Psychoanalytic Insights into Fundamentalism and Conviction

Psychoanalytic Insights into Fundamentalism and Conviction
Author: Lesley Murdin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2020-06-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0429778430

Psychoanalytic Insights into Fundamentalism and Conviction: The Certainty Principle examines the role of, and need for, certainty in mental life, addressing questions raised by fundamentalism and extremism and exploring its relation to human nature. Murdin proposes a new synthesis in which certainty itself can be a cause of suffering and part of a defensive manoeuvre, and considers how the need for certainty can be managed in a positive way, rather than creating fear and extreme emotional responses. Illustrated throughout with examples from psychotherapy practice, literature and international politics, this book considers how the quest for certainty dominates much of human thinking. Murdin examines personal relationships, including politics and religion, where assumptions are taken for granted but function to hide fears and doubts, and argues that fundamentalist elements can generate harm in anyone but can be mitigated with understanding and work in therapy. Psychoanalytic Insights into Fundamentalism and Conviction helps to identify the underlying convictions that are causing mental harm. It is essential reading for psychotherapists, psychoanalysts and counsellors in practice and in training, and will be of interest to readers interested in fundamentalist states of mind.

Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Fundamentalism, Radicalisation and Terrorism

Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Fundamentalism, Radicalisation and Terrorism
Author: Jessica Yakeley
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2020-06-04
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0429670737

Terrorism is no longer woven into the backdrop of our daily lives, but rather it has been pushed to centre stage – an ongoing tragedy in which comprehension of the perpetrators’ motivations is eclipsed by the impact of horror and devastation on its victims and wider society. Attempting to make sense of these atrocities and their antecedents, a body of literature has accumulated since 9/11 which offers a psychoanalytic perspective on terrorism. This research provides a reflective space within which the unconscious motivations, primitive conflicts, fantasies and impulses that underpin the extreme mindsets and violent actions of the individuals and groups involved may be explored, offering insights complementary to those of different disciplines – sociological, political, cultural and other. This book brings together contemporary psychoanalytic writers and practitioners involved in the study of radicalisation, fundamentalism and terrorism. Some of the authors have worked with terrorists, thus grounding their reflections and insights in direct clinical contact with these individuals. Understanding the motivations of the perpetrators includes elucidation of the wider group dynamics of minority populations, where the perpetuation of violence that is seen as terrorism may be viewed by its perpetrators as a justifiable response to collective experiences of subjugation, humiliation and injustice suffered over generations. Understanding such perspectives is not colluding with the aggressors, but rather it may contribute to interventions at both individual and global levels that attempt to break the deadly cycle of violence. This book was originally published as two special issues of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.

Michael Eigen

Michael Eigen
Author: Loray Daws
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 155
Release: 2022-09-14
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1000638006

This insightful book critically reviews and presents an accessible introduction to the life and work of one of the most celebrated modern psychoanalysts, Michael Eigen. With work spanning over five decades, countless articles, and thirty published book volumes, Daws explores Eigen’s main works through key themes and concepts such as working with our psychotic core, psychic deadness, primary affects, and the need for spirituality for practicing psychoanalysts. The book covers Eigen’s early life and formative clinical years, explores his re-reading of Freud, Jung and Lacan, and lastly covers Eigen’s Seoul seminars, the impact of trauma, the importance of faith and the use of Kabbalah as a framework for analysis. This book will not only engage the first-time Eigen reader, but will also be of much interest to the experienced psychologist and psychoanalyst already familiar with Eigen’s work.

Violence or Dialogue?

Violence or Dialogue?
Author: Sverre Varvin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2018-10-08
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0429909470

Our understanding of terrorism since the events of September 11th 2001 has usually been channelled through the two dimensional lens of religion and politics. This important new work contributes a richer understanding of terrorism by examining a third dimension of individual and group psychology and demonstrates how insights garnered from the human psyche may be translated into more effective public policy.

Fundamentalism and Psychoanalysis

Fundamentalism and Psychoanalysis
Author: Vamik D Volkan
Publisher: Frenis Zero
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2020-11-13
Genre:
ISBN: 9788897479437

Fundamentalism is a social phenomenon and psychoanalysis can deal with it by adopting some theoretical contributions enabling itself to face such challenges the social domain issues to it.Among the authors who covered, in a very original way, the 'border' between psychoanalysis and 'bordering' disciplines with particular regard to fundamentalism, Janine Puget has an important place. This book is dedicated to her memory since its second edition was published soon after the Argentinean psychoanalyst passed away. Religious fundamentalism is central topic of the chapters: while Vamik D. Volkan focuses on the differences and similarities between the restricted extreme religious groups and the globalized ones, Werner Bohleber and Sverre Varvin show how the fundamentalist mindset can be interpreted psychoanalytically since it is something that usually develops within the context of a fundamentalist movement, political, religious or otherwise, where the ideological aspect may be underdeveloped and the psychological side have become more dominant. According to Bohleber a comparison of the ideational worlds of radical German nationalism after 1918 with Islamist fundamentalism reveals some amazing similarities. For the German psychoanalyst the following unconscious ideational complexes have proved significant in the analysis of radical nationalism and serve as a heuristic basis from which to examine the deep structures of religious-political visions in Islamist fundamentalism: 1) caretaking fantasies and sibling rivalry; 2) purity and the ideational conception of the other; 3) visions of group unity and fantasies of fusion. For Sverre Varvin if religious fundamentalism raises the question of fundamentals, that is how not to lose hold of the fundaments without which there could not be a proper belief system, that adherence to fundaments may develop into fundamentalism, understood as rigid adherence to basic principles, that has, however, seldom been on the agenda in professional and scientific contexts. As tight groups with string inner cohesion may develop within professional and scientific organisations, it should not be a surprise that fundamentalist tendencies may develop in these groups as well. Any organisation that deals with fundaments or have an idea about the essentials may fall prey to fundamentalist tendencies. Psychoanalysis is a case in question here and reflection on the relation between fundaments of psychoanalysis and possible fundamentalist tendencies may thus give insight into possible basic problems within psychoanalysis, a profession that has both scientific claims and practical-clinical tasks.

Violence or Dialogue?

Violence or Dialogue?
Author: Sverre Varvin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2018-10-08
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0429923708

Our understanding of terrorism since the events of September 11th 2001 has usually been channelled through the two dimensional lens of religion and politics. This important new work contributes a richer understanding of terrorism by examining a third dimension of individual and group psychology and demonstrates how insights garnered from the human psyche may be translated into more effective public policy.

Freud and Fundamentalism

Freud and Fundamentalism
Author: Stathis Gourgouris
Publisher:
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2022
Genre: LITERARY CRITICISM
ISBN: 9780823291649

At the heart of this volume are questions about the psychic components of the modes of thinking we call "fundamentalist"--that is, thinking that disavows multiplicities of meaning, abhors allegorical elements, and strives toward an exclusionary orthodoxy that codifies not just its own world but that of its adversaries, its others. The essays address transcendentalist orthodoxies of all kinds, whether religious or secularist. Fundamentalist elements in psychoanalysis itself are also placed in question, at the same time as psychoanalytic thinking and practice is explored as a mode of knowledge that ultimately unravels fundamentalist tendencies. The texts in this collection represent a wide array of disciplinary standpoints. Their overall aspiration is to interrogate discourses of orthodoxy, literalism, exclusion, and dogma--that is, discourses obsessed with monolithic (monolingual, monological, monolateral, monomythical, and certainly monotheistic) encounters with the world.

Psychoanalysis, Science and Power

Psychoanalysis, Science and Power
Author: Kurt Jacobsen
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2022-11-30
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1000779882

Psychoanalysis, Science and Power reexamines the current state of psychoanalysis and science and technology studies as they have been influenced by Robert Maxwell Young’s work. Robert Maxwell Young, a Texas émigré to Britain, was a scholar, publisher, TV documentarian, psychoanalytic psychotherapist, journal editor, conference organizer and political activist. Young urged that psychoanalysis, particularly in its Kleinian incarnation, illuminated new aspects of science and technology studies, and vice versa. This volume not only provides an overview of Young’s life and interests by a stellar cast of scholars and practitioners but also commemorates the many and intersecting streams of his contributions, reasoning for their continuing relevance in the contemporary studies of psychoanalysis, biological sciences, technology and Darwinian thought. Presenting perspectives that are rigorously analytical and yet often poignant, Psychoanalysis, Science and Power will be an important read for students, analysts and analytic therapists of all orientations who are interested in broadening their understanding of their practice.

Ethical Considerations at the Intersection of Psychiatry and Religion

Ethical Considerations at the Intersection of Psychiatry and Religion
Author: John R. Peteet
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2018
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0190681969

This book explores the ethical dimension of the interface between psychiatry and religion, illustrating core principles with practical examples in a variety of contexts. These include subspecialties such as child, geriatric, forensic, inpatient, and community psychiatry, and settings such as ethics committees, religious organizations, and international conflicts, psychiatric education, and research.

Fanaticism

Fanaticism
Author: Alberto Toscano
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 447
Release: 2017-08-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1786630567

A genealogy of fanaticism—unearthing its long history, before it became a tool in the Clash of Civilizations It is commonplace to hear fanaticism described as a deviant or extreme variant of an already irrational set of religious beliefs, an assertion that helps to demonize convictions outside political orthodoxy. Alberto Toscano’s compelling and erudite counter-history explodes this accepted convention by exploring the critical role fanaticism played in the formation of modern politics and the liberal state. Showing how fanaticism results from a failure to formulate an adequate emancipatory politics, this illuminating history sheds new light on an idea that continues to dominate debates about faith and secularism. This expanded edition includes new material that revisits the idea of fanaticism as it operates at the limits of the liberal political imaginary, highlighting its relation to fraternal violence, political purity and the refusal of compromise, as well as its centrality to times of social crisis and international conflict.