Private Practices examines the relationship between science, sexuality, gender, race, and culture in the making of modern America between 1920 and 1950, when contradictions among liberal intellectuals affected the rise of U.S. conservatism. Naoko Wake focuses on neo-Freudian, gay psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan, founder of the interpersonal theory of mental illness. She explores medical and social scientists' conflicted approach to homosexuality, particularly the views of scientists who themselves lived closeted lives. Wake discovers that there was a gap--often dramatic, frequently subtle--between these scientists' "public" understanding of homosexuality (as a "disease") and their personal, private perception (which questioned such a stigmatizing view). This breach revealed a modern culture in which self-awareness and open-mindedness became traits of "mature" gender and sexual identities. Scientists considered individuals of society lacking these traits to be "immature," creating an unequal relationship between practitioners and their subjects. In assessing how these dynamics--the disparity between public and private views of homosexuality and the uneven relationship between scientists and their subjects--worked to shape each other, Private Practices highlights the limits of the scientific approach to subjectivity and illuminates its strange career--sexual subjectivity in particular--in modern U.S. culture.
An impressive amount of work, experimental, statistical and "observa tional" or "phenomenological" has been done in psychiatry during the past 30 to 40 years. Although Sullivan's achievements have placed him in the first rank of psychiatry, some of the work done since he died in 1949 can be assimilated to enchance his achievements. For this reason, I enlisted the aid of Menachem Melinek, M.D., whose wide knowledge of re cent and contemporary psychiatric studies is admirably suited to the task of assimilating some of them to Sullivan's theories. PATRICK MULLAHY Acknowledgments The authors wish to acknowledge with gratitude Mrs. Mari Hughes, formerly secretary, Department of Psychology, Manhattan College, for typing the original manuscript. Dr. Robert G. Kvarnes of the Washing ton School of Psychiatry, read the original manuscript and contributed several keen criticisms and suggestions for which we are grateful. We wish to express our thanks to the Department of Psychiatry, at Montefiore-North Central Bronx Hospitals for the support in preparing the final manuscript of the book. Robert Steinmuller, Director of Psychiatry at North Central Bronx Hospital was generous with his help. We would like as well to acknowledge the support of the Department of Psychiatry at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center and its Director of Psychiatry, Dr. Harvey Bluestone.
Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949) has been described as 'the most original figure in American psychiatry'. Challenging Freud's psychosexual theory, Sullivan founded the interpersonal theory of psychiatry, which emphasized the role of interpersonal relations, society and culture as the primary determinants of personality development and psychopathology. This concise and coherent account of Sullivan's work and life invites the modern audience to rediscover the provocative, groundbreaking ideas embodied in Sullivan's interpersonal theory and psychotherapy.
This volume collects for the first time the papers written by Dr. Sullivan in the period of his early work with schizophrenics. Introduction and commentaries by Helen Swick Perry.
In his phenomenal bestseller Listening to Prozac, Peter Kramer explored the makeup of the modern self. Now, in his superbly written new book, he focuses his intelligent, compassionate eye on the complexities of partnerships and why intimacy is so difficult for us. With the art of a novelist and the skill of a brilliant psychiatrist, Kramer addresses advice seekers struggling with such complex questions as: How do we choose our partners? How well do we know them? How do mood states affect our assessment of them and theirs of us? What does “working on a relationship” truly entail? When should we try to improve a relationship, and when should we leave? Equally at home with Shakespeare, Emerson, and Kierkegaard as it is with Freud and Jung, Should You Leave? is a literary tour de force from a uniquely insightful observer and a profoundly resonant and helpful approach to resolving dilemmas of the heart.
The Purloined Self: Interpersonal Perspectives in Psychoanalysis brings together nineteen essays in updated form, still as relevant, witty and informative today as when the book originally published. Edgar Levenson is a key figure in the development of Interpersonal psychoanalysis and his ideas remain influential. This book covers his seminal writing on theoretical topics such as models of psychoanalysis, Harry Stack Sullivan’s theories, and the nature of change, as well as his more familiar focus on practical analytic topics such as transference, supervision, and the use of the self in psychoanalytic clinical work. The content ranges from more technical articles on psychoanalysis and general systems theory, the holographic dimensions of psychoanalytic change; on to issues of metapsychology; and then to articles devoted to examining the nuances of the therapeutic praxis. The general thrust of the book is in the Interpersonal tradition and is a major contribution to a contemporary elaboration of post-Sullivanian Interpersonalism, and of the two-person model of psychoanalysis that has come to permeate the entire field. With a new foreword by Donnel Stern, himself a major name in current Interpersonal analysis, this book gives a comprehensive overview of Levenson’s work, and its continued relevance in contemporary psychoanalytic thought. The Purloined Self is highly readable: the author’s witty essayist style and original perspective on its material has made it appealing across a wide range of readerships. It will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists as well as undergraduate and advanced postgraduate students in these fields.
The last half-century has seen enormous changes in society’s attitude toward sexuality. In the 1950s, homosexuals in the United States were routinely arrested; today, homosexual activity between consenting adults is legal in every state, with same-sex marriage legal in Massachusetts and Connecticut. In the 1950s, ambitious women were often seen as psychopathological and were told by psychoanalysts that they had penis envy that needed treatment; today, a woman has campaigned for President of the United States. Mark Blechner has lived and worked through these startling changes in society, and Sex Changes collects papers he has written over the last 45 years on sex, gender, and sexuality. Interspersed with these papers are reflections on the changes that have occurred during that time period, both within the scope of society at large as well as in his personal experiences inside and outside of the therapeutic setting. He shows how changes in society, changes in his life, and changes in his writing on sexuality - as well as changes within psychoanalysis itself - have affected one another. One hundred years ago, psychoanalysis was at the cutting edge of new ideas about sex and gender, but in the latter half of the 20th Century, psychoanalysts were often seen as reactionary upholders of society’s prejudices. Sex Changes seeks to restore the place of psychoanalysis as the "once and future queer science," and aims for a radical shift in psychoanalytic thinking about sexuality, gender, normalcy, prejudice, and the relationship of therapeutic aims and values.