The main questions raised in this book are: How does the analyst help the patient to be in touch with pain and mourning? Is the relinquishment of defenses always desirable? And what is the analyst's role in the mourning process--should the analyst struggle to help patients relinquish defenses against pain and mourning, which they may experience as vital to their precarious psychic survival? Or should he or she accompany patients on their way to self-discovery, which may or may not result in the patients letting go of their defenses when faced with the pain and mourning inherent in trauma? the...

The main questions raised in this book are: How does the analyst help the patient to be in touch with pain and mourning? Is the relinquishment of defenses always desirable? And what is the analyst's role in the mourning process--should the analyst struggle to help patients relinquish defenses against pain and mourning, which they may experience as vital to their precarious psychic survival? Or should he or she accompany patients on their way to self-discovery, which may or may not result in the patients letting go of their defenses when faced with the pain and mourning inherent in trauma? the...

Escape from Selfhood is a detailed study of a very traumatised son of a Hungarian couple who managed to evade the Nazi death machinery by finding refuge in a house protected by the Swedish Embassy in Budapest. Ilany writes like a master novelist as she describes her patient's attempts to invade her, fuse with her and destroy her. Concomitantly Ilany does not flinch from relating her own pain and suffering as she engages with a person who is both a victim and victimizer. The resultant account is chilling and electrifying. This is a very elegant and timely study highly recommended for its...

Die Patientinnen und Patienten, deren Geschichten die israelische Psychoanalytikerin Ilany Kogan in diesem Buch erzahlt, haben eines gemeinsam: Sie sind Kinder von Uberlebenden des Holocaust. Ihre Wahrnehmung der Gegenwart ist gepragt durch eine Vergangenheit, die nicht ihre eigene ist. Von einem Zwang geleitet, der ihnen selbst unerklarlich ist, tun sie Dinge, die, wie sich im analytischen Prozess allmahlich herausstellt, aufs Engste mit der Geschichte ihrer Eltern verbunden sind. Um das Verhaltnis von Realitat und Fantasie so beherrschen zu lernen, dass mithilfe der Analytikerin die...