Kategoria BISAC: Psychology >> Interpersonal Relations

Anchoring his schema in the belief that nonorganic disorders are disturbances in adaptation explicable within a depth-psychological framework, Gedo posits two broad categories of functional disorder: "apraxias" that represent any failure to learn adaptively essential skills, and disorders of what her terms "obligatory repetition." Within both categories of disorder, Gedo avers, the vicissitudes of mental functioning are understandable in terms of regression to relatively archaic modes of function and the reversal of regression and return to expectable modes of adult function.

In The Prisonhouse of Psychoanalysis, Arnold Goldberg trains a searching, critical eye on his own profession. His subject matter is the system of interlocking constraints - theoretical, institutional, educational - that imprisons psychoanalysis and the psychoanalyst. His agenda is to sketch the shape analysis might take in the absence of these constraints. What emerges from these twin endeavors is a penetrating critique of psychoanalysis from the inside - from the vantage point of a senior analyst who has labored for many years within the prisonhouse that he now criticizes.

In this provocative contribution to both psychoanalytic theory and the philosophy of science, Louis Berger grapples with the nature of "consequential" theorizing, i.e., theorizing that is relevant to what transpires in clinical practice. By examining analysis as a genre of "state process formalism" - the standard format of scientific theories - Berger demonstrates why contemporary theorizing inevitably fails to explain crucial aspects of practice. His critique, in this respect, pertains both to the formal structure of psychoanalytic explanation and the technical language through which this...

In Conceptual Issues in Psychoanalysis, John Gedo's mastery of Freudian theory and broad historical consciousness subserve a new goal: an understanding of "dissidence" in psychoanalysis. Gedo launches his inquiry by reflecting expansively on recent assessments of Freud's character. His acute remarks on the intellectual and personal agendas that inform the portraits of Freud offered by Frank Sulloway, Jeffrey Masson, and Peter Swales pave the way for his own definition of psychoanalysis in historical context. Then, in topical studies on Sandor Ferenczi, Melanie Klein, and Heinz...

According to Berger, substance abuse is first and foremost a symptom. He argues that it is only by grasping this fact that we can understand why standard approaches to treatment and prevention have...

Impasse and Innovation in Psychoanalysis offers a rare perspective on the technical difficulties and creative responses to them that typify clinical psychoanalysis. The four seminars at the heart of this volume are not case reports in the usual sense. Rather, each seminar revolves around the challenges of translating an understanding of difficult process issues into an effective therapeutic response. What emerges in each case is a vivid picture of an analyst's subjective experience in conceptualizing and managing a particularly demanding treatment, supplemented by data about the...

Clinical Interaction and the Analysis of Meaning evinces a therapeutic vitality all too rare in works of theory. Rather than fleeing from the insights of other disciplines, Dorpat and Miller discover in recent research confirmation of the possibilities of psychoanalytic treatment. In Section I, "Critique of Classical Theory," Dorpat proposes a radical revision of the notion of primary process consonant with contemporary cognitive science. Such a revised conception not only enlarges our understanding of the analytic process; it also provides analysis with a conceptual language that...

Can a newborn infant accurately record traumatic experience? Can early truamas be retained in memory? How would such traumatic memories affect later development? Where should we look for evidence of such traumas in adult patients?

If Someone Speaks, It Gets Lighter provides surprising answers to these questions. Taking as her point of departure both her own clinical experience and case reports in the analytic literature, Lynda Share provides a thorough, at times revelatory, examination of the basic issues. She proposes that the controversy between narrative and historical...

A beautiful and thoughtful collection of essays on reading, writing and learning, Writing and Psychoanalysis grows out of a colloquium. The results are wondrous and impact on the reader at many different levels. In the act of writing, we all discover something about what we know previously unknown to us, and we learn more about our inner world that we knew before we set pen to paper (or hand to computer). Patrick Mahony goes so far as to argue that Freud's self-analysis was essentially a "writing cure."

Writing in Psychoanalysis is the first volume in the projected...

In The Biology of Clinical Encounters, Gedo utilizes recent findings in neuroscience and cognitive psychology to elaborate his conception of psychobiology and to consider its implications in clinical analysis. He pursues this challenging undertaking in several directions. He illuminates the way in which psychobiology enters into his hierarchical model of mental functioning, and goes on to examine three clinical syndromes - phobias, obsessions, and affective disturbances - in which biological considerations are particularly important. Of special note are chapters examining the...