A Skin For Thought

A French analyst discusses the interface between psychoanalysis and psychology. A Skin for Thought takes the form of ten transcribed discussions between Didier Anzieu and Gilbert Tarrab, recorded in Montreal during Anzieu's lecture tour there. A practitioner and theoretician of individual and group analysis, Anzieu speaks frankly of the origins and development of his vocation, the stages of his training, and the evolution of his research, and explains the principal ideas he has developed: group illusion; the psychic tasks of creativity, and 'the Skin Ego'. In answer to Gilbert Tarrab's probing questions, Didier Anzieu recalls the distinctive atmosphere of his childhood, a first analysis with Lacan, the events of May 1968 at Nanterre, his literary ambitions, and his enthusiasm for psychodrama.

It is the largest and perhaps the most important organ of our body—it covers our fragile inner parts, defines our social identities, and channels our sensory experiences. And yet we rarely give a thought. With The Book of Skin, Steven Connor aims to change all that, offering an intriguing cultural history of skin. Connor first examines physical issues such as leprosy, skin pigmentation, cancer, blushing, and attenuations of erotic touch. He also explains why specific colors symbolize certain emotions, such as green for envy or yellow for cowardice, as well as why skin is the focus of destructive rage in many people’s violent fantasies. The Book of Skin then probes into how skin has been such a powerfully symbolic terrain in photography, religious iconography, cinema, and literature. From the Turin shroud to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man to plastic surgery, The Book of Skin expertly examines the role of skin in Western culture. A compelling read that penetrates well beyond skin-deep, The Book of Skin validates James Joyce’s declaration that “modern man has an epidermis rather than a soul.” “Richly conceived and elaborately thought out. No flicker of meaning has escaped Connor’s ferocious, all-seeing eye.”—Guardian

In this classic work, the author presents and develops his theory of the importance of 'the Skin-ego'. Just as the skin is wrapped around the body, so the author sees the 'Skin-ego' as a psychical wrapping containing, defining and consolidating the subject. From this perspective, the structure and functions of the skin can provide psychoanalysts and general readers with a fertile and practical metaphor. The author's concept of the Skin-ego is the answer to questions he regards as crucial to contemporary psychoanalysis: questions of topography which were left incomplete by Freud; the analysis of fantasies of the container as of the contained; issues of touch between mothers and babies; extending the concept of prohibitions within an Oedipal framework to those derived from a prohibition on touching; and questions pertaining to the representation of the body and to its psychoanalytic setting. This new translation of Le Moi-peau is based on the second and last (1995) edition.

This exciting collection of work from leading feminist scholars including Elspeth Probyn, Penelope Deutscher and Chantal Nadeau engages with and extends the growing feminist literature on lived and imagined embodiment and argues for consideration of the skin as a site where bodies take form - already written upon but open to endless re-inscription. Individual chapters consider such issues as the significance of piercing, tattooing and tanning, the assault of self harm upon the skin, the relation between body painting and the land among the indigenous people of Australia and the cultural economy of fur in Canada. Pierced, mutilated and marked, mortified and glorified, scarred by disease and stretched and enveloping the skin of another in pregnancy, skin is seen here as both a boundary and a point of connection - the place where one touches and is touched by others; both the most private of experiences and the most public marker of a raced, sexed and national history.

A spine-tingling standalone novel by bestselling author TJ Klune—a supernatural road-trip thriller featuring an extraordinary young girl and her two unlikely protectors on the run from cultists and the government. There's nothing more human than a broken heart. In the spring of 1995, Nate Cartwright has lost everything: his parents are dead, his only brother wants nothing to do with him, and he's been fired from his job as a journalist in Washington, DC. With nothing left to lose, he returns to his family's summer cabin outside the small mountain town of Roseland, Oregon, to try and find some sense of direction. The cabin should be empty. It's not. Inside is a man named Alex. And with him is an extraordinary ten-year-old girl who calls herself Artemis Darth Vader. Artemis, who isn't exactly as she appears. Soon it becomes clear that Nate must make a choice: let himself drown in the memories of his past, or fight for a future he never thought possible. Because the girl is special. And forces are descending upon them who want nothing more than to control her. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

An interdisciplinary study of skin bridging cultural and psychoanalytic theory to consider how the body's "exterior" is central to human subjectivity and relations. The authors explore racialization, body modification, self-harm, and comedic representations of skin, drawing from the clinical domain, visual arts, popular culture, and literature.

This volume continues the author's examination of how the functions of the Ego develop by building on the functions of the skin, and considers the passage from the Skin Ego to the Thinking Ego. After covering the activity of thought, the second part includes psychoanalytic case studies.

Skin in Psychoanalysis is an important theoretical contribution, revising several authors starting with Freud in whose writing we can now discover multiple direct or indirect references to the skin. It adopts a decidedly complex point of view regarding the skin here: the skin as source, the skin as object, the skin as protection and as a way of entrance, as contact and as contagion, the skin 'for two' within the relationship with the mother, the skin as envelope and as support, as a shell presented as 'second skin', as demarcation of individuality, as a place of inscription of non-verbal memories, toxic envelops and so on. Also, being the result of more than fifteen years of work with dermatologists and patients with skin diseases, psoriasis in particular, the book can be seen as a serious proposal for interdisciplinary work between dermatologists and psychoanalysts.'The hospital is a place where both tragedies and miracles occur, where many people go to heal but many others go in search for punishment.