Applying Psychoanalytic Thought To Contemporary Mental Health Practice

Advances in psychoanalytic theory and technique can be usefully applied in virtually all psychotherapeutic settings, as well as in the management of patients in many nonmental health settings, to enhance understanding of patients. In this book, Steinberg reviews a collection of his own essays, incorporating developments in psychoanalytic theory and new ideas since his essays were published. Chapters clearly describe the evolving psychoanalytic approaches to treatment and illustrate how to use psychoanalytic concepts when working with patients. A variety of clinical situations are covered, including group psychotherapy, partial hospitalization, and individual psychotherapy. This book provides the foundation of analysis and offers varied clinical experiences appealing to a wide range of practitioners and case examples offering descriptive details and interventions. This book will be essential reading for all mental health professionals wanting to improve their working relationships with patients.

This book shows how contemporary psychoanalytic thinking can be applied in the everyday practice of medicine to enhance the practice of family medicine and all clinical specialties. Dr. Steinberg analyzes his writings over the past 35 years—on psychiatry and family medicine, liaison psychiatry, and mentoring—based on developments in psychoanalytic thinking. Divided into sections based on different venues of medical practice, including family medicine clinics, inpatient medical and surgical units, and psychiatric inpatient units and outpatient programs, chapters illustrate how various concepts in psychoanalysis can enhance physicians’ understanding and management of their patients. A concluding section contains applications of psychoanalytic thought in non-clinical areas pertinent to medicine, including preventing suicide among physicians, residents, and medical students, sexual abuse of patients by physicians, and oral examination anxiety in physicians. Readers will learn to apply psychoanalytic concepts with a rational approach that enhances their understanding and management of their patients and practice of medicine generally.

Alessandra Lemma - Winner of the Levy-Goldfarb Award for Child Psychoanalysis! The contemporary relevance of psychoanalysis is being increasingly questioned; Off the Couch challenges this view, demonstrating that psychoanalytic thinking and its applications are both innovative and relevant, in particular to the management and treatment of more disturbed and difficult to engage patient groups. Chapters address: clinical applications in diverse settings across the age range the relevance of psychoanalytic thinking to the practice of CBT, psychosomatics and general psychiatry the contribution of psychoanalytic thinking to mental health policy and the politics of conflict and mediation. This book suggests that psychoanalysis has a vital position within the public health sector and discusses how it can be better utilised in the treatment of a range of mental health problems. It also highlights the role of empirical research in providing a robust evidence base. Off the Couch will be essential reading for those practicing in the field of mental health and will also be useful for anyone involved in the development of mental health and public policies. It will ensure that practitioners and supervisors have a clear insight into how psychoanalysis can be applied in general healthcare.

What is psychoanalysis? Is it relevant to today’s mental health crisis? How can psychoanalysis help people suffering from psychological distress and illness? This vital new book examines how psychoanalysis has changed since its inception, and how it has adapted to the needs and concerns of 21st-century mental health professionals and patients. The first part of this book provides a concise and unbiased account of the origins of psychoanalysis, and the theories which characterise the main post-Freudian schools – neo-Freudian, Kleinian, interpersonal, self-psychological, Lacanian – and the ways in which they agree and diverge. The second part uses clinical illustrations to examine the practicalities of psychoanalytic technique in the consulting room – assessment, free association, dream analysis, transference, and counter-transference. Whatever their allegiance or role, mental health professionals – psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, child mental health professionals, mental health nurses – need to be conversant with the strengths, relevance, and limitations of the psychoanalytic approach. This book provides an indispensable, up-to-date, and accessible account of psychoanalysis today. Shaped throughout by considering the viewpoint of an interested 21st-century reader, it is of great interest to psychoanalysts and related mental health professionals, as well as students and all those interested in the treatment of mental health.

2013 Goethe Award Winner! This is the first book of its kind to offer a sustained critique of contemporary psychoanalytic thought favoring relational, postmodern, and intersubjective perspectives, which largely define American psychoanalysis today. Conundrums turns an eye toward the philosophical underpinnings of contemporary theory; its theoretical relation to traditional psychoanalytic thought; clinical implications for therapeutic practice; political and ethical ramifications of contemporary praxis; and its intersection with points of consilience that emerge from these traditions. Central arguments and criticisms advanced throughout the book focus on operationally defining the key tenets of contemporary perspectives; the seduction and ambiguity of postmodernism; the question of selfhood and agency; illegitimate attacks on classical psychoanalysis; the role of therapeutic excess; contemporary psychoanalytic politics; and the question of consilience between psychoanalysis as a science versus psychoanalysis as part of the humanities. The historical criticisms against psychoanalysis are further explored in the context of the current philosophical-scientific binary that preoccupies the field.

An Evidence-Based Critique of Contemporary Psychoanalysis assesses the state of psychoanalysis in the 21st century. Joel Paris examines areas where analysis needs to develop a stronger scientific and clinical base, and to integrate its ideas with modern clinical psychology and psychiatry. While psychoanalysis has declined as an independent discipline, it continues to play a major role in clinical thought. Paris explores the extent to which analysis has gained support from recent empirical research. He argues that it could revive its influence by establishing a stronger relationship to science, whilst looking at the state of current research. For clinical applications, he suggests while convincing evidence is lacking to support long-term treatment, brief psychoanalytic therapy, lasting for a few months, has been shown to be relatively effective for common mental disorders. For theory, Paris reviews changes in the psychoanalytic paradigm, most particularly the shift from a theory based largely on intrapsychic mechanisms to the more interpersonal approach of attachment theory. He also reviews the interfaces between psychoanalysis and other disciplines, ranging from "neuropsychoanalysis" to the incorporation of analytic theory into post-modern models popular in the humanities. An Evidence-Based Critique of Contemporary Psychoanalysis concludes by examining the legacy of psychoanalysis and making recommendations for integration into broader psychological theory and psychotherapy. It will be of great interest to psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, and scholars and practitioners across the mental health professions interested in the future and influence of the field.

In Psychoanalytic Therapy as Health Care, a timely and trenchant consideration of the clash of values between managed care and psychoanalysis, contributors elaborate a thoughtful defense of the therapeutic necessity and social importance of contemporary psychoanalytic and psychodynamic approaches in the provision of mental health care. Part I begins with the question of where psychoanalytic treatments now stand in relation to health care; contributors offer explanations of the current state of affairs and consider possible directions of future developments. Part II looks directly at the conundrums that have resulted from the attempt to integrate psychotherapy and managed care, with contributors examining the ethical and legal dimensions of confidentiality, privacy, and reporting to third parties. Part III opens to wider consideration of the experiences of psychoanalysts under health care systems throughout the world. Finally, Part IV demonstrates the relevance of contemporary psychoanalytic approaches to a variety of contemporary patient populations, with contributors focusing on the applicability of analytically oriented treatment to AIDS patients, seriously disturbed young adults, and inner-city clinic patients. Collectively, the contributors to Psychoanalytic Therapy as Health Care convincingly refute the claim that psychoanalytically informed therapy is an esoteric treatment suited only to the "worried well." Drawing on a wide range of clinical and empirical evidence, they forcefully argue that contemporary psychoanalytic approaches are applicable to seriously distressed persons in a variety of treatment contexts. Failure to include such long-term therapies within health care delivery systems, they conclude, will deprive many patients of help they need - and help from which they can benefit in enduring ways that far transcend the limited treatment goals of managed care.

This book argues for the value and application of psychoanalytic thinking beyond, as well as within, the consulting room. Inspired by a Scottish psychoanalytic tradition that owes much to W.R.D. Fairbairn and J.D. Sutherland, the Scottish Institute of Human Relations has provided a valuable reference point for the work described in the book. It illustrates how the coming together of human beings into a shared space fosters opportunities to create loving, collaborative relationships in which to work and from which to grow. The book's first section explores how psychoanalytic thinking developed in Scotland, while section two focuses on work with children, families and couples, showing how psychoanalytic perspectives can be used to strengthen capacities for loving relationships. The chapters in section three show how psychoanalysis can be applied in such varied settings as psycho-social research, education, institutional development and organisational consultancy. The fourth section pursues this theme further, considering the potential of psychoanalytic concepts to enhance work in religious ministry, in medical and psychiatric services, and in understanding the processes of ageing.