The Consulting Room And Beyond

The Consulting Room and Beyond is not a typical example of clinical writing in the field of psychoanalysis. Therese Ragen, pushing the boundaries of the genre, thoughtfully explores in a very immediate way the intersubjective nature of psychoanalysis, particularly looking at the role of the psychoanalyst’s subjectivity, both how it influences and is influenced by the psychoanalytic relationship. The profound ways in which analyst and patient affect each other are captured as the author moves from a moment with a patient, to one of her own memories, to a dream, to a professional consultation and back to the session with the patient. Ragen’s detailed descriptions of her subjective experiences and clinical skill help to weave the anecdotes into a compelling narrative, worthy of the attention of theorists, academics and clinicians alike.

Demonstrates how the analyst's subjective experience, both in and out of the therapeutic setting, affects the inner world of the analyst Utilizes a unique narrative style that weaves together the author's exterior experience with her interior states Eschews jargonistic language for straightforward prose, widening the scope of its accessibility beyond the learned professional

In this thought-provoking book, Deborah Wright examines the role of both space and objects as they become manifest in the psychoanalytic process and looks at how the role of the consulting room in the therapeutic process is both primitive and transferential. Wright explores spatialisation as simultaneously being a psychological projection of meaning and as physically acting upon the environment, utilised to master the undifferentiated, relentless, internal pressure of instinct. Throughout The Physical and Virtual Space of the Consulting Room, she considers the spatial aspects of work with patients by foregrounding the importance of the consulting room and its contents, including the impact of changes of consulting room, travelling, and in working virtually. Illustrated with clinical material and hand-drawn artwork, Wright orients the reader in the new territory by going beyond the existing literature that considers the objects and space of the consulting room solely as transferential aspects of the analyst. The interdisciplinary approach in this book calls on psychoanalytic theory and technique as well as philosophy, history, archaeology, and anthropology, which will be of great interest to all psychoanalytically orientated therapists as well as anyone, clinical or non-clinical, who makes use of psychoanalysis.

Ogden sets out a movement in contemporary psychoanalysis toward a new sensibility, reflecting a shift in emphasis from what he calls "epistemological psychoanalysis" (having to do with knowing and understanding) to "ontological psychoanalysis" (having to do with being and becoming). Ogden clinically illustrates his way of dreaming the analytic session and of inventing psychoanalysis with each patient. Using the works of Winnicott and Bion, he finds a turn in the analytic conception of mind from conceiving of it as a thing—a "mental apparatus"—to viewing mind as a living process located in the very act of experiencing. Ogden closes the volume with discussions of being and becoming that occur in reading the poetry of Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, and in the practice of analytic writing. This book will be of great interest not only to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists interested in the shift in analytic theory and practice Ogden describes, but also to those interested in ideas concerning the way the mind and human experiencing are created.

Dialogues between Psychoanalysis and Architecture explores the multisensory space of therapy, real or virtual, and how important it is in providing the container for the therapeutic relationship and process. This book is highly original in bringing psychoanalysis and architecture together and highlighting how both disciplines strive to achieve transformation of our psychic space. It brings together contributions that comprise three parts: the first explores the space of the consulting room through the senses to examine issues such as smell and its link with memory and belonging, hearing out the Other, the psychoanalytic couch, the medical therapy room and the so-called sixth sense; secondly, the book questions how the consulting room can represent or be redesigned to reflect the philosophy that underlies the therapy process, foregrounding an architectural point of view; and thirdly, the book attends to the significance of the consulting room as a virtual space, as it emerged during the pandemic of COVID-19 and beyond. Architectural, psychotherapeutic and interdisciplinary perspectives allow for an important new dimension on the psychological use of space, and will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic and integrative psychotherapists, art therapists, students of psychotherapy, as well as architects and designers.

Minding the Body: The Body in Psychoanalysis and Beyond outlines the value of a psychoanalytic approach to understanding the body and its vicissitudes and for addressing these in the context of psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. The chapters cover a broad but esoteric range of subjects that are not often discussed within psychoanalysis such as the function of breast augmentation surgery, the psychic origins of hair, the use made of the analyst’s toilet, transsexuality and the connection between dermatological conditions and necrophilic fantasies. The book also reaches ‘beyond the couch’ to consider the nature of reality television makeover show. The book is based on the Alessandra Lemma’s extensive clinical experience as a psychoanalyst and psychologist working in a range of public and private health care settings with patients for whom the body is the primary presenting problem or who have made unconscious use of the body to communicate their psychic pain. Minding the Body draws on detailed clinical examples that vividly illustrate how the author approaches these clinical presentations in the consulting room and, as such, provides insights to the practicing clinician that will support their attempts at formulating patients’ difficulties psychoanalytically and for how to helps such patients. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, mental health workers, academics and literary readers interested in the body, sexuality and gender.

Therapy and Beyond: Counselling Psychology Contributions to Therapeutic and Social Issues presents an overview of the origins, current practices, and potential future of the discipline of counselling psychology. Presents an up-to-date review of the knowledge base behind the discipline of counselling psychology that addresses the notion of human wellbeing and critiques the concept of ‘psychopathology’ Includes an assessment of the contributions that counselling psychology makes to understanding people as individuals, in their working lives, and in wider social domains Offers an overview of counselling psychology's contributions beyond the consulting room, including practices in the domain of spirituality, the arts and creative media, and the environmental movement Critiques contemporary challenges facing research as well as the role that research methods have in responding to questions about humanity and individual experience

This collection of essays examines current trends in scholarly research on Spanish author Carmen Martín Gaite (1925-2000). It concentrates on the least explored areas of Martín Gaite's oeuvre, such as her collage artwork, the relationship between image and text in her work, and her close relationship with themes such as genre writing, the fairy tale, and textual/physical notions of space, as well as her personal theories on orality and narration. As we pass the tenth anniversary of her death, Martín Gaite continues to be an increasing focus of study, as scholars start to identify and comprehend the breadth and scope of her work. The essays in the volume complement previous studies of Martín Gaite's major works from the 1960s and 1970s by focusing largely on her later novels, together with in-depth analysis of the manuscripts and artistic materials that have been made available since her death.