Incest is a universal taboo found throughout history and within myths from all societies. It has been a neglected subject by psychoanalysis in recent years and this volume aims, successfully, to promote confrontation between the past and present and to provide a clinical and theoretical reflection on the subject. Here incest is distinct from sexual abuse outside of the family nucleus. The book, inspired by the COWAP European Conference of 2003, looks at themes such as gender identity, perversions and incest. Containing papers from leading experts in the field, it includes the papers delivered...

Our unconscious fantasies can be embedded in the old-age myths. This book takes Euripides tragedy of Medea as its starting point. Many modern films and plays about Medea reflect our ever-present interest in the myths. The Danish film director T.H. Dreyer had plans to realize a film on story of Medea, while his countryman Lars von Trier made his own version of Medea, based on Dreyers previous work on the theme. In this remarkable new book, the Medea fantasy is introduced as an unconscious determinant of psychogenic sterility, a fantasy that may form an unrecognized and dissociated part of the...

This latest volume in the Psychoanalysis and Women Series for the Committee on Women and Psychoanalysis of the International Psychoanalytical Association presents and discusses theoretical and clinical work from a number of authors worldwide. It clearly demonstrates that there is no typical development of homosexuality and that each individual's object-choice can only be grasped by examining their psychic history. While the therapeutic work requires no special adaptation of technique, countertransferential difficulties which may arise and stem in part from cultural representations...

This book examines the current status of women. It consists of a collection of papers that focus on the political, economic, biologic, cultural, academic and psychological challenges that confront women worldwide. The contributors, from the International Psychoanalytical Association's United Nations Committee and from a variety of disciplines, draw on their experience to consider how women are symbolized in society today. They offer perspectives on why the status of women and girls has not changed in some areas of the world while in others there has been discrete and noteworthy progress,...

Recent societal changes have challenged long-established concepts in psychoanalysis, including the Oedipus complex, parental functions, and male and female psychosexuality. -Postmodern families-, based on sexual and emotional exchanges independent of gender, now include homosexual couples who adopt children, or who create them through assisted fertilization, as well as single parent families and blended families.

A number of highly-renowned Latin American psychoanalysts have drawn attention to the urgency of revising theoretical and clinical concepts in the light of these new...