Marshall Edelson identifies the core theory of psychoanalysis and shows how free association and the case study method can provide rational grounds for believing its clinical inferences about the causal role of unconscious sexual fantasies. "Dr. Edelson has committed himself with gusto, persistence and intelligence [to] a spirited defense of psychoanalysis as science—not necessarily as it is, but as it can be in the best of hands as it should be. . . . It is a defense that I hope can resonate strongly in psychoanalytic ranks. It is also a message that I hope would receive a warm reception in that wider intellectual world where ideas matter and where enlightened social policy and cultural cachet are fostered."—Robert Wallerstein, New York Times Book Review
This book argues that psychoanalysis has a unique role to play in the climate change debate through its placing emphasis on the unconscious dimensions of our mental and social lives. Exploring contributions from Freudian, Kleinian, Object Relations, Self Psychology, Jungian, and Lacanian traditions, the book discusses how psychoanalysis can help to unmask the anxieties, deficits, conflicts, phantasies and defences crucial in understanding the human dimension of the ecological crisis. Yet despite being essential to studying environmentalism and its discontents, psychoanalysis still remains largely a 'psychology without ecology.' The philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, combined with new developments in the sciences of complexity, help us to build upon the best of these perspectives, providing a framework able to integrate Guattari's 'three ecologies' of mind, nature and society. This book thus constitutes a timely attempt to contribute towards a critical dialogue between psychoanalysis and ecology. Further topics of discussion include: ecopsychology and the greening of psychotherapy our ambivalent relationship to nature and the non-human complexity theory in psychoanalysis and ecology defence mechanisms against eco-anxiety and eco-grief Deleuze|Guattari and the three ecologies becoming-animal in horror and eco-apocalypse in science fiction films nonlinear ecopsychoanalysis. In our era of anxiety, denial, paranoia, apathy, guilt, hope, and despair in the face of climate change, this book offers a fresh and insightful psychoanalytic perspective on the ecological crisis. As such this book will be of great interest to all those in the fields of psychoanalysis, psychology, philosophy, and ecology, as well as all who are concerned with the global environmental challenges affecting our planet's future.
Psychoanalysis and the Politics of Family aims to raise a sophisticated and highly accessible debate around the family, self-making and the political and cultural implications of liberation. The text proposes a new way to read the Lacanian theory of Oedipus and through this reading resituate a series of important political and theoretical debates that have concerned intellectual life over the last forty years. It is written with an accessible style so that both specialists in Lacanian and Marxist theory and a broader cross-section of readers interested in understanding the implications of debates across populist and Marxist perspectives that have occupied the global left since the 2008 economic crash. The text aims to resituate the way theories of emancipation and liberation are theorized from a distinctive psychoanalytic and Lacanian point of view. In resituating the infamous “Oedipus complex” in a new light, the text re-opens a series of debates with important theoretical interlocutors, including the influential American historian and psychoanalytic thinker Christopher Lasch, whose thought has witnessed a significant renaissance of interest today, to the staunch critic of Freud and Lacan, René Girard, to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and their widely read Anti-Oedipus series that disputes the Freudian and Lacanian notions of Oedipus.
This edited volume brings together some of the most prominent scholars in the fields of theoretical, critical, and political psychology to examine crisis phenomena. The book investigates the role of psychology as a science in times of crisis, discusses how socio-political change affects the discipline and profession, and renders psychological interventions as forms of political action. The authors examine how notions of crisis and the interpretation of crisis scenarios are heavily intertwined with governmental and state interests. Seeking to disentangle individual subjectivity, subjectification, and science as forms of politics, the volume works toward an explicit goal to decolonize psychology. The chapters elaborate on the importance of the psychological sciences in times of crisis and the role of psychologists as practitioners. Ultimately, the diverse contributions underline the connection of scientific theory, practice, and politics. Interdisciplinary in scope and wide-ranging in its perspectives, this timely work will appeal to students and scholars of theoretical and political psychology, critical psychology, and cultural studies.
This book brings together Erich Fromm’s basic statements on the application of psychoanalytic theory to social dynamics. At the same time it offers an image of man consonant with the hopes of radical humanism. The Crisis of Psychoanalysis is a collection of nine brilliant essays. Although his work is deeply rooted in Freudian theory, Fromm further develops Freud’s doctrines by including both social and ethical dimensions and applies his discoveries and insights to address the problems we face in society at large.
'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
Ian Parker has been a leading light in the fields of critical and discursive psychology for over 25 years. The Psychology After Critique series brings together for the first time his most important papers. Each volume in the series has been prepared by Ian Parker, features a newly written introduction and presents a focused overview of a key topic area. Psychology After the Crisis is the first volume in the series and addresses three important questions: What was the crisis in psychology and why does it continue now? How did debates regarding the traditional ‘laboratory experiment’ paradigm in psychology set the scene for discourse analysis? Why are these paradigm debates now crucial for understanding contemporary critical psychology? The first two chapters of the book describe the way critical psychology emerged in Britain during the 1970s, and introduce four key theoretical resources: Marxism, Feminism, Post-Structuralism and Psychoanalysis. The chapters which follow consider in depth the critical role of Marxist thinking as an analytic framework within psychology. Subsequent chapters explore the application and limitations of critical psychology for crucial topics such as psychotherapy, counselling and climate change. A final chapter presents an interview which reviews the main strands within critical psychology, and provides an accessible introduction to the series as a whole. Psychology After the Crisis is essential reading for students and researchers in psychology, sociology, social anthropology and cultural studies, and for discourse analysts of different traditions. It will also introduce key ideas and debates in critical psychology for undergraduates and postgraduate students across the social sciences.
Originally published in the European Journal of Psychoanalysis (EJP), the essays in this volume are a set of responses to the coronavirus crisis by distinguished philosophers and psychoanalysts from around the globe. The coronavirus irrupted making swift and deep cuts in the fabric of our existence: the risks of contagion and indefinite periods of isolation have radically altered the functioning of society. Pandemics do not wait for comprehension in order to proliferate. Confusion, sickness, and death punctuate the failure of governments worldwide to respond. This collection of writings examines the effects of the pandemic and the conditions that make possible such a global crisis. The writers provoke us to consider how capitalism, governmental power, and biopolitics mold the contours of life and death. The contributors in this collection ignite urgent political dialogue, address emergent transformations in the social field and offer perspectives on shifts in subjectivity and psychoanalytic practice. Beyond providing reflections on the impact of the coronavirus, the authors point to determinants of how the crisis will unfold and what may be on the horizon. This book will be invaluable to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, philosophers, and to all those interested in the implications of the virus for psychoanalytic practice and theory, and the social, cultural and political spheres of our world.
Recipient of Choice Magazine's 1996 Outstanding Academic Book Award Author Raymond Morrow outlines and recounts the development of the major tenets of critical theory, exemplifying them through the works of two of their most influential, recent adherents: Jürgen Habermas and Anthony Giddens. Beginning with a comprehensive yet meticulous explication of critical theory and its history, the author next discusses it within the context of a research program; his work concludes with an examination of empirical methods. Emphasizing the connections between critical theory, empirical research, and social science methodology, Morrow's volume offers refreshing insights on traditional and current material.
