Demonstrating the connections between contemporary psychoanalysis, Jewish thought and Jewish history, this volume is a significant contribution to the traditions of dialogue, debate and change-within-continuity that epitomize these disciplines. The authors of this volume explore the cross-disciplinary connections between psychoanalysis and Jewish thought, while seeking out the resonance of new meanings, to exemplify the uncanny similarities that exist between ancient Rabbinic methods of interpretation and contemporary psychoanalytic theory and methodology, particularly the centrality of the question and the deconstruction of narrative. In doing so, this collaboration addresses the bi-directional influence between, and the relevance of, the Jewish interpretive tradition and psychoanalysis to provide readers with renewed insight into key topics such as Biblical text and midrash, religious traditions, trauma, gender, history, clinical work and the legacies of the Holocaust on psychoanalytic theory. Creating an intimate environment for interdisciplinary dialogue, this is an essential book for students, scholars and clinicians alike, who seek to understand the continued significance of the multiple connections between psychoanalysis and Jewish thought.

Relational psychoanalysis and modern Jewish philosophy have much to say about the dynamics of human relationships, but there has been no detailed, thorough, and constructive examination that brings together these two incisive discourses. Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Modern Jewish Philosophy: Two Languages of Love explores the critical similarities and differences between the two disciplines, casting new light on both the analytic and philosophical understandings of how relationships develop, flourish, and fail. For psychoanalysts such as Hans Loewald, Stephen Mitchell, and Jessica Benjamin, love is seen as a fundamental life force, a key to human motivation, and the transformative core of Freud’s therapeutic "talking cure." The Jewish philosophers Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Emmanuel Levinas envision love as having both a human and divine dimension, expressed through the dual commandments to love God and the neighbor. The two languages are brought to life through chapters that investigate: the relationship between self-love and love of the other, the dynamics of intersubjectivity, the methods and possibilities of human transformation, the "magical" powers of language, the goal of achieving a meaningful life, the significance of responsibility for others, and the challenge that death poses to life’s fullness. This multidisciplinary study, drawing on psychology, philosophy, religion, and feminism, provides an important contribution to contemporary scientific and humanistic interest in the social and relational dimensions of human living. The book will appeal especially to clinicians, theorists, and scholars of psychoanalysis, philosophy of religion, and Jewish studies as well as advanced students studying in these fields.

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.

Thought-provoking explorations of the relationship between psychoanalysis and Judaism, which investigate themes of tradition, forgiveness, hysteria, the body, unconscious communication, religious experience, trauma, anti-Semitism, and victimization. Based on the hugely successful Jewish Thought and Psychoanalysis lecture series, it contains contributions from Eli Zaretsky, Stephen Frosh, Sander L. Gilman, Marsha Aileen Hewitt, Eran Rolnik, Ruth Calderon, and Harvey Schwartz. Freud's relationship with his Judaism - his by virtue of his self- description as a "fanatical Jew" - was framed by two of his convictions. He was centered both by his passionate cultural affiliation and by his atheism. Within these internal guideposts lay a Jewish life layered by tensions, pleasures, and identifications. His creation - psychoanalysis - has labored to honor its Jewish influences. Recent studies of these insights have contributed to the current interest in listening more carefully to the individual meanings of analysands' religious life. This lecture series was designed to introduce to the public both the similarities and the differences between the psychoanalytic and the Jewish world views. The contributors are among the thought leaders of our generation who work at the interface of the intrapsychic and religious states of mind. We learn how each has influenced the other and perhaps how each has been enriched by the other. A tour de force delving into the influence of Freud's Jewish roots on the development of psychoanalysis.

This book explores the discipline of psychology through in-depth dialogues with scholars who have lived at the turbulent edges of mainstream psychology in the USA, and who have challenged the most cherished theoretical frameworks. It includes researchers whose work has been widely esteemed in recent decades, but has ultimately not been taken up to reconstitute the theoretical direction of the field. This volume chronicles perspectives from select scholars on the current states of their respective areas of the field, their understanding of how their work has been metabolized, and their concerns about the conceptual frames that currently set the theoretical boundaries of the discipline. These authors demand a reinterpretation of thresholds to allow for a less monological emphasis in the adoption of particular frameworks, and to demonstrate historical, social, economic and political consequences of their chosen frameworks. The contents of the volume will assist theoreticians and clinicians in their understanding of how particular kinds of knowledge are determined, accepted, and produced in the field at large.

What distinguishes one human from another? What exactly does it mean to discover your true self? In Jewish Philosophy and Psychoanalysis, Michael Oppenheim added a modern twist to the age old theories of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud with the interjection of Jewish Philosophy.

Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) emerged as an influential philosophical voice in the final decades of the twentieth century, and his reputation has continued to flourish and increase in our own day. His central themes--the primacy of the ethical and the core of ethics as our responsibility to and for others--speak to readers from a host of disciplines and perspectives. However, his writings and thought are challenging and difficult. The Oxford Handbook of Levinas contains essays that aim to clarify and engage Levinas and his writings in a number of ways. Some focus on central themes of his work, others on the ways in which he read and was influenced by figures from Plato, Hobbes, Descartes, and Kant to Blanchot, Husserl, Heidegger, and Derrida. And there are essays on how his thinking has been appropriated in moral and political thought, psychology, film criticism, and more, and on the relation between his thinking and religious themes and traditions. Finally, several essays deal primarily with how readers have criticized him and found him wanting. The volume exposes and explores both the depth of Levinas's philosophical work and the range of applications to which it has been put, with special attention to clarifying why his interests in the human condition, the crisis of civilization, the centrality and character of ethics and morality, and the very meaning of human experience should be of interest to the widest range of readers.

Freud’s collection of antiquities—his "old and dirty gods"—stood as silent witnesses to the early analysts’ paradoxical fascination and hostility toward religion. Pamela Cooper-White argues that antisemitism, reaching back centuries before the Holocaust, and the acute perspective from the margins that it engendered among the first analysts, stands at the very origins of psychoanalytic theory and practice. The core insight of psychoanalytic thought— that there is always more beneath the surface appearances of reality, and that this "more" is among other things affective, memory-laden and psychological—cannot fail to have had something to do with the experiences of the first Jewish analysts in their position of marginality and oppression in Habsburg-Catholic Vienna of the 20th century. The book concludes with some parallels between the decades leading to the Holocaust and the current political situation in the U.S. and Europe, and their implications for psychoanalytic practice today. Covering Pfister, Reik, Rank, and Spielrein as well as Freud, Cooper-White sets out how the first analysts’ position as Europe’s religious and racial "Other" shaped the development of psychoanalysis, and how these tensions continue to affect psychoanalysis today. Old and Dirty Gods will be of great interest to psychoanalysts as well as religious studies scholars.

Providing a concise but comprehensive overview of Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s larger philosophical program, this book studies one of the most important modern Orthodox Jewish thinkers. It incorporates much relevant biographical, philosophical, religious, legal, and historical background so that the content and difficult philosophical concepts are easily accessible. The volume describes his view of Jewish law (Halakhah) and how he takes the view to answer the fundamental question of Jewish philosophy, the question of the "reasons" for the commandments. It shows how numerous of his disparate books, essays, and lectures on law, specific commandments, and Jewish religious phenomenology, can be woven together to form an elegant philosophical program. It also provides an analysis and summary of Soloveitchik’s views on Zionism and on interreligious dialogue and the contexts for Soloveitchik’s respective stances on two issues that were pressing in his role as a leader of a major branch of post-war Orthodox Judaism. The book provides a synoptic overview of the philosophical works of Joseph B. Soloveitchik. It will be of interest to historians and scholars studying neo-Kantian philosophy, Jewish thought and philosophy of religion.

Winner of the 2018 Western Canada Jewish Book Award Winner of the 2017 Canadian Jewish Literary Award Even as the Holocaust grows more distant with the passing of time, its traumas call out to be known and understood. What is remembered, what has been imparted through German heritage, and what has been forgotten? Can familiar family stories be transformed into an understanding of the Holocaust's forbidding reality? Author Roger Frie is uniquely positioned to answer these questions. As the son of Germans who were children during World War II, and with grandparents who were participants in the War, he uses the history of his family as a guide to explore the psychological and moral implications of memory against the backdrop of one of humanity's darkest periods. From his perspective of a life lived across German and Jewish contexts, Frie explores what it means to discover the legacy of a Nazi past. Beginning with the narrative of his grandfather, he shows how the transfer of memory from one German generation to the next keeps the Holocaust at bay. Not in My Family is rich with poignant illustration: Frie beautifully combines his own story with the stories of others, perpetrators and survivors, and the generations that came after. As a practicing psychotherapist he also draws on his own experience of working with patients whose lives have been directly and indirectly shaped by the Holocaust. Throughout, Frie proceeds with a level of frankness and honesty that invites readers to reflect on their own histories and to understand the lasting effects of historical traumas into the present.