Psychoanalysis - the one that we are familiar with - started in the clinical field. Freud and Breuer made some strides in the treatment of hysteria using hypnosis. They put together a theory of psychopathology based on two basic notions: conflicts between acceptable and unacceptable impulses (ideas, desires, fantasies, etc.), and the repression of the unacceptable impulses causing the formation of symptoms. Under hypnosis, the patients were given the chance to abreact the repressed, and the therapeutic endeavour was to allow catharsis, hence the origin of the term "catharsis theory" regarding this phase of hypnosis. However, the real breakthrough in psychoanalysis came to Freud in intuitions about matters from outside the field of pathology and the clinic, and without the help of hypnosis. They came from ordinary, even banal, phenomena like dreams, slips of the tongue, and jokes. In this book, the author covers the difference between a modified theory of catharsis and a theory of psychoanalysis, as well as the importance of psychodynamic diagnosis in the practice of psychoanalysis.

Despite the persistence of the theoretical model of the cathartic theory in psychoanalysis, it is not what we practice clinically. Freud's Other Theory of Psychoanalysis deals with eliciting that other unarticulated theory from the Freudian text to replace the catharsis theory...

The path-breaking Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories is an accessible, multidisciplinary insight into the complex field of feminist thought. The Encyclopedia contains over 500 authoritative entries commissioned from an international team of contributors and includes clear, concise and provocative explanations of key themes and ideas. Each entry contains cross references and a bibliographic guide to further reading; over 50 biographical entries provide readers with a sense of how the theories they encounter have developed out of the lives and situations of their authors.

Object Relations Theory and Clinical Psychoanalysis is a collection of Kernberg's papers published or presented during the period from 1966 to 1975, with some new material included as well.

Sociological explanations of racism tend to concentrate on the structures and dynamics of modern life that facilitate discrimination and hierarchies of inequality. In doing so, they often fail to address why racial hatred arises (as opposed to how it arises) as well as to explain why it can be so visceral and explosive in character. Bringing together sociological perspectives with psychoanalytic concepts and tools, this text offers a clear, accessible and thought-provoking synthesis of varieties of theory, with the aim of clarifying the complex character of racism, discrimination and social exclusion in the contemporary world.

Marshall Edelson identifies the core theory of psychoanalysis and shows how free association and the case study method can provide rational grounds for believing its clinical inferences about the causal role of unconscious sexual fantasies. "Dr. Edelson has committed himself with gusto, persistence and intelligence [to] a spirited defense of psychoanalysis as science—not necessarily as it is, but as it can be in the best of hands as it should be. . . . It is a defense that I hope can resonate strongly in psychoanalytic ranks. It is also a message that I hope would receive a warm reception in that wider intellectual world where ideas matter and where enlightened social policy and cultural cachet are fostered."—Robert Wallerstein, New York Times Book Review

With contributions from leading European and American psychoanalysts, this innovative text systematically investigates and analyses the relationship between clinical practice and psychoanalytic theories. It examines clinical practice experience in detail and links it with the knowledge gained from official theory. To make this type of analysis of clinical material possible, the team of authors have devised a grid called The Map. This new instrument details the implicit theories of the analyst at work and can be used in everyday clinical work and supervisions. These analyses highlight the divergences and convergences with theory, but also reveal outlines for new models. Psychoanalysis: From Practice to Theory makes a significant contribution to the debate about the most important problems that psychoanalysis presents. It will be of great value to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and students of psychoanalysis. Contributors: Jorge L. Ahumada, Werner Bohleber, Jorge Canestri, Paul Denis, Peter Fonagy, William I. Grossman, Gail S. Reed, David Tuckett, Samuel Zysman Whurr Series in Psychoanalysis Edited by Peter Fonagy and Mary Target

The Complete Works of W. R. Bion is now available in a coherent and corrected format. Comprising sixteen volumes bound in green cloth, this edition has been brought together and edited by Chris Mawson with the assistance of Francesca Bion. Incorporating many corrections to previously published works, it also features previously unpublished papers. Including a general index and editorial introductions to all the works, these volumes will be a useful and valuable aid to psychoanalytic scholars and clinicians, and all those interested in studying and making use of Bion's thinking.Bion's writings, including the previously unpublished papers and additions to his Cogitations, collected together in the Complete Works, show that the clinical thrust of Bion's work has clear lines of continuity with that of Melanie Klein, just as her work has an essential continuity with the later work of Freud. In Bion's clinical work and supervision the goal remains insightful understanding of psychic reality through a disciplined experiencing of the transference and countertransference; the setting and the method - however much Bion's terminology might suggest otherwise - remains rigorously psychoanalytic.

Critical Essays on Psychoanalysis focuses on the processes, methodologies, and interventions on psychoanalysis. The selection first offers information on the psychoanalytic phenomena, including anxiety, irritability, resistance, neurosis, and dream analysis. The book also elaborates on psychoanalysis and the principles of scientific psychoanalysis. Discussions focus on the effects of psychotherapy, behaviorist account of neuroses, personal and cultural biases, compartmentalization of personality, and concepts of intuition. The text examines infant care and personality and prognosis in unpsychoanalyzed recovery from neuroses, as well as practical and theoretical implications and features of infant care. The publication also discusses the etiology and treatment of children's phobias and multiple personality. Topics include behavior therapy, inversion and non-acceptance, psychoanalytic evidence, and reinterpretation of psychoanalytic cases. The selection is a vital source of data for readers interested in psychoanalysis.

This study is a philosophical critique of the foundations of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis. As such, it also takes cognizance of his claim that psychoanalysis has the credentials of a natural science. It shows that the reasoning on which Freud rested the major hypotheses of his edifice was fundamentally flawed, even if the probity of the clinical observations he adduced were not in question. Moreover, far from deserving to be taken at face value, clinical data from the psychoanalytic treatment setting are themselves epistemically quite suspect.