Psychoanalytic Complexity is the application of a multidisciplinary, explanatory theory to clinical psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. It carries with it incisive and pivotal attitudes that aim to transform our understanding of therapeutic action and the change process. Here, William Coburn offers a revolutionary and far-reaching counterpoint to the remnants of Cartesianism and scientism, respecting and encouraging human anomaly rather than pathologizing or obliterating the uniqueness of the individual person. In Psychoanaltyic Complexity, William Coburn explores the value of complexity theory previously understood as an explanatory framework with which clinicians can better understand, retrospectively, therapeutic action and the change process. He further extends this sensibility by examining the ways in which such a rich theoretical framework can inform what clinicians can do, prospectively, to effect positive change within the therapeutic relationship. He persuasively argues that the medium of bringing to light new ways of relating, emotional experiencing, and meaning making resides in the fundamental attitudes derived from a complexity theory sensibility as applied to psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Using a variety of clinical illustrations throughout, Psychoanalytic Complexity is a radical corrective to reductionism and the more traditional presumption that the problem lies with the patient and the cure lies with the therapist. It offers a new language, vocabulary, way of thinking, and a new way of being with others that are pivotal in arriving at affirmative therapeutic change. This book is intended for psychoanalysts, clinical psychologists, therapists, mental health counsellors, academics and teachers who are interested in new trends in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

Clinical Psychoanalytic Case Studies with Complex Patients is a collection of key case studies that provides a rich resource of information and inspiration for clinicians working psychoanalytically with complex and disturbed patients in a range of contexts. The book is presented in six parts, each introduced with commentary that puts the material into context. It covers a range of topics including autism, violence and perversion, psychosomatics, hysteria, dementia, psychosis and assessment of gender dysphoria. Each chapter presents either a single case study or a selection of case vignettes, examines necessary context and presents additional detail about subsequent treatment. The depth and range of the cases presented provide key insight into and detailed consideration of risk assessment, safe settings and other important preliminary issues. Clinical Psychoanalytic Case Studies with Complex Patients will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in practice and in training, psychoanalytic psychotherapists and other clinicians seeking an introduction to psychoanalytic work.

Past scholars have tried to classify psychoanalysis as an intrinsically positivist science, with varying degrees of success. Their critics have fared little better with narrow applications of postmodern thought, which focus on smaller areas within psychoanalysis and, as a result, neglect the evolution of the discipline as a whole. In an effort to provide a ground for current psychoanalytic thought, Mark Leffert creates an interreferential schema which balances the influences of postmodernism, complexity theory, and neuroscience as its key factors. Using the heterogeneity of postmodern thought as a starting point, he traces its impact on and implications for the development of the discipline, leading into the realm of complexity theory – which is relatively new to the psychoanalytic literature – and how it informs as well as constrains certain psychoanalytic assumptions. The book then turns to neuroscience, the "hard" scientific study of the complexities of the brain, and how recent research informs psychoanalytic theory and may shed light on aspects of memory, the conscious, and the unconscious. Taken together, these three elements create a firm basis for the current trends in psychoanalysis and the direction of its development in the years to come.

Since the publication of Heinz Kohut's monumental book, The Analysis of the Self, in 1971, self psychology has undergone a vibrant and exciting evolution that has significantly influenced and expanded the range of psychoanalytic thinking. New Developments in Self Psychology P...

Needed Relationships and Psychoanalytic Healing is both a personal analytic credo and a multidimensional approach to thinking about clinical interaction. The book’s central theme is that of analytic needed relationships—the science and art of co-creating unique, evolving relational experiences fitted to each patient’s implicit therapeutic aims and needs. Steven Stern argues that, while we need psychoanalytic theories to "grow the receptors and processors" necessary to sense, understand, and connect with our patients, these often tend to frame the therapist’s participation in terms of theoretical and technical categories rather than offering a more holistic view of the relationship in all of its human complexity. Stern believes that a new set of higher order constructs is needed to counteract this tendency. In addition to his own concept of needed relationships, he invokes principles from the work of renowned developmental researcher and theorist, Louis Sander: especially his concept of relational fittedness. Stern draws on the work of Freud, Bion, Winnicott, Kohut, and a broad spectrum of contemporary psychoanalytic authors, in fleshing out the therapeutic implications of Sander’s (and Stern’s own) vision. The result is a rich, humane, and accessible narrative. Needed Relationships and Psychoanalytic Healing offers diverse clinical examples in which you will find Stern engaging with each of his patients in idiomatic, spontaneous ways as he attempts to contour interventions to the evolving analytic situation. This case material will inspire therapist-readers to feel freer to find their own creative voices and idioms of participation, as they seek to meet each patient within the psychoanalytic space. The book is intended for psychoanalysts and psychodynamic therapists at all levels of experience, including those in training.

This book suggests an alternative way of understanding human relating. Highly relevant not only for therapeutic groups but also those who are managing, leading and working in organizations.

This compelling collection illuminates new models and metaphors taken from the contemporary sciences and philosophical thought to revitalize and recontextualize psychoanalysis for the 21st century. The exploration of quantum mechanics, chaos and complexity theory, epigenetics, and neuropsychoanalysis provides the reader with new layers of meaning and understanding that in turn lead to an enriching of psychoanalytic theory and a deepening of experience in the consulting office. The intersection of psychoanalysis, contemporary sciences, and philosophy leads the reader to new worlds that can transform the lens from which one views the psychoanalytic process. Written for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, as well as scholars of psychoanalysis that are interested in the intersection of psychoanalysis, contemporary science, and philosophy, Enriching Psychoanalysis: Integrating Concepts from Contemporary Science and Philosophy expands the focus and meaning of current psychoanalytic theory and practice.

Winner of the 2014 Goethe Award for Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Scholarship! A Relational Psychoanalytic Approach to Couples Psychotherapy presents an original model of couples treatment integrating ideas from a host of authors in relational psychoanalysis. It also includes other psychoanalytic traditions as well as ideas from other social sciences. This book addresses a vacuum in contemporary psychoanalysis devoid of a comprehensively relational way to think about the practice of psychoanalytically oriented couples treatment. In this book,Philip Ringstrom sets out a theory of practice that is based on three broad themes: The actualization of self experience in an intimate relationship The partners' capacity for mutual recognition versus mutual negation The relationship having a mind of its own Based on these three themes, Ringstrom's model of treatment is articulated in six non-linear, non-hierarchical steps that wed theory with practice - each powerfully illustrated with case material. These steps initially address the therapist’s attunement to the partners' disparate subjectivities including the critical importance of each one's perspective on the "reality" they co-habit.Their perspectives are fleshed out through the exploration of their developmental histories with focus on factors of gender and culture and more. Out of this arises the examination of how conflictual pasts manifest in dissociated self-states, the illumination of which lends to the enrichment of self-actualization, the facilitation of mutual recognition, and the capacity to more genuinely renegotiate their relationship. The book concludes with a chapter that illustrates one couple treated through all six steps and a chapter on frequently asked questions ("FAQ's") derived from over thirty years of practice, teaching, supervision and presentations during the course of this books development. A Relational Psychoanalytic Approach to Couples Psychotherapy balances a great range of ways to work with couples, while also providing the means to authentically negotiate their differences in a way which is insightful and invaluable. This book is for practitioners of couples therapy and psychoanalytic practitioners. It is also aimed at undergraduate, graduates, and postgraduate students in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, marriage and family therapy, and social work.

Beyond Postmodernism identifies ways in which psychoanalysis has moved beyond the postmodern debate and discusses how this can be applied to contemporary practice. Roger Frie and Donna Orange bring together many of the leading authorities on psychoanalytic theory and practice to provide a broad scope of psychoanalytic viewpoints and perspectives on the growing interdisciplinary discourse between psychoanalysis, continental philosophy, social theory and philosophy of mind. Divided into two parts, Psychoanalytic Encounters with Postmodernism and Psychoanalysis Beyond Postmodernism, this book: elaborates and clarifies aspects of the postmodern turn in psychoanalysis furthers an interdisciplinary perspective on clinical theory and practice contributes to new understandings of theory and practice beyond postmodernism. Beyond Postmodernism: New Dimensions in Clinical Theory and Practice provides a fresh perspective on the relationship between psychoanalysis and postmodernism and raises new issues for the future. It will be of interest to practicing psychoanalysts and psychologists as well as students interested in psychoanalysis, postmodernism and philosophy.

Psychoanalysis engages with the difficult subjects in life, but it has been slow to address climate change. Climate Crisis, Psychoanalysis, and Radical Ethics draws on the latest scientific evidence to set out the likely effects of climate change on politics, economics and society more generally, including impacts on psychoanalysts. Despite a tendency to avoid the warnings, times of crisis summon clinicians to emerge from comfortable consulting rooms. Daily engaged with human suffering, they now face the inextricably bound together crises of global warming and massive social injustices. After considering historical and emotional causes of climate unconsciousness and of compulsive consumerism, this book argues that only a radical ethics of responsibility to be "my other’s keeper" will truly wake us up to climate change and bring psychoanalysts to actively take on responsibilities, such as demanding change from governments, living more simply, flying less, and caring for the earth and its inhabitants everywhere. Linking climate justice to radical ethics by way of psychoanalysis, Donna Orange explores many relevant aspects of psychoanalytic expertise, referring to work on trauma, mourning, and the transformation of trouble into purpose. Orange makes practical suggestions for action in the psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic communities: reducing air travel, consolidating organizations and conferences, better use of internet communication and education. This book includes both philosophical considerations of egoism (close to psychoanalytic narcissism) as problematic, together with work on shame and envy as motivating compulsive and conspicuous consumption. The interweaving of climate emergency and massive social injustice presents psychoanalysts and organized psychoanalysis with a radical ethical demand and an extraordinary opportunity for leadership. Climate Crisis, Psychoanalysis, and Radical Ethics will provide accessible and thought-provoking reading for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, as well as philosophers, environmental studies scholars and students studying across these fields.