Living And Containing Psychoanalysis In Institutions

Encompassing diverse perspectives on the psychoanalyst as individual, social being, and member of psychoanalytic institutions, this book provides practical and informed answers to the question of how psychoanalysts can take care of their psychoanalytic institutions. The book draws urgent attention to concerns about how the field of psychoanalysis can be sustained into the future, and sets out several studies in institutional dynamics as a form of provocation for psychoanalysts to reflect on their position as members of the institution and to act courageously in their collective efforts. Correlations between institutional dynamics and familial relationships are emphasized, alongside varied and detailed accounts of the styles of leadership required to facilitate improved cooperation in psychoanalytic institutions. The authors draw on their experiences as group participants, leaders and observers at both local and supranational levels, to investigate the historical context underpinning the disillusion among psychoanalysts, offering readers richly informed perspectives on how to nurture collegial ethics. With an emphasis on a shared ethics of responsibility, and the work involved in building secure professional relationships among psychoanalytic groups of all kinds, this book will prove essential to those engaged in understanding the work involved in psychoanalysis, whether in training or in practice.

The Work of Donald Meltzer Revisited: 100 Years After His Birth returns to and reassesses the contributions of Donald Meltzer, one of the most significant disciples of Melanie Klein and who was deeply inspired by Wilfred Bion.

This is a scholarly study in which the author explores a difficult subject matter that has been a tabooed topic in psychoanalysis. She undertakes a serious study of the underlying arguments as to why psychoanalysts have seldom been able to live in harmony with each other. In a very lucid and systematic manner, the author examines how a discipline, in this case psychoanalysis, can be manipulated to its detriment. She explains the disquieting processes that take place, which impede the development of psychoanalysis. These influences insidiously infiltrate the organisational ranks as a kind of arguing which should ostensibly enrich psychoanalysis but instead deprives it of its creativity. For a discipline to prosper, it is necessary to have the freedom to air doubts, ask questions, raise hypotheses, and contrast discoveries by sharing them with others, debating different positions to reflect on the discussions, and to change one's views if necessary.

The Organizational Life of Psychoanalysis is a wide-ranging exploration and examination of the organizational conflicts and dilemmas that have troubled psychoanalysis since its inception. Kenneth Eisold provides a unique, detailed, and closely reasoned account of the systems needed to carry out the tasks of training, quality control, community building, and relationships with the larger professional community. He explores how the freedom to innovate and explore can be sustained in a context where the culture has insisted on certain standards being set and enforced, standards that have little to do with providing effective pathways to cure. Each chapter in this collection addresses a specific dilemma faced by the profession, including: Who is to be in charge of training and who will determine those who succeed the existing leadership? Which theories and practices are to be approved and which proscribed and censored? How is the competition with alternative methods, including psychotherapy informed by psychoanalysis, to be managed? Several chapters are devoted to exploring the reciprocal influence of Freudian psychoanalysis and Jungian Analytical Psychology. Others explore the specific dilemmas and difficulties affecting the field currently, stemming from the massive restructuring of the health care industry and the changes affecting all professions, as they are reshaped into massive organizations no longer marked by personal relationships and individual control. The Organizational Life of Psychoanalysis will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, and anyone interested in the future of psychoanalysis as a profession. It will appeal greatly to anyone who has assumed full or partial responsibility for the management of a psychoanalytic institute or association.

This book adopts an approach based on relational psychoanalysis, developed in the USA in and since the 1990s and guided by the self-psychology championed by Kohut and the Post-Kohutians. How people infected with HIV/AIDS live their lives is a growing concern in China. The book, based on relational psychoanalysis, explores their self-restoration, and more specifically, how adopting an attitude of “dying to live” helps them face tremendous challenges in life. By interviewing selected individuals at a given organization, the author focuses on their life experiences and on corresponding interventional mechanisms. The book’s three most important features are as follows: 1) its application of self-psychology by Heinz Kohut into the context of psychological intervention; 2) a wealth of qualitative data gathered through in-depth interviews; and 3) the author’s self-reflection and analysis. The book offers a valuable guide for graduate students, researchers, and policymakers alike. By interviewing selected individuals at a given organization, the book focuses on the life histories of selected individuals after being diagnosed with AIDS (screening HIV positive) and on corresponding interventional mechanisms. Further, itemploys the self and self-object as key explanatory terms for the necessary psychotherapeutic interventions,and in order to create guidelines that sufficiently reflect the illness and corresponding interventions. Given its scope and focus, the book offers a valuable guide for graduate students, researchers, and policymakers alike.

This book focuses on the priority that psychoanalysis places on the individual, how the treatment is conceived theoretically and the ways it can be incorporated in the overall organisation of an institution. It brings together the histories of a number of psychoanalytically informed hospitals.

This is the third volume in the highly successful monograph series produced by the European Federation for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in the Public Health Services (EFPP). It deals with psychotherapeutic life and work at the interface between psychoanalytic theory and institutional reality. Contributions are provided by writers from across Europe, whose differing perspectives lead to a fascinating cross-fertilization of ideas. Inevitably, a particular theme is the set of constraints and pressures which arise as a result of working in institution, and how to deal with them.

Showcasing a diverse range of contributions from psychoanalysts of many different countries and theoretical orientations, Psychoanalysis and Covidian Life, a collective work edited by Howard B. Levine and Ana de Staal, offers readers the opportunity to explore and reflect upon the ways in which the Covid-19 pandemic has begun to influence analytical practice. From the changes imposed on the framework (online sessions) to the impact of the trauma of isolation and the disruption of our social anchoring (required by confinement and health protection gestures), to the challenge presented to the 'ordinary' denial of mortality, this book explores the lessons of what the pandemic can teach us about how to understand and treat collective distress individually and puts psychoanalytical tools to the test of the profound psychosocial upheavals that the twenty-first century may hold in store. This book will be of interest to practising and trainee clinicians and anyone with an interest in the all-consuming effects of a global pandemic. Contributions from Christopher Bollas, Patricia Cardoso de Mello, Bernard Chervet, Joshua Durban, Antonino Ferro, Serge Frisch, Steven Jaron, Daniel Kupermann, Howard Levine, Francois Levy, Riccardo Lombardi, Elias & Alberto Rocha Barros, Michael Rustin, Ana de Staal, and Jean-Jacques Tyszler.