Reimagining Psychoanalytic Theory in the Climate Polycrisis

Ryan LaMothe is a professor of pastoral care and counselling. He has written extensively in the areas of psychoanalysis, political philosophy and theology, and psychology of religion. Recent work includes A Political Psychoanalysis for the Anthropocene Age (Routledge, 2023).

“LaMothe’s creativity critiquing and reimagining theories and practices offers hope for a world at risk. His argument strengthens a much needed and unfolding paradigm of care that bridges the human/nonhuman divide. The book is destined to become foundational in psychoanalytic theory, training, and practice. Therapists, cultural critics, and individuals who love and care are invited to explore ethical ways of living on a species-rich earth.” - Jaco J. Hamman, Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture, Vanderbilt University“In the context of the climate poly-crisis and its attendant anxieties, Ryan LaMothe offers a powerful critique of the way humans have seen themselves as separate from, and superior to, other species, to the detriment of human development and the survival of the planet. In a brilliant and sophisticated exploration that draws on psychoanalysis, philosophy, ethics, indigenous wisdom, and clinical experience, this book offers both a solemn warning and a path toward healing grounded in an ethic of care that embraces the suffering of all species. Scholars, clinicians, and students will all benefit from their encounter with this moving work that offers a vision for a future where all inhabitants of the earth might survive and thrive together.” - Lisa Cataldo, Psychoanalyst and Associate Professor of Counseling, Fordham University“In this intensely ambitious book Ryan LaMothe performs an overdue and urgent Augean labor in clearing the messy ontological decks in order to render psychoanalysis more useful for coming to grips sanely with the climate crisis and all its implications. Nothing is sacred and everything is. This battered biosphere can stand all the “anarchic care” that we can muster. Highly and ungovernably recommended.” - Kurt Jacobsen and David Morgan, co-editors of Free Associations.“In the midst of our intensifying ecological breakdown, LaMothe critiques the Western ontological rift between the human and everything else- a destructive boundary that psychoanalysis has absorbed. Here, guided by Agamben and indigenous philosophies, LaMothe offers hope for a viable future by exploring ontoepistemologies that refuse to be incorporated into this radical separation. He imagines a psychoanalysis that could contribute to an ecologically sane future. This is a book for our time!” - Kristin Fiorella, Psy.D. Psychoanalyst on the faculties of the Psychoanalytic Association of Northern California and the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. She is the editor of "Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis in Times of Crisis: War, Pandemic, and Climate Change."

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction Chapter 1. Freud, Nature, and Civilization: Western Philosophical Apparatuses and the Production of the Ontological Rift in PsychoanalysisChapter 2. Anarchic Care: Psychosocial Development and Dwelling in the World without the RiftChapter 3. Trauma, Human Beings, and the Silence of Othered SpeciesChapter 4. Spanning the Divide: Toward Ecological TransferencesChapter 5. Reimaging Resistance as Acts of ImpotentialityChapter 6. Psychoanalysis: Facilitating Ungovernable Selves in the AnthropoceneReferencesIndex