Nourishing The Inner Life Of Clinicians And Humanitarians

Winner of the Clinical catergory of the American Board & Academy of Psychoanalysis Book Prize for best books published in 2016 Nourishing the Inner Life of Clinicians and Humanitarians: The Ethical Turn in Psychoanalysis, demonstrates the demanding, clinical and humanitarian work that psychotherapists often undertake with fragile and devastated people, those degraded by violence and discrimination. In spite of this, Donna M. Orange argues that there is more to human nature than a relentlessly negative view. Drawing on psychoanalytic and philosophical resources, as well as stories from history and literature, she explores ethical narratives that ground hope in human goodness and shows how these voices, personal to each analyst, can become sources of courage, warning and support, of prophetic challenge and humility which can inform and guide their work. Over the course of a lifetime, the sources change, with new ones emerging into importance, others receding into the background. Donna Orange uses examples from ancient Rome (Marcus Aurelius), from twentieth century Europe (Primo Levi, Emmanuel Levinas, Dietrich Bonhoeffer), from South Africa (Nelson Mandela), and from nineteenth century Russia (Fyodor Dostoevsky). She shows how not only can their words and examples, like those of our personal mentors, inspire and warn us; but they also show us the daily discipline of spiritual self-care, although these examples rely heavily on the discipline of spiritual reading, other practitioners will find inspiration in music, visual arts, or elsewhere and replenish the resources regularly. Nourishing the Inner Life of Clinicians and Humanitarians will help psychoanalysts to develop a language with which to converse about ethics and the responsibility of the therapist/analyst. This is an exceptional contribution highly suitable for practitioners and students of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

Winner of the Clinical catergory of the American Board & Academy of Psychoanalysis Book Prize for best books published in 2016 Nourishing the Inner Life of Clinicians and Humanitarians: The Ethical Turn in Psychoanalysis, demonstrates the demanding, clinical and humanitarian work that psychotherapists often undertake with fragile and devastated people, those degraded by violence and discrimination. In spite of this, Donna M. Orange argues that there is more to human nature than a relentlessly negative view. Drawing on psychoanalytic and philosophical resources, as well as stories from history and literature, she explores ethical narratives that ground hope in human goodness and shows how these voices, personal to each analyst, can become sources of courage, warning and support, of prophetic challenge and humility which can inform and guide their work. Over the course of a lifetime, the sources change, with new ones emerging into importance, others receding into the background. Donna Orange uses examples from ancient Rome (Marcus Aurelius), from twentieth century Europe (Primo Levi, Emmanuel Levinas, Dietrich Bonhoeffer), from South Africa (Nelson Mandela), and from nineteenth century Russia (Fyodor Dostoevsky). She shows how not only can their words and examples, like those of our personal mentors, inspire and warn us; but they also show us the daily discipline of spiritual self-care, although these examples rely heavily on the discipline of spiritual reading, other practitioners will find inspiration in music, visual arts, or elsewhere and replenish the resources regularly. Nourishing the Inner Life of Clinicians and Humanitarians will help psychoanalysts to develop a language with which to converse about ethics and the responsibility of the therapist/analyst. This is an exceptional contribution highly suitable for practitioners and students of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

Psychoanalysis, History, and Radical Ethics: Learning to Hear explores the importance of listening, being able to speak, and those who are silenced, from a psychoanalytic perspective. In particular, it focuses on those voices silenced either collectively or individually by trauma, culture, discrimination and persecution, and even by the history of psychoanalysis. Drawing on lessons from philosophy and history as well as clinical vignettes, this book provides a comprehensive guide to understanding the role of trauma in creating silence, and the importance for psychoanalysts of learning to hear those silenced voices.

This collection covers all the topics relevant for understanding the importance of Sándor Ferenczi and his influence on contemporary psychoanalysis. Pre-eminent Ferenczi scholars were solicited to contribute succint reviews of their fields of expertise. The book is divided in five sections. 'The historico-biographical' describes Ferenczi's childhood and student days, his marriage, brief analyses with Freud, his correspondences and contributions to daily press in Budapest, list of his patients' true identities, and a paper about his untimely death. 'The development of Ferenczi's ideas' reviews his ideas before his first encounter with psychoanalysis, his relationship with peers, friendship with Groddeck, emancipation from Freud, and review of the importance of his Clinical Diary. The third section reviews Ferenczi's clinical concepts and work: trauma, unwelcome child, wise baby, identification with aggressor, mutual analysis, and many others. In 'Echoes', we follow traces of Ferenczi's influence on virtually all traditions in contemporary psychoanalysis: interpersonal, independent, Kleinian, Lacanian, relational, etc.

Dr Alistair Ross is a University of Oxford academic whose previous work has been described by Ruby Wax as ‘very, very smart’. This new introductory book strikes an easy balance between theory and practice. It takes the reader from the field’s Freudian roots to its contemporary applications, skills and insights. Over the last 30 years, important new theoretical ideas, skills and clinical practices have emerged in counselling and psychotherapy. While key Freudian concepts like transference, counter-transference and the influence of the past on the present remain vital to psychodynamic work, research drawn from infant development, neuroscience, the role of the sacred, and intersubjective approaches to relationships has changed the way therapists understand and work with clients. Either in its own right or as part of an integrative approach, psychodynamic counselling and psychotherapy have an important role to play in developments to come. The book’s features include: • A re-discovery of the importance and relevance of Freud for present-day therapeutic relationships. • An encounter with the breadth and depth of our understanding about, and experience of, the unconscious. • An introduction to research that has evolved after Freud, revealing new ways of applying his ideas. • A contemporary perspective on traditional counselling and psychotherapy skills, illustrated by vignettes and personal insights from Alistair Ross’s professional practice. • An encouragement to develop new skills for relating at depth with our clients’ past, present and future, motivated by revealing how life-changing therapy can be. This book is a must-read for trainee and practising (psychodynamic or integrative) therapists who want an overview of new thinking and practice or might benefit from greater insight into psychodynamic practice, applying Freud’s theoretical world to improving the lives of real people today. ‘It is good to see Alistair, a valued student of mine and now an equally valued colleague, taking up the torch for psychodynamic counselling and psychotherapy for a new generation. He has written a book that collates much of the valuable writing to date and at the same time adds new dimensions that should not be overlooked.’ Michael Jacobs, Visiting Professor, University of Leeds and Bournemouth University, UK

History Flows through Us introduces a new dialogue between leading historians and psychoanalysts and provides essential insights into the nature of historical trauma. The contributors – German historians, historians of the Holocaust and psychoanalysts of different disciplinary backgrounds – address the synergy between history and psychoanalysis in an engaging and accessible manner. Together they develop a response to German history and the Holocaust that is future-oriented and timely in the presence of today’s ethnic hatreds. In the process, they help us to appreciate the emotional and political legacy of history’s collective crimes. This book illustrates how history and the psyche shape one another and the degree to which history flows through all of us as human beings. Its innovative cross-disciplinary approach draws on the work of the historian and psychoanalyst Thomas Kohut. The volume includes an extended dialogue with Kohut in which he reflects on the study of German history and the Holocaust at the intersection of history and psychoanalysis. This book demonstrates that the fields of history and psychoanalysis are each concerned with the role of empathy and with the study of memory and narrative. History Flows through Us will appeal to general readers, students and professionals in cultural history, Holocaust and trauma studies, sociology, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and psychology.

Developing psychoanalytic credos, a set of beliefs that inform how you listen and approach the analytic enterprise with patients, is in many ways the scaffolding of psychoanalytic training. Drawing upon Mannie Ghent’s original Credo essay, 27 psychoanalysts were asked to write their credos and/or their psychoanalytic journey. This book represents a multi-theoretical and multi-generational grouping, trained at different institutes, during different eras (grouped by decades 1960-2000) and across cultures. They are drawn from analysts identified with Relational, Object Relations, Contemporary Freudians and Kleinian/Bionian perspectives as well as those who don’t easily fit categorization. This book serves to provide companionship to analysts in training, as part of reading lists in institutes as well as analysts post-training and yet still evolving in their psychoanalytic journey.

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.