The Infinite Infantile And The Psychoanalytic Task

The Infinite Infantile and the Psychoanalytic Task is a fascinating collection of essays that proposes to restore and elaborate original conceptions of the complexity of mental processes in the early years of life until the onset of adolescence, and from then until adulthood. This book, led by the Committee on Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis (COCAP) of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), commits to shedding light on new developments in theory and practice in this area. Each chapter offers an expression of current thinking and clinical work with child and adolescent patients, as well as with their parents, families, and community. The complex contributions by brilliant and erudite scholars offer a fresh take on the existing body of thought on infancy and childhood in psychoanalysis that will challenge and enlighten readers of all backgrounds. Within these perspectives, the development of internal and external bonds is the focus, as well as a consideration of how analysts work in their time with young patients at these key moments of the life cycle. With their expertise in childhood, the contributors share complex views on the link between analysis with young children and psychoanalysis with adults, making it an essential read for child and adolescent psychoanalysts in practice and in training.

This book brings together international contributors to share insight from their theoretical and clinical work with adolescents, considering the different psychopathological responses they see in adolescent patients and how these can be worked with in analysis. Each chapter addresses a specific topic, focusing on representing the clinical realities facing psychoanalysts in treating adolescents with different types of disturbances at the psychic level. They cover a range of situations and perspectives, including discussion of maternal violence, the erotic field, self-mutilation, and social withdrawal, with a core focus on issues affecting contemporary adolescents. Bringing together a vast range of experience, The Astonishing Adolescent Upheaval in Psychoanalysis presents a new approach which re-establishes the impact of the responses of significant objects in the impasses present in narcissistic suffering. This book will be of great interest to all psychoanalytic and psychodynamic clinicians working with adolescents.

Outsider Art and Psychoanalytic Psychiatry is a study of psychiatric institutes and psychiatric violence as seen through art created by the inhabitants of a psychiatric hospital. Cosimo Schinaia explores the history of the Cogoleto Psychiatric Hospital, now abandoned, and how its architecture and ideology influenced treatment of the patients who lived there. At the book’s core is an in-depth historical, anthropological, and psychoanalytical study of the “Nativity of Fools,” a large art installation constructed from 1980 to 1984 by patients, nurses, and psychiatrists, representing their everyday lives in the asylum. Schinaia’s understanding of the scenes considers questions of nostalgia, isolation, privacy, and freedom and reflects on the risks of institutionalised segregation. The book proposes original psychoanalytic reflections on the subject of the obsolescence of psychiatric hospitals and treating mental suffering without institutionalising people. This book will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in practice and in training, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and nurses as well as readers interested in outsider art, Arte Povera, and the history of psychiatric institutions and contemporary psychiatry.

A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Trauma presents a theory of the nature of trauma and post-traumatic mental functioning based on the concept of the ‘zero process’. Joseph Fernando presents a novel, comprehensive, and clinically useful theory of trauma. The author first presents theories of trauma and describes the zero process, related to the breakdown of various ego functions, such as memory and integration, during trauma. Rather than replacing Freud’s ideas of the primary process and repression, Fernando expands on the idea of the mind to include both types of functioning, identifies how they can be differentiated, and examines the different therapeutic techniques they require. He also considers how trauma impacts the construction of reality, the role of human development, the relation of trauma and borderline disorders, and the development of therapeutic technique. Through the unique illustration and narration of cases of three patients, Fernando presents conceptual and clinical innovations. A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Trauma will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists in practice and in training.

The Freudian Matrix of André Green presents seven papers, never previously published in English, that will allow readers to more closely follow and more fully understand the development of Green’s unique psychoanalytic thinking. The chapters in this book provide valuable insight into Green’s response to a perceived crisis in psychoanalysis. His thinking synthesizes the work of Lacan, Winnicott, Bion and other post-Freudian authors with his own extensive clinical experience, and results in a much needed extension of psychoanalytic theory and practice to non-neurotic patients. Green’s focus on drives, affect and the work of the negative and his introduction and exploration of the Dead Mother complex, narcissism, negative hallucination and the death instinct constitute a vital expansion of Freudian metapsychology and its application to the clinical setting. The Freudian Matrix of André Green will be essential reading for psychoanalysts in practice and in training, and for any reader looking to understand more about the enormity of his contribution.

Desire, Pain and Thought presents a new perspective on primal erotogenic masochism, which Marilia Aisenstein regards as the core of psychoanalytic theory. Aisenstein distinguishes between pathological masochism – the active search for pain – and primal erotogenic masochism, which she believes develops in early childhood. Desire, Pain and Thought explains that the formation of this response in a child is essential to the survival of the individual and the development of resilience. Aisenstein skilfully and convincingly uses her deep understanding of metapsychology and her mastery of Freud’s seminal papers to demonstrate that thought is one of the manifestations of desire which implies a painful renunciation of the object of desire. By moving away from its pathological, negative connotation to a more positive one, the book presents an understanding of masochism as “the guardian of life”. Desire, Pain and Thought will be essential reading for psychoanalysts in practice and in training.

Trauma and Pain Without a Subject explores the necessity of the subject of trauma emerging, particularly when a victim has experienced but not worked through disruptive situations, in order for unconscious pain to finally be experienced. The book is presented in three parts, with the first, "Transgression and Crime", uncovering silence around the topic of incest and sexual violence within the clinic. The second part, "Between Completeness and Nothingness", develops the topic of sexual violence and considers the construction of femininities and masculinities within the paradigm of a heteronormative patriarchal society, with reference to Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. The third part, “Yes, We See, But What? What We Hear”, explores the intimate relation between the visual and the auditory, especially in relation to hysteria. Trauma and Pain Without a Subject will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in practice and in training, and to all psychoanalytic practitioners working with trauma.

The Infantile in Psychoanalytic Practice Today demonstrates the concept of the Infantile, first proposed almost a quarter of a century ago, and the ways in which it has become an indispensable tool in contemporary psychoanalytic clinical practice. As a “concept of the third type”, the Infantile makes the “links-between-the-links” woven into the transference/countertransference functional and effective with patients of all ages, and is related to the double helix between infant neurosis and transference neurosis as revealed by Freud. The author proposes the Infantile as a key concept in the psychic organization of every human being, as the unconscious internal space that includes both the repressed elements of the past and the constantly renewed expressions of the drives. As a unique and dynamic configuration for each person, the book explores the way this relates to others, to the environment, and also to the individual’s own psychic contents and movements. This eagerly awaited English edition includes two new chapters, filling a gap in the psychoanalytic library. As a concept with international scope, these writings on the Infantile will be essential reading for psychoanalysts working today and all those interested in the history of psychoanalysis.