Psychoanalytic Trends in Theory and Practice

This volume of 13 essays by practitioners and theorists of psychoanalysis covers immense ground, and the editors deserve praise for including a broad range of topics relevant to the current psychoanalytic enterprise. The topics treated in this book are sure to excite both novices and experts: for example, narcissism, gender fluidity, emotional disturbance in childhood, depression, dissociative disorders, attachment and intersubjectivity, psychosomatics, and neuroscience. Each chapter author reviews a particular psychoanalytic concept's historical development, provides illustrative clinical examples, and reflects upon the topic's contemporary relevance. Many essays take a developmental perspective in terms of the individual's growth and maturation, and in this approach, a debt to the theorist Margaret Mahler can be discerned. The essays collected here tie theory to practice in eminently accessible language, providing a solid platform for current practitioners who wish to expand and deepen their knowledge of a field whose often postulated moribund nature is here belied. Well suited for both practitioners and students of psychoanalysis and psychology. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. * CHOICE *
The contributors to this timely book have successfully evaluated and updated the implications of concepts and practices in an extensive range of topics, as well as made these ideas accessible to new audiences. Most impressive is the concise but excellent historical and updated literature reviews designed to orient the reader to how theory has evolved over time. The illustrative clinical material demonstrates t he contemporary relevance of psychoanalytic ideas and practices that identify questions that still need to be answered. There is a gem of a chapter on open systems theory, leading to multiple simultaneous meaning making attempts and repairs, as well as a chapter on how to keep open and fluid the process of gender creativity. The range of expertise, depth and breadth of these authors is impressive. This is vitally important reading for psychotherapists from all backgrounds. The authors provide a masterful translation of complex concepts into a clinical approach that is forever enhancing. -- Wendy Olesker, PhD, New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute
The contributors to this volume, who were influenced by Margaret Mahler, give her the recognition that her work deserves. It is unfortunate that the more recent interest in attachment theory has made some psychoanalysts lose sight of the importance of separation individuation in child hood and in all subsequent phases of the life cycle. Margaret Mahler's work remains for the most part theoretically sound and clinically apt as is evident in all the chapters of the book. -- Arnold Richards, MD, editor of internationalpsychoanalysis.net