A Psychoanalytic Exploration Of The Contemporary Search For Pleasure

Download A Psychoanalytic Exploration Of The Contemporary Search For Pleasure full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online A Psychoanalytic Exploration Of The Contemporary Search For Pleasure ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!

A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Contemporary Search for Pleasure

Author : Vaia Tsolas
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000907341
Total Pages : 183 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (9 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Contemporary Search for Pleasure by : Vaia Tsolas

Download or read book A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Contemporary Search for Pleasure written by Vaia Tsolas and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-19 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This interdisciplinary collection of essays explores the malaise of the contemporary individual by returning the economic point of view of Freudian thinking, the concept of satisfaction, libido, and pleasure–unpleasure principle to their rightful place as the motivating forces of human existence. For Freud, pleasure stands apart from other human experiences, side by side with unpleasure, always a bonus in the search for satisfaction of the pleasure principle and beyond. Along with libido, emotional fulfillment, and the capacities for sublimation and play, pleasure has not been given enough attention in the psychoanalytic literature. The editors of this book address this lack and highlight the importance of examining today’s social and individual malaise through these specific lenses of inquiry. It is particularly timely and important today to address this lack, and thereby examine the impact of the social phenomena of the pandemic, the crises of ideals and virtuality on the subject who feels in a state of constant emergency, overwhelmed, addicted, and delibidinalized. With contributions from across psychoanalysis, this book is essential reading for psychoanalysts in training and in practice who want to understand how the modern world has shaped our understanding of pleasure.

A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Body in Today's World

Author : Vaia Tsolas
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351660284
Total Pages : 311 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (516 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Body in Today's World by : Vaia Tsolas

Download or read book A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Body in Today's World written by Vaia Tsolas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-25 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Body in Today's World: On the Body examines the importance of the body in everyday psychoanalytic practice and beyond. Written by world leading clinicians and international scholars, this important book aims to relocate the psychoanalytic body in the modern, more challenging world. Bringing together perspectives from across the range of psychoanalytic schools of thought, it covers essential analytic topics such as family and parenting, sex and gender, illness and psychosomatics, and concepts of the body in infancy. Though in Freud’s writing the intertwining of body and psyche is fundamental, psychoanalytic thought has sometimes downplayed or ignored this idea. This book returns the body to its rightful place in psychoanalysis, and brings the body into the contemporary world of technology and change, offering fresh insight into the sick body, the sexual body, the speaking body, the body of the changing family in which the traditional gendered labels no longer fit seamlessly, gender dynamics and much more. A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Body in Today's World gives renewed and increased emphasis to an essential tenant of psychoanalysis. With contributions from some of the most important modern psychoanalysts, this book will prove an essential work for both psychotherapists and academics.

The “Here and Now” of French Psychoanalysis

Author : Rachel Boué-Widawsky
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1040103812
Total Pages : 199 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (41 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The “Here and Now” of French Psychoanalysis by : Rachel Boué-Widawsky

Download or read book The “Here and Now” of French Psychoanalysis written by Rachel Boué-Widawsky and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-08-29 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “Here and Now” of French Psychoanalysis provides an overview of the living psychoanalytic landscape in France through the voice of experienced psychoanalysts who continue to transform the legacy of Freud, Lacan and others in their publications and clinical practice. Rachel Boué-Widawsky interviews a wide range of practitioners, underscoring the specificities of French psychoanalysis and exploring how the French psychoanalytic community has responded theoretically and clinically to the global crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic and racial and gender issues. Mimicking the process of psychoanalytic dialogue, the interview format allows for a lively and engaging discussion of each practitioner’s theoretical background and their clinical approach. Boué-Widawsky includes leading individuals in the field as well as representatives of key institutions including La Maison de Solenn and the Centre Jean-Favreau. The “Here and Now” of French Psychoanalysis presents an accessible introduction to this distinctive psychoanalytic landscape. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts in practice and in training and for academics and students of psychoanalytic studies.

Pregnancy, Assisted Reproduction and Psychoanalysis

Author : Renata Viola Vives
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1040123384
Total Pages : 191 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (41 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Pregnancy, Assisted Reproduction and Psychoanalysis by : Renata Viola Vives

Download or read book Pregnancy, Assisted Reproduction and Psychoanalysis written by Renata Viola Vives and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-09-24 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pregnancy, Assisted Reproduction, and Psychoanalysis reflects on contemporary views on pregnancy, while offering guidance on how to work with women and couples experiencing infertility as well as the unique issues raised by having a child through assisted reproduction technologies. Comprised of chapters written by eminent analysts working with infertile couples and women, and parents who have a child born from assisted reproduction, this book offers insightful ways to better understand the challenges these patients undertake and the various issues this might bring into the analytic room. The contributors examine the myriad psychic problems subjects are confronted with which could impact their ability to bond with children born through ART: the mourning processes infertility entails, the identification with the fertile parental couple, the unconscious representation of origin, the representation of the primal scene, and the process of symbolic affiliation. They consider the working-through these processes necessitate in order to enable filiation and healthy parenting, and give invaluable tools to the analyst to enable the promotion of psychological growth. Throughout, the chapters address the emotions that infertility summons in which both patient and analyst find a spectrum of unconscious phantasies and anxieties. This book is an essential read for psychoanalysts and other professionals working in the field of ART, as well as those interested in motherhood and its vicissitudes and intersection with psychoanalysis.

Unlit Corners

Author : Salman Akhtar
Publisher : Karnac Books
ISBN 13 : 1800132557
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (1 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Unlit Corners by : Salman Akhtar

Download or read book Unlit Corners written by Salman Akhtar and published by Karnac Books. This book was released on 2024-06-06 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With contributions from Salman Akhtar, Jerome Blackman, Michael Civin, Lois Choi-Kain, Nilofer Kaul, M. Sagman Kayatekin, Z. Emel Kayatekin Nina Savelle-Rocklin, and Ann Smolen. Unlit Corners endeavours to bring light to neglected character traits which many struggle to overcome. Filled with relevant case studies and carefully crafted psychoanalytic theory, the book elucidates the multilayered nature of such psychopathologies and its treatment. Beginning in the public realm, Nina Savelle-Rocklin explores the complex meaning of 'dirtiness,' both literally and figuratively, relating it the body, mind, and language. Ann Smolen's investigation of miserliness follows, where she emphasizes that it is not about money, but instead arises from the poverty of internal good objects, which are the basic source of generosity. Jerome Blackman examines the nuanced potential meanings of shyness using psychopathology and underlying etiology, while Lois Choi-Kain deftly categorizes outrageousness into three types: a guilt-driven masochist, a hope-driven optimist, and a hate-driven sadist, with a subcategory for creative writers and artists. The more private traits start with shallowness. Michael Civin develops 'shallow' as a general construct and studies it from a psychoanalytic perspective, arguing that no human being can be described accurately as shallow. The Kayatekins come next with their study of indecisiveness and the role of the ego as a way of understanding this trait. Nilofer Kaul looks at 'restlessness' and its associations in psychoanalysis, literature, and culture. The final chapter comes from Salman Akhtar on the subject of cowardliness, where he links it to the lack of self-protective devices emanating from breeches in the early mother-child bond and deficient identification with the same-sex parent. This book is highly recommended to clinicians to give them the tools to not only understand and empathize with their patient's struggles but also to enhance their capacity to help them overcome such struggles.

Freud and Beyond

Author : Stephen A. Mitchell
Publisher : Hachette UK
ISBN 13 : 0465098827
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Freud and Beyond by : Stephen A. Mitchell

Download or read book Freud and Beyond written by Stephen A. Mitchell and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2016-05-10 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic, in-depth history of psychoanalysis, presenting over a hundred years of thought and theories Sigmund Freud's concepts have become a part of our psychological vocabulary: unconscious thoughts and feelings, conflict, the meaning of dreams, the sensuality of childhood. But psychoanalytic thinking has undergone an enormous expansion and transformation since Freud's death in 1939. With Freud and Beyond, Stephen A. Mitchell and Margaret J. Black make the full scope of twentieth century psychoanalytic thinking-from Harry Stack Sullivan to Jacques Lacan; D.W. Winnicott to Melanie Klein-available for the first time. Richly illustrated with case examples, this lively, jargon-free introduction makes modern psychoanalytic thought accessible at last.

The Trouble with Pleasure

Author : Aaron Schuster
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262528592
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Trouble with Pleasure by : Aaron Schuster

Download or read book The Trouble with Pleasure written by Aaron Schuster and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2016-02-26 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation into the strange and troublesome relationship to pleasure that defines the human being, drawing on the disparate perspectives of Deleuze and Lacan. Is pleasure a rotten idea, mired in negativity and lack, which should be abandoned in favor of a new concept of desire? Or is desire itself fundamentally a matter of lack, absence, and loss? This is one of the crucial issues dividing the work of Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Lacan, two of the most formidable figures of postwar French thought. Though the encounter with psychoanalysis deeply marked Deleuze's work, we are yet to have a critical account of the very different postures he adopted toward psychoanalysis, and especially Lacanian theory, throughout his career. In The Trouble with Pleasure, Aaron Schuster tackles this tangled relationship head on. The result is neither a Lacanian reading of Deleuze nor a Deleuzian reading of Lacan but rather a systematic and comparative analysis that identifies concerns common to both thinkers and their ultimately incompatible ways of addressing them. Schuster focuses on drive and desire—the strange, convoluted relationship of human beings to the forces that move them from within—“the trouble with pleasure." Along the way, Schuster offers his own engaging and surprising conceptual analyses and inventive examples. In the “Critique of Pure Complaint” he provides a philosophy of complaining, ranging from Freud's theory of neurosis to Spinoza's intellectual complaint of God and the Deleuzian great complaint. Schuster goes on to elaborate, among other things, a theory of love as “mutually compatible symptoms”; an original philosophical history of pleasure, including a hypothetical Heideggerian treatise and a Platonic theory of true pleasure; and an exploration of the 1920s “literature of the death drive,” including Thomas Mann, Italo Svevo, and Blaise Cendrars.

Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the Legacy of the Third Reich

Author : Emily A. Kuriloff
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 113693040X
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (369 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the Legacy of the Third Reich by : Emily A. Kuriloff

Download or read book Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the Legacy of the Third Reich written by Emily A. Kuriloff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For most of the twentieth century, Jewish and/or politically leftist European psychoanalysts rarely linked their personal trauma history to their professional lives, for they hoped their theory—their Truth—would transcend subjectivity and achieve a universality not unlike the advances in the "hard" sciences. Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the Legacy of the Third Reich confronts the ways in which previously avoided persecution, expulsion, loss and displacement before, during and after the Holocaust shaped what was, and remains a dominant movement in western culture. Emily Kuriloff uses unpublished original source material, as well as personal interviews conducted with émigré /survivor analysts, and scholars who have studied the period, revealing how the quality of relatedness between people determines what is possible for them to know and do, both personally and professionally. Kuriloff’s research spans the globe, including the analytic communities of the United States, England, Germany, France, and Israel amidst the extraordinary events of the twentieth century. Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the Legacy of the Third Reich addresses the future of psychoanalysis in the voices of the second generation—thinkers and clinicians whose legacies and work remains informed by the pain and triumph of their parents' and mentors' Holocaust stories. These unprecedented revelations influence not only our understanding of mental health work, but of history, art, politics and education. Psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, cultural historians, Jewish and specifically Holocaust scholars will find this volume compelling.

Contemporary Psychoanalysis in America

Author : Arnold M. Cooper
Publisher : American Psychiatric Pub
ISBN 13 : 1585626813
Total Pages : 800 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (856 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Contemporary Psychoanalysis in America by : Arnold M. Cooper

Download or read book Contemporary Psychoanalysis in America written by Arnold M. Cooper and published by American Psychiatric Pub. This book was released on 2008-05-20 with total page 800 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a unique and superb gateway to current psychoanalytic thinking. Thirty of America's foremost psychoanalysts -- leaders in defining the current pluralistic state of the profession -- have each presented what they consider to be their most significant contribution to the field. No mere anthology, these are the key writings that underlie current discussions of psychoanalytic theory and technique. The chapters cover contemporary ideas of intersubjectivity, object relations theory, self psychology, relational psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, clinical technique, changing concepts of unconscious, empirical research, infant observation, gender and sexuality, and more. While the differences in point of view are profound, there is also a striking coherence on some core issues. Each of the contributions features an introduction by the volume editor and a note by the author explaining the rationale for its selection. The brilliant introduction by Peter Fonagy provides an overview and places each author in the context of contemporary psychoanalysis. A list of the authors may convey the astonishing breadth of this volume:Brenner, Bromberg, Busch, Chodorow, Cooper, Emde, Friedman, Gabbard, Goldberg, Greenberg, Grossman, Hoffman, Jacobs, Kantrowitz, Kernberg, Levenson, Luborsky, Michels, Ogden, Ornstein, Person, Pine, Renik, Schafer, Schwaber, Shapiro, Smith, Stern, Stolorow, Wallerstein This is a "best of the best" volume -- cutting-edge writing, highly accessible and studded with vivid clinical illustrations. Anyone wishing to acquire a comprehensive, authoritative, readily accessible -- even entertaining -- guide to American psychoanalytic thinking will find their goal fulfilled in this monumental collection.

Belief and Imagination

Author : Ronald Britton
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134649142
Total Pages : 404 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (346 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Belief and Imagination by : Ronald Britton

Download or read book Belief and Imagination written by Ronald Britton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2013 Sigourney Award! Belief and Imagination brings together Ronald Britton's writing on these subjects over the last 15 years, exploring the concepts from a Kleinian perspective. The book covers: The status of phantasies in an individuals mind - are they facts or possibilities? How the notions of objectivity and subjectivity are interrelated and have their origins in the Oedipal triangle How phantasies which are held to be products of the imagination, can be accounted for in psychoanalytic terms. Britton also examines the relationship between psychic reality and fictional writing, and the ways in which belief, imagination and reality are explored in the works of Wordsworth, Rilke, Milton and Blake.

Introduction to Psychoanalysis

Author : Anthony W. Bateman
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134842074
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (348 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Introduction to Psychoanalysis by : Anthony W. Bateman

Download or read book Introduction to Psychoanalysis written by Anthony W. Bateman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-09-10 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The need for a concise, comprehensive guide to the main principles and practice of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy has become pressing as the psychoanalytic movement has expanded and diversified. An introductory text suitable for a wide range of courses, this lively, widely referenced account presents the core features of contemporary psychoanalytic theory and practice in an easily assimilated, but thought-provoking manner. Illustrated throughout with clinical examples, it provides an up-to-date source of reference for a wider range of mental health professionals as well as those training in psychoanalysis, psychotherapy or counselling.

The Ethic of Honesty

Author : M. Guy Thompson
Publisher : Rodopi
ISBN 13 : 9789042011182
Total Pages : 198 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (111 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Ethic of Honesty by : M. Guy Thompson

Download or read book The Ethic of Honesty written by M. Guy Thompson and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2004 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rarely do we come across a book that has the force and cogency to provoke us to reevaluate the most fundamental tenets of psychoanalysis. One of the most brilliant psychoanalytic scholars of our time, M. Guy Thompson revolutionizes our understanding of the axiomatic principles upon which psychoanalysis is based. Through a careful exegesis of Freud's texts, he persuasively shows how the fundamental rule of psychoanalysis is not merely a vehicle for free association but, more importantly, a pledge to honesty. Contextualized in the subjective lived experience each analyst faces, Thompson demonstrates how Freud's technical mandates are nothing less than ethical imperatives by which to live, authentically. This fascinating exploration into the philosophical dimensions of psychoanalysis offers a compelling contribution to the clinical application of psychoanalytic doctrine that will be of interest to psychoanalytic practitioners of all persuasions. (Jon Mills)

From Classical to Contemporary Psychoanalysis

Author : Morris N. Eagle
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 113525222X
Total Pages : 327 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (352 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis From Classical to Contemporary Psychoanalysis by : Morris N. Eagle

Download or read book From Classical to Contemporary Psychoanalysis written by Morris N. Eagle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The landscape of psychoanalysis has changed, at times dramatically, in the hundred or so years since Freud first began to think and write about it. Freudian theory and concepts have risen, fallen, evolved, mutated, and otherwise reworked themselves in the hands and minds of analysts the world over, leaving us with a theoretically pluralistic (yet threateningly multifarious) diffusion of psychoanalytic viewpoints. To help make sense of it all, Morris Eagle sets out to critically reevaluate fundamental psychoanalytic concepts of theory and practice in a topical manner. Beginning at the beginning, he reintroduces Freud's ideas in chapters on the mind, object relations, psychopathology, and treatment; he then approaches the same topics in terms of more contemporary psychoanalytic schools. In each chapter, however, there is an underlying emphasis on identification and integration of converging themes, which is reemphasized in the final chapter. Relevant empirical research findings are used throughout, thus basic concepts - such as repression - are reexamined in the light of more contemporary developments.

Marriage and Family in Modern China

Author : David E. Scharff
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000299163
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (2 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Marriage and Family in Modern China by : David E. Scharff

Download or read book Marriage and Family in Modern China written by David E. Scharff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-30 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marriage and Family in Modern China is a groundbreaking psychoanalytic examination of how 70 years of widespread social change have transformed the intimacies of life in modern China. The book describes the evolution of marriage and family structure, from the ancient tradition of large families preferring sons, arranged marriages and devaluation of girls, to a contemporary dominance of free-choice marriages and families that now prefer to remain small even after the ending of the One Child Policy. David Scharff uses extensive reports of his psychoanalytic interventions to demonstrate how the residue of widespread trauma suffered by Chinese families during past centuries has interacted with the effects of rapid modernization to produce new patterns of individual identity, personal ambition and family structure. This wholly original book offers new insight into Chinese families for all those interested in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and in the intricacies of Chinese domestic life.

Modern Psychoanalysis of the Schizophrenic Patient

Author : Hyman Spotnitz
Publisher : YBK Publishers, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 0970392362
Total Pages : 253 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (73 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Modern Psychoanalysis of the Schizophrenic Patient by : Hyman Spotnitz

Download or read book Modern Psychoanalysis of the Schizophrenic Patient written by Hyman Spotnitz and published by YBK Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2004 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What Freud called the "stone wall" was first breached by this pioneering psychiatrist and psychoanalyst with this seminal work in 1969. This substantially revised and enlarged edition is the comprehensive and definitive handbook for practitioners of the talking cure of the disorders that arise before speech.

The Sublime in Everyday Life

Author : Anastasios Gaitanidis
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000317552
Total Pages : 197 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (3 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Sublime in Everyday Life by : Anastasios Gaitanidis

Download or read book The Sublime in Everyday Life written by Anastasios Gaitanidis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-30 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Notions of the sublime are most often associated with the extraordinary, and include the intra-psychic, high-cultural and exceptional occurrences of elation and exaltation as part of the experience. Using psychoanalytic and aesthetic theories, this book aims to revitalise the sublime by re-evaluating its significance for contemporary life and, in a unique and fascinating endeavour, opens up a space that explores the sublime in the ordinary, everyday and quotidian. Through the exploration of familiar (i.e. love, death, art and nature) and unfamiliar (pornography, education and politics) threads of the sublime experience, this book posits the sublime as invoking an ordinary human response which contains minute, inter-psychic, inclusive and even mass-media cultural elements, and carries within it therapeutic and political potential. It explores loving and caring, as well as hateful, traumatic and destructive encounters with the sublime, demonstrating how it can overflow and destabilise our psychological and social symbolic structures and expose their fictional and constructed nature, but also shows it as something we can engage with in order to re-create and heal ourselves, above and beyond what any 'given' form of reality can offer us. Demonstrating the urgent need to understand the sublime as something that is immanent in our everyday life, a source of energy and inspiration that can be invoked to support our mental health and well-being, this book will be of great interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and art therapists, as well as scholars and students of philosophy and popular culture.

The Psychoanalytic Model of the Mind

Author : Elizabeth L. Auchincloss
Publisher : American Psychiatric Pub
ISBN 13 : 1585625450
Total Pages : 334 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (856 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Psychoanalytic Model of the Mind by : Elizabeth L. Auchincloss

Download or read book The Psychoanalytic Model of the Mind written by Elizabeth L. Auchincloss and published by American Psychiatric Pub. This book was released on 2015-04-28 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the widespread influence of psychoanalysis in the field of mental health, until now no single book has been published that explains the psychoanalytic model of the mind to the many students and practitioners who want to understand it. The Psychoanalytic Model of the Mind represents an important breakthrough: in simple language, it presents complicated ideas and concepts in an accessible manner, demystifies psychoanalysis, debunks some of the myths that have plagued it, and defuses the controversies that have too long attended it. The author effectively demonstrates that the psychoanalytic model of the mind is consistent with a brain-based approach. Even in patients whose mental illness has a predominantly biological basis, psychological factors contribute to the onset, expression, and course of the illness. For this reason, treatments that focus exclusively on symptoms are not effective in sustaining change. The psychoanalytic model provides clinicians with the framework to understand each patient as a unique psychological being. The book is rich in descriptive detail yet pragmatic in its approach, offering many features and benefits: In addition to providing the theoretical scaffolding for psychodynamic psychotherapy, the book emphasizes the critical importance of forging a strong treatment alliance, which requires understanding the transference and countertransference reactions that either disrupt or strengthen the clinician-patient bond. The book is respectful of Freud without being reverential; it considers his contribution as founder of psychoanalysis in the context of the historical and conceptual evolution of the field. The final section is devoted to learning to use the psychoanalytic model and exploring how it can be integrated with existing models of the mind. In addition to being a valuable reference for mental health clinicians, the text can serve as a resource for undergraduate and graduate students of philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, literature, and all academic disciplines outside of the mental health professions who may want to learn more about what psychoanalysts have to say about the mind. Important features include an extensive glossary of terms, a series of illustrative tables, and appendixes addressing libido theory and defenses. Drawing upon a broad range of sources to make her case, the author persuasively argues that the basic tenets of the psychoanalytic model of the mind are supported by empirical evidence as well as clinical efficacy. The Psychoanalytic Model of the Mind is a fascinating exploration of this complex model of mental functioning, and both clinicians and students of the mind will find it comprehensive and riveting.