Torment Me, But Don't Abandon Me

This book pulls into focus the internal meanings of conflict, including the variety of conflicts within the superego, conflicts among ideals of the self, internal loyalty conflicts, etc. Thus, the analysand's attitudes towards conflict itself can be approached with Buber's I-Thou relationship rather than his I-It relationship, which makes analytic work essentially a humanistic enterprise having to do with respect for human suffering. -- Benjamin Kilborne, Ph.D., author, Disappearing Persons: Shame and Appearance; training and supervising analyst, International Psychoanalytic Association
This book is a marvelous and comprehensive synthesis of many strands in psychoanalysis. In this work, destined to become a classic, Dr. Wurmser enables us to learn from his multi-faceted and deep training, reading, and experience. The reader will finish this book seeing connections between clinical work, literature, and religion that are startling in their freshness and originality. And, in what is perhaps the greatest legacy of this book, the reader will find himself filled with renewed excitement and vigor about the promise and power of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic thinking. -- Everett Siegel, M.D., assistant professor in psychiatry, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; director, Student Mental Health; medical director, Faculty
Dr. Wurmser has written a marvelous book, full of wisdom, steeped in a life of compassionate psychoanalytic practice and passionate scholarship. With classical analytic theory and practice bred in his bones, he is steeped in modern psychoanalysis, philosophy, science and literature. But at the heart of this gem of a book is the deep understanding of his patients. His unfolding analytic narratives grip the reader as he describes the encounter of two people engaged to transform the deadening constraints of pain and trauma, to give birth to new vitality, to humanize deadness and to connect patients' efforts to survive to the fears they have suffered. We watch in awe as analysis breathes vitality into their dreams, endeavors, relationships and futures. This is a book to inspire the veteran therapist and the inexperienced analytic aspirant alike. -- David E. Scharff, M.D., International Psychotherapy Institute and the IPA Committee on Family and Couple Psychoanalysis
Leon Wurmser combines incredible erudition and knowledge of the psychoanalytic literature with a dedication to clinical work. Moreover, he is willing to tackle the most difficult patient problems with hope and enthusiasm that can inspire the reader to do the same. -- Joseph D. Lichtenberg, M.D., editor-in-chief, Psychoanalytic Inquiry; author, Craft and Spirit: A Guide to the Exploratory Psychotherapies
This book is destined to be a classic. Leon Wurmser gives strong clinical and theoretical evidence for the feasibility of psychoanalyzing patients with severe neuroses, patients believed by still too many to be un-analyzable. He does so with sound clinical acumen, explanation, and remarkable scholarship. A unique contribution, this book offers the reader the thoughts of a brilliant clinician and theoretician who spent decades of his professional life on the questions the book addresses. It is a rich interweaving of psychoanalytic thought and practice with literary, philosophical, and Talmudic thought regarding the questions of morality, conscience, guilt and shame, bringing these to bear on furthering our understanding of the torturing clinical problems they inflict on so many humans. -- Henri Parens, M.D., professor of psychiatry, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, PA; training and supervising analyst (adult and child), Psycho
This book is destined to be a classic. Leon Wurmser gives strong clinical and theoretical evidence for the feasibility of psychoanalyzing patients with "severe neuroses," patients believed by still too many to be "un-analyzable." He does so with sound clinical acumen, explanation, and remarkable scholarship. A unique contribution, this book offers the reader the thoughts of a brilliant clinician and theoretician who spent decades of his professional life on the questions the book addresses. It is a rich interweaving of psychoanalytic thought and practice with literary, philosophical, and Talmudic thought regarding the questions of morality, conscience, guilt and shame, bringing these to bear on furthering our understanding of the torturing clinical problems they inflict on so many humans. -- Henri Parens, M.D., professor of psychiatry, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, PA; training and supervising analyst (adult and child), Psycho
In Torment Me, But Don't Abandon Me, Dr. Wurmser unfolds his subtle conflict, defense, and affect theories. He views the superego as the sleeping giant of psychoanalysis; integrating classical and contemporary concepts he places special emphasis on shame, rooted in conflicts of seeing and being seen. The high literary quality and the broad cultural horizon make reading this book a fascinating experience that goes beyond the limits of the specialist field. -- Friedrich-Wilhelm Eickhoff, M.D., training and supervising analyst, German Psychoanalytical Association; Tübingen; co-editor, Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse
Leon Wurmser, more than any living psychoanalyst, has a profound grasp of the centrality of judgments of conscience in the deep dynamics of conflict in the traumatized patient. Torment Me, But Don't Abandon Me: Psychoanalysis of the Severe Neuroses in a New Key deepens the lines of thinking developed in The Strength of the Inner Judge and carries their theoretical and technical implications to a new synthetic level, one that avoids the simplistic dichotomies between conflict versus deficit, conflict versus trauma, neurosis versus borderline, and one person versus two person formulations.
Leon Wurmser, more than any living psychoanalyst, has a profound grasp of the centrality of judgments of conscience in the deep dynamics of conflict in the traumatized patient. Torment Me, But Don't Abandon Me: Psychoanalysis of the Severe Neuroses in a New Key deepens the lines of thinking developed in The Power of the Inner Judge and carries their theoretical and technical implications to a new synthetic level, one that avoids the simplistic dichotomies between conflict versus deficit, conflict versus trauma, neurosis versus borderline, and one person versus two person formulations. -- Melvin R. Lansky, M.D., training and supervising analyst, The New Center for Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles; clinical professor of psychiatry, UCLA Medica
For several decades, Leon Wurmser has engaged in teaching and lecture trips through many European countries, especially in the German-speaking world. His immense clinical experience in the treatment of the severe neuroses, of superego pathology, of masochism, and of shame conflicts, represents a great enrichment for the professional public. His pronounced creativity and his ability to integrate new developments and insights in psychoanalysis within his own thinking allow his readers and hearers to participate in the newest gains in our field. In this, his universal erudition is always impressive. As a German psychoanalyst I am particularly grateful to him that he so generously offers us his thinking that is so deeply steeped in Jewish tradition and culture. This is the more important since the events of Nazi rule have left in German psychoanalysis a great cultural and intellectual void, a vacuum that only slowly can be filled again with content and life. Yet also for the American professional world, the opportunity to listen and study his world of thought could be enriching since he belongs to the steadily shrinking group of psychiatrists and psychoanalysts who have retained their ties to the realm of language and the humanities. -- Heidrun Jarass