The Purloined Self

The Purloined Self
Author: Edgar A. Levenson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2016-10-04
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1317326083

The Purloined Self: Interpersonal Perspectives in Psychoanalysis brings together nineteen essays in updated form, still as relevant, witty and informative today as when the book originally published. Edgar Levenson is a key figure in the development of Interpersonal psychoanalysis and his ideas remain influential. This book covers his seminal writing on theoretical topics such as models of psychoanalysis, Harry Stack Sullivan’s theories, and the nature of change, as well as his more familiar focus on practical analytic topics such as transference, supervision, and the use of the self in psychoanalytic clinical work. The content ranges from more technical articles on psychoanalysis and general systems theory, the holographic dimensions of psychoanalytic change; on to issues of metapsychology; and then to articles devoted to examining the nuances of the therapeutic praxis. The general thrust of the book is in the Interpersonal tradition and is a major contribution to a contemporary elaboration of post-Sullivanian Interpersonalism, and of the two-person model of psychoanalysis that has come to permeate the entire field. With a new foreword by Donnel Stern, himself a major name in current Interpersonal analysis, this book gives a comprehensive overview of Levenson’s work, and its continued relevance in contemporary psychoanalytic thought. The Purloined Self is highly readable: the author’s witty essayist style and original perspective on its material has made it appealing across a wide range of readerships. It will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists as well as undergraduate and advanced postgraduate students in these fields.

Interpersonal Psychoanalysis and the Enigma of Consciousness

Interpersonal Psychoanalysis and the Enigma of Consciousness
Author: Edgar A. Levenson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 470
Release: 2017-07-28
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1315532395

Edgar A. Levenson is a key figure in the development of interpersonal psychoanalysis whose ideas remain influential. Interpersonal Psychoanalysis and the Enigma of Consciousness builds on his previously published work in his key areas of expertise such as interpersonal psychoanalysis, transference and countertransference, and the philosophy of psychoanalysis, and sets his ideas into contemporary context. Combining a selection of Levenson’s own writings with extensive discussion and analysis of his work by Stern and Slomowitz, it provides an invaluable guide to how his most recent, mature ideas may be understood and applied by contemporary psychoanalysts in their own practice. This book explores how the rational algorithm of psychoanalytic engagement and the mysterious flows of consciousness interact; this has traditionally been thought of as dialectical, an unresolvable duality in psychoanalytic practice. Analysts move back and forth between the two perspectives, rather like a gestalt leap, finding themselves listening either to the "interpersonal" or to the "intrapsychic" in what feels like a self-state leap. But the interpersonal is not in dialectical opposition to the intrapsychic; rather a manifestation of it, a subset. The chapters pick up from the themes explored in The Purloined Self, shifting the emphasis from the interpersonal field to the exploration of the enigma of the flow of consciousness that underlies the therapeutic process. This is not the Freudian Unconscious nor the consciousness of awareness, but the mysterious Jamesian matrix of being. Any effort at influence provokes resistance and refusal by the patient. Permitted a "working space," the patient ultimately cures herself. How that happens is a mystery wrapped up in the greater mystery of unconscious process, which in turn is wrapped into the greatest philosophical and neurological enigma of all—the nature of consciousness. Interpersonal Psychoanalysis and the Enigma of Consciousness will be highly engaging and readable; Levenson’s witty essayist style and original perspective will make it greatly appealing and accessible to undergraduate and postgraduate students of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, as well as practitioners in these fields.

Ambiguity Of Change

Ambiguity Of Change
Author: Edgar A. Levenson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 200
Release: 1983-12-20
Genre: Psychology
ISBN:

The goal of therapy must be to enlarge the patient, not to shrink him, contends distinguished psychoanalyst Edgar Levenson in this eloquent and important book. Dr. Levenson presents a radical extension of Sullivan's interpersonal psychoanalysis, based not on instinctual drive theory, but on the here-and-now interactions of both patient and therapist. In a series of elegantly argued chapters, enhanced by vivid clinical vignettes, Levenson proposes a model of psychoanalytic cure based on the goal of interpersonal competence. Instead of focusing on the patient's fantasy life, Levenson concentrates on the therapeutic dialogue itself. He shows how the patient learns, within the analytic situation, to master the subtle nuances of language and overcome the misunderstandings of social interaction that hamper his growth. Beautifully written and clinically sound, The Ambiguity of Change is certain to expand and enrich our understanding of psychoanalytic theory and practice.

Unformulated Experience

Unformulated Experience
Author: Donnel B. Stern
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2013-06-17
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1135060681

In this powerful and wonderfully accessible meditation on psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, and social constructivism, Donnel Stern explores the relationship between two fundamental kinds of experience: explicit verbal reflection and "unformulated experience," or experience we have not yet reflected on and put into words. Stern is especially concerned with the process by which we come to formulate the unformulated. It is not an instrumental task, he holds, but one that requires openness and curiosity; the result of the process is not accuracy alone, but experience that is deeply felt and fully imagined. Stern's sense of explicit verbal experience as continuously constructed and emergent leads to a central dialectic at the heart of his work: that between curiosity and imagination, on one hand, and dissociation and unthinking acceptance of the familiar on the other. The goal of psychoanalytic work, he holds, is the freedom to be curious, whereas defense signifies the denial of this freedom. We defend against our fear of what we would think, that is, if we allowed ourselves the freedom to think it. Stern also shows how the unconscious itself can be reconceptualized hermeneutically, and he goes on to explore the implications of this viewpoint on interpretation and countertransference. He is especially persuasive in showing how the interpersonal field, which is continuously in flux, limits the experience that it is possible for participants to reflect on. Thus it is that analyst and patient are together "caught in the grip of the field," often unable to see the kind of relatedness in which they are mutually involved. A brilliant demonstration of the clinical consequentiality of hermeneutic thinking, Unformulated Experience bears out Stern's belief that psychoanalysis is as much about the revelation of the new in experience as it is about the discovery of the old

Narcissism and the Interpersonal Self

Narcissism and the Interpersonal Self
Author: John Fiscalini
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 398
Release: 1993
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780231070102

This study discusses narcissism and problems of the self from the perspective of psychoanalysis. The contributors define the major differences between the interpersonal viewpoint and other schools of psychoanalysis in terms of both diagnosis and treatment.

Body-States:Interpersonal and Relational Perspectives on the Treatment of Eating Disorders

Body-States:Interpersonal and Relational Perspectives on the Treatment of Eating Disorders
Author: Jean Petrucelli
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 542
Release: 2014-08-07
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 131763537X

In this edited volume, Jean Petrucelli brings together the work of talented clinicians and researchers steeped in working with eating disordered patients for the past 10 to 35 years. Eating disorders are about body-states and their relational meanings. The split of mindbody functioning is enacted in many arenas in the eating disordered patient’s life. Concretely, a patient believes that disciplining or controlling his or her body is a means to psychic equilibrium and interpersonal effectiveness. The collected papers in Body-States: Interpersonal and Relational Perspectives on the Treatment of Eating Disorders elaborates the essential role of linking symptoms with their emotional and interpersonal meanings in the context of the therapy relationship so that eating disordered patients can find their way out and survive the unbearable. The contributors bridge the gaps in varied protocols for recovery, illustrating that, at its core, trust in the reliability of the humanness of the other is necessary for patients to develop, regain, or have - for the first time - a stable body. They illustrate how embodied experience must be cultivated in the patient/therapist relationship as a felt experience so patients can experience their bodies as their own, to be lived in and enjoyed, rather than as an ‘other’ to be managed. In this collection Petrucelli convincingly demonstrates how interpersonal and relational treatments address eating problems, body image and "problems in living." Body States: Interpersonal and Relational Perspectives on the Treatment of Eating Disorders will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and a wide range of professionals and lay readers who are interested in the topic and treatment of eating disorders.

The Problem with Boys' Education

The Problem with Boys' Education
Author: Wayne Martino
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2009-08-03
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1135466645

The Problem with Boys' Education: Beyond the Backlash offers an illuminating analysis of the theories, politics and realities of boys' education around the world, providing an insightful and often disturbing account of various educational systems' successes and failings in fostering intellectual and social growth in male students.

The Fallacy of Understanding

The Fallacy of Understanding
Author: Edgar A. Levenson
Publisher: Jason Aronson
Total Pages: 236
Release: 1972
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9781568214788

Historically, Dr. Levenson shows, each psychoanalytic position has suffered from an arrogance of time and place in its belief that it remains forever relevant. The patient, who in the early years of Freudian "transference" theory distorted the therapist, then later misunderstood or misinterpreted him in the interpersonal model, now invents him. The therapist is transmuted by his entrance into the patient's world. The very meaning of his interpretations is changed by his participation. Levenson uses exquisite clinical examples to elaborate the therapeutic implications of this pervasive shift in orientation. This view of psychoanalysis as part of the total configuration of its time avoids the pitfall of building monuments to obsolescence and allows a fluid perception of change for contemporary patients and therapists.

Clinical Values

Clinical Values
Author: Sandra Buechler
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2013-04-15
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1135061017

In this refreshingly honest and open book, Sandra Buechler looks at therapeutic process issues from the standpoint of the human qualities and human resourcefulness that the therapist brings to each clinical encounter. Her concern is with the clinical values that shape the psychoanalytically oriented treatment experience. How, she asks, can one person evoke a range of values--curiosity, hope, kindness, courage, sense of purpose, emotional balance, the ability to bear loss, and integrity--in another person and thereby promote psychological change? For Buechler, these core values, and the emotions that infuse them, are at the heart of the clinical process. They permeate the texture and tone, and shape the content of what therapists say. They provide the framework for formulating and working toward treatment goals and keep the therapist emotionally alive in the face of the often draining vicissitudes of the treatment process. Clinical Values: Emotions That Guide Psychoanalytic Treatment is addressed to therapists young and old. By focusing successively on different emotion-laden values, Buechler shows how one value or another can center the therapist within the session. Taken together, these values function as a clinical compass that provides the therapist with a sense of direction and militates against the all too frequent sense of "flying by the seat of one's pants." Buechler makes clear that the values that guide treatment derive from the full range of the clinician's human experiences, and she is candid in relating the personal experiences--from inside and outside the consulting room--that inform her own matrix of clinical values and her own clinical approach. A compelling record of one gifted therapist's pathway to clinical maturity, Clinical Values has a more general import: It exemplifies the variegated ways in which productive clinical work of any type ultimately revolves around the therapist's ability to make the most of being "all too human."

The Interpersonal Perspective in Psychoanalysis, 1960s-1990s

The Interpersonal Perspective in Psychoanalysis, 1960s-1990s
Author: Donnel B. Stern
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2017-02-28
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1315471957

North American psychoanalysis has long been deeply influenced and substantially changed by clinical and theoretical perspectives first introduced by interpersonal psychoanalysis. Yet even today, despite its origin in the 1930s, many otherwise well-read psychoanalysts and psychotherapists are not well informed about the field. The Interpersonal Perspective in Psychoanalysis, 1960s–1990s provides a superb starting point for those who are not as familiar with interpersonal psychoanalysis as they might be. For those who already know the literature, the book will be useful in placing a selection of classic interpersonal articles and their writers in key historical context. During the time span covered in this book, interpersonal psychoanalysis was most concerned with revising the understanding of the analytic relationship—transference and countertransference-and how to work with it. Most of the works collected here center on this theme. The interpersonal perspective introduced the view that the analyst is always and unavoidably a particular, "real" person, and that transference and countertransference need to be reconceptualized to take the analyst’s individual humanity into account. The relationship needs to be grasped as one taking place between two very particular people. Many of the papers are by writers well known in the broader psychoanalytic world, such as Bromberg, Greenberg, Levenson, and Mitchell. But also included are those by writers who, while not as widely recognized beyond the interpersonal literature, have been highly influential among interpersonalists, including Barnett, Schecter, Singer, and Wolstein. Donnel B. Stern and Irwin Hirsch, prominent interpersonalists themselves, present each piece with a prologue that contextualizes the author and their work in the interpersonal literature. An introductory essay also reviews the history of interpersonal psychoanalysis, explaining why interpersonal thinking remains a coherent clinical and theoretical perspective in contemporary psychoanalysis. The Interpersonal Perspective in Psychoanalysis, 1960s–1990s will appeal greatly to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists wanting to know more about interpersonal theory and practice than can be learned from current sources.