformations. Learning how therapeutic work progresses to uncover unconscious fantasy will benefit all therapists and students of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy interested to know more about the psychoanalytic dialogue.
The Routledge Handbook of Psychoanalysis in the Social Sciences and Humanities provides a comprehensive, critical overview of the historical, theoretical and applied forms of psychoanalytical criticism. This path-breaking Handbook offers students new ways of understanding the powers and limits of psychoanalysis, and of the social, cultural and political possibilities of psychoanalytic critique. The book offers students and professionals clear and concise chapters on the development of psychoanalysis, introducing key theories that have influenced debates over the psyche, desire and emotion in the social sciences and humanities. There are substantive chapters on classical Freudian theory, Kleinian and Bionian theory, object-relations psychoanalysis, Lacanian and post-Lacanian approaches, feminist psychoanalysis, as well as postmodern trends in psychoanalysis. There is a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches to psychoanalytic critique, with contributions drawing from developments in sociology, politics, history, cultural studies, women’s studies and architecture.
In Beyond Doer and Done To, Jessica Benjamin, author of the path-breaking Bonds of Love, expands her theory of mutual recognition and its breakdown into the complementarity of "doer and done to." Her innovative theory charts the growth of the Third in early development through the movement between recognition and breakdown, and shows how it parallels the enactments in the psychoanalytic relationship. Benjamin’s recognition theory illuminates the radical potential of acknowledgment in healing both individual and social trauma, in creating relational repair in the transformational space of thirdness. Benjamin’s unique formulations of intersubjectivity make essential reading for both psychoanalytic therapists and theorists in the humanities and social sciences.
This book serves as a practical and comprehensive introduction to depression and its deep roots in trauma. Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber looks at the heterogeneous and complex phenomenon of depression and considers a range of topics essential to those faced with the challenge posed by the illness. Throughout the chapters, Leuzinger-Bohleber looks at the central experience of powerlessness and helplessness, the impact of trauma and transgenerational transmission, as well as clinical research and medical intervention. Throughout, she reviews and explains up-to-date clinical research findings and guides the reader on how to apply these in a clinical setting across a wide range of aspects within the psychodynamic understanding of depression. Including a review of both classical psychoanalytic texts and state-of-the-art empirical research, this introductory book is an invaluable resource for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in private practice and Public Health institutions alike. The clear and accessible style also make it a vital resource for students of clinical psychology, medicine, anthropology, cultural studies, the educational sciences, and beyond.
This important and wide-ranging book explores the world of a child or young person who has been abused or neglected. It seeks to understand their world, to ease the pain from which they suffer, and to heal the wounds that the abuse has left. Examining how abuse always takes place in the context of relationships, and involves a misuse of power that causes a traumatic overwhelming of the child or adolescent, abuse also evokes strong countertransference. This affects interventions, particularly when clinicians struggle with feelings of which they may feel ashamed. A difficulty in coming to terms with and addressing child abuse relates to unconscious factors which, by freezing the emotional area surrounding the abuse (or by blinding the area of personality), makes some thoughts unthinkable. Considering traditional and novel ways of helping children who feel they have been maltreated, the book offers suggestions for individual treatment as well as describing the successful work carried out with child refugees. It also offers a glimpse into what child psychoanalysts interpret and do with children who feel a parent hates them.
