Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory provides a masterful overview of the central issue concerning psychoanalysts today: finding a way to deal in theoretical terms with the importance of the patient's relationships with other people. Just as disturbed and distorted relationships lie at the core of the patient's distress, so too does the relation between analyst and patient play a key role in the analytic process. All psychoanalytic theories recognize the clinical centrality of “object relations,” but much else about the concept is in dispute. In their ground-breaking exercise in comparative psychoanalysis, the authors offer a new way to understand the dramatic and confusing proliferation of approaches to object relations. The result is major clarification of the history of psychoanalysis and a reliable guide to the fundamental issues that unite and divide the field.
Greenberg and Mitchell, both psychoanalysts in private practice in New York, locate much of the variation in the concept of object relations between two deeply divergent models of psychoanalysis: Freud's model, in which relations with others are determined by the individual's need to satisfy primary instinctual drives, and an alternative model, in which relationships are taken as primary. The authors then diagnose the history of disagreement about object relations as a product of competition between these disparate paradigms. Within this framework, Sullivan's interpersonal psychiatry and the British tradition of object relations theory, led by Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, and Guntrip, are shown to be united by their rejection of significant aspects of Freud's drive theory. In contrast, the American ego psychology of Hartmann, Jacobson, and Kernberg appears as an effort to enlarge the classical drive theory to accommodate information derived from the study of object relations.
Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory offers a conceptual map of the most difficult terrain in psychoanalysis and a history of its most complex disputes. In exploring the counterpoint between different psychoanalytic schools and traditions, it provides a synthetic perspective that is a major contribution to the advance of psychoanalytic thought.
Psychoanalysis, entering its second century, is a vital yet divided discipline. A confusing array of mutually contradictory theories compete for the loyalty of clinicians and for the attention of all those interested in understanding human experience.
In the classic Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory, Jay Greenberg and his coauthor Stephen Mitchell brought clarity to the confusion surrounding psychoanalytic disputes. They defined two competing models: the drive model, which addresses the private dimensions of experience; and the relational model, which reveals the relentlessly social aspect of our lives. Oedipus and Beyond builds on Greenberg’s earlier contribution. Beginning with a brilliant critique of the conceptual framework of psychoanalysis, he provides fresh insight into Freud’s theory, demonstrating how attempts to resolve some of its shortcomings have generated their own theoretical and clinical dilemmas. In the process he illuminates the roles of the Oedipus complex, the drives, the unconscious, and psychic structure in shaping the sensibilities of alternative psychoanalytic approaches.
Greenberg does not attempt to synthesize the two models, because he believes that diversity is essential if psychoanalysis is to remain strong. Instead, he proposes a compelling and practical clinical theory in which Freud’s insistence on the importance of inner motivation, psychic conflict, and personal agency effectively informs a relational emphasis on the fundamental influence of social living.
The book concludes with some apt illustrations of how the “representational model” can enrich clinical work. Greenberg rethinks the process of making the unconscious conscious, and arrives at new approaches to the analyst’s neutrality, to transference analysis, and to countertransference. The result reflects the author’s profound insight into the structure of psychoanalytic theory and his mastery of the contributions of diverse psychoanalytic schools. Perhaps most important, Greenberg’s argument never loses touch with his clinical experience; ultimately, this is the deeply personal statement of a skilled practitioner.
People tend to flirt only with serious things--madness, disaster, other people's affections. So is flirtation dangerous, exploiting the ambiguity of promises to sabotage our cherished notions of commitment? Or is it, as Adam Phillips suggests, a productive pleasure, keeping things in play, letting us get to know them in different ways, allowing us the fascination of what is unconvincing? This is a book about the possibilities of flirtation, its risks and instructive amusements--about the spaces flirtation opens in the stories we tell ourselves, particularly within the framework of psychoanalysis.
Phillips looks at life as a tale to be told but rejects the idea of a master plot. Instead, he says, we should be open to the contingent, and flirtation shows us the way. His book observes children flirting with their parents, our various selves flirting with one another, and literature flirting with psychoanalysis. As Phillips explores the links between literature and psychoanalysis--ranging from Philip Roth to Isaac Rosenberg, Karl Kraus to John Clare--psychoanalysis emerges as a multi-authored autobiography. Its subjects are love, loss, and memory; its authors are the analyst and the analysand, as well as the several selves brought to life in the process. A passionate and delightfully playful defense of the virtues of being uncommitted, On Flirtation sets before us the virtue of a yet deeper commitment to the openendedness of our life stories.
In a style that is writerly and audacious, Adam Phillips takes up a variety of seemingly ordinary subjects underinvestigated by psychoanalysis--kissing, worrying, risk, solitude, composure, even farting as it relates to worrying.
He argues that psychoanalysis began as a virtuoso improvisation within the science of medicine, but that virtuosity has given way to the dream of science that only the examined life is worth living. Phillips goes on to show how the drive to omniscience has been unfortunate both for psychoanalysis and for life. He reveals how much one's psychic health depends on establishing a realm of life that successfully resists examination.
A necessary, rich new examination of how the wired world affects our humanity
Our tech-fueled economy is often touted as a boon for the development of our fullest human potential. But as our interactions are increasingly turned into mountains of data sifted by algorithms, what impact does this infinite accumulation and circulation of information really have on us? What are the hidden mechanisms that drive our continuous engagement with the digital?
In The Other Side of the Digital, Andrea Righi argues that the Other of the digital acts as a new secular God, exerting its power through endless accountability that forces us to sacrifice ourselves for the digital. Righi deconstructs the contradictions inherent in our digital world, examining how ideas of knowledge, desire, writing, temporality, and the woman are being reconfigured by our sacrificial economy. His analyses include how both our self-image and our perception of reality are skewed by technologies like fitness bands, matchmaking apps, and search engines, among others.
The Other Side of the Digital provides a necessary, in-depth cultural analysis of how the political theology of the new media functions under neoliberalism. Drawing on the work of well-known thinkers like Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as Carla Lonzi, Luisa Muraro, and Luciano Parinetto, Righi creates novel appraisals of popular digital tools that we now use routinely to process life experiences. Asking why we must sign up for this sort of regime, The Other Side of the Digital is an important wake-up call to a world deeply entangled with the digital.
Nearly a century has passed since Freud's theories unleashed a revolution in our understanding of the human psyche. Yet, as Arnold Modell firmly points out, we still do not possess a theory that explains how psychoanalysis works. Other Times, Other Realities provides brilliant insight into this perplexing problem and lays the foundation for a comprehensive theory of psychoanalytic treatment. Modell's careful consideration of Freudian theory, the interpretations of contemporary ego psychology, and the contribution of object theory discloses the changing significance of the fundamental elements of the therapeutic process.
In Other Times, Other Realities, readers will discover an illuminating synthesis of concepts underlying the various interpretations of the psychoanalytic process.
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