The Metapsychology Of Christopher Bollas

The Metapsychology of Christopher Bollas: An Introduction explores Bollas’s extraordinarily wide contribution to contemporary psychoanalysis. The book aims to introduce and explain the fundamentals of Bollas’s theory of the mind in a systematic way, addressing many of the questions that commonly arise when people approach his work. Through chapters on topics such as the receptive subject, the creative unconscious and the implications of Bollas’s metapsychology for the technique of free association, the book enables the reader to acquire an understanding of his unique psychoanalytic language, to grasp the conceptual building blocks of his thinking and how these interrelate, and to appreciate the theoretical and clinical coherence of his thinking. The Metapsychology of Christopher Bollas: An Introduction will be of use to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and counsellors, as well as psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers wishing to explore the applications of psychoanalytic thinking to their practice. It will be of great value to trainees in these disciplines, as well as to postgraduate students and academics interested in contemporary psychoanalysis.

The Metapsychology of Christopher Bollas: An Introduction explores Bollas’s extraordinarily wide contribution to contemporary psychoanalysis. The book aims to introduce and explain the fundamentals of Bollas’s theory of the mind in a systematic way, addressing many of the questions that commonly arise when people approach his work. Through chapters on topics such as the receptive subject, the creative unconscious and the implications of Bollas’s metapsychology for the technique of free association, the book enables the reader to acquire an understanding of his unique psychoanalytic language, to grasp the conceptual building blocks of his thinking and how these interrelate, and to appreciate the theoretical and clinical coherence of his thinking. The Metapsychology of Christopher Bollas: An Introduction will be of use to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and counsellors, as well as psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers wishing to explore the applications of psychoanalytic thinking to their practice. It will be of great value to trainees in these disciplines, as well as to postgraduate students and academics interested in contemporary psychoanalysis.

This book provides a clear and accessible overview of the seminal clinical thinking of Christopher Bollas. Placing Bollas’s writings besides those of analysts including Milner, Bion, Winnicott, Lacan, and Green, Steven Jaron examines the central concept of the unthought known in terms of unconscious communication in the primary environment while occasioning a reworking of Oedipal configurations. Through vivid narratives of character analyzing a range of adult patients, at times requiring a rethinking of the conventional psychoanalytic frame, Jaron offers a fresh perspective on Bollas in arguing for the importance of considering not only the patient’s self experience but also the psychoanalyst's. This important study will be rewarding to beginning and seasoned analysts alike, offering suggestions for using Bollas’ work in the consulting room as well as when faced with the demands of civic life today.

This reader brings together a selection of seminal papers by Christopher Bollas. Essays such as "The Fascist State of Mind," "The Structure of Evil," and "The Functions of History" have established his position as one of the most significant cultural critics of our time. Also included are examples of his psychoanalytical writings, such as "The Transformational Object" and "Psychic Genera," that deepen and renew interest in unconscious creative processes. Two recent essays, "Character and Interformality" and "The Wisdom of the Dream" extend his work on aesthetics and the role of form in everyday life. This is a collection of papers that will appeal to anyone interested in human experience and subjectivity.

Thousands of years ago Indo-European culture diverged into Western and Eastern ways of thinking. Bollas examines how they are converging again in psychoanalysis.

Christopher Bollas is well respected and has published widely in the field As well as 14 previously published 'classic' Bollas essays, two chapters appear here for the first time This will appeal to a wide audience including clinicians and academics, from undergraduate to postgraduate

Bollas offers an original and illuminating theory of hysteria that weaves its well-known features - repressed sexual ideas; indifference to conversions; over-identification with the other - into the hysteric form.

"Many schizophrenics experience their condition as one of radical incarceration, mind-altering medications, isolation, and dehumanization. At a time when the treatment of choice is anti-psychotic medication, world-renowned psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas shows that schizophrenics can be helped by much more humane treatments, and explains that they have a chance to survive and even reverse the process if they have someone to talk with them regularly and for a sustained period soon after they show signs of imminent breakdown. In this sensitive and evocative narrative, Bollas draws on his personal experiences working with schizophrenics since the 1960s. He offers his interpretation of how schizophrenia develops, typically in the teen years, as an adaptation during the difficult transition to adulthood."--Dust jacket.