Personal Relations Therapy
The Collected Papers of H.J.S. Guntrip
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Jason Aronson Inc. Publishers
Published:7th Jul '77
Currently unavailable, our supplier has not provided us a restock date
This book gives us the broad sweep of a remarkable psychoanalytic writer, Harry Guntrip, whose place is at the forefront of our efforts to explain the role of an emergent and resilient self in the organization and maintenance of human relations. I believe that a substantial part of Guntrip's discovery, his work on a painful and bleak frontier that was simultaneously within himself and in the realm of the science of psychoanalysis, has been absorbed into the sensibility of the field with far less attribution and direct appreciation than is warranted. Harry Guntrip brought a unique intensity to the examination of personal experience in constructing and validating psychoanalytic meaning. His heritage draws directly on the tradition of Freud, whose personal struggles formed the raw data for The Interpretation of Dreams. There are few works of such stature in the annals of our work, few examples of the blending of life and art, life and science. 'Guntrip's work is one of them. In this volume, Jeremy Hazell has done far more than simply collect the records. He has done that, and he has allowed it to stand for itself. But he has done so through his own lens, through a depth of understanding and valuing that shines through. His introduction is a record of the interweaving of Guntrip's personal growth with his psychoanalytic understanding. It is a Baedeker of Guntrip's travels, a rich appreciation, a tribute, and a fine work in its own right. Guntrip's work is important to us, perhaps now more than ever. The issues with which he grappled have come to haunt us in a time of ever more consciousness of the toll of social and personal deprivation, and of a growing awareness that our work is not concerned with egos - with the mechanisms of an autonomous mind - as much as it is with selves in relation to others.
Mental health professionals involved in the practice of psychoanalytical psychotherapy will find this volume of the writings of Harry Guntrip a tour de force of the theoretical growth of object relations theory starting from Klein, through Winnicott and Fairbairn, to the unique contribution of Guntrip himself. Guntrip let patients speak for themselves, evoking a personal and startingly clear picture of the internal struggles of schizoid patients. His arguments for the centrality of schizoid functioning inthe endopsychic world are powerfully compelling, not least because they represent his own personal search allied to a commitment that object relations theory must be scientifically rigorous and also encompass the personal. Through the guidance of JeremyHazell in the introductory chapter, we are allowed to share in Guntrip's personal search and his integration of the theoretical and the personal. (J. D. Sutherland was to continue this work with his theory of the autonomous self until his death in 1991.)Fairbairn and Winnicott were for Guntrip broad representations of the traditional Cartesian dualism in science—objectivity vs. subjectivity, psychotherapy vs. behaviorism, technique vs. personal relationship. These themes pervade this book and challenge -- David J. Scott
Guntrip described what is most important about psychoanalysis as 'a process of interaction, a function of two variables, the personalities of two people working together towards spontaneous growth.' In this important collection of Guntrip's papers, the reader not only hears these words, but can almost feel the struggle for personal contact and meaning unfold in the sequence of chapters. Jeremy Hazell, the editor, begins the volume with a hauntingly sensitive intertwining of Guntrip's personal psychoanalytic biography and the unfolding of his professional writings. It seems almost as if Hazell and Guntrip come to life in the process of understanding and being understood. This book provides a personally enriching experience as well as necessary background for any serious student of object relations theory, or, for that matter, of the psychology of the self. -- N. Gregory Hamilton, M.D.
Mental health professionals involved in the practice of psychoanalytical psychotherapy will find this volume of the writings of Harry Guntrip a tour de force of the theoretical growth of object relations theory starting from Klein, through Winnicott and Fairbairn, to the unique contribution of Guntrip himself. Guntrip let patients speak for themselves, evoking a personal and startingly clear picture of the internal struggles of schizoid patients. His arguments for the centrality of schizoid functioning in the endopsychic world are powerfully compelling, not least because they represent his own personal search allied to a commitment that object relations theory must be scientifically rigorous and also encompass the personal. Through the guidance of Jeremy Hazell in the introductory chapter, we are allowed to share in Guntrip's personal search and his integration of the theoretical and the personal. (J. D. Sutherland was to continue this work with his theory of the autonomous self until his death in 1991.) Fairbairn and Winnicott were for Guntrip broad representations of the traditional Cartesian dualism in science—objectivity vs. subjectivity, psychotherapy vs. behaviorism, technique vs. personal relationship. These themes pervade this book and challenge modern practitioners to continue the work of bringing theory and practice wholly together with their ultimate source—the personal. -- David J. Scott
ISBN: 9781568211640
Dimensions: 235mm x 164mm x 36mm
Weight: 771g
448 pages