Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Matthias Elzer, Prof., MD, is a specialist in psychiatry, psychotherapeutic medicine, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and group analysis, and a supervisor for Balint Groups and psychotherapy. He is a member of the German Psychoanalytic Association (DPV), the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), and vice-president of the Frankfurter Psychoanalytisches Institut (FPI). He is currently professor for social psychiatry, psychotherapy, and counselling at the University of Applied Sciences in Fulda, as well as being a psychoanalyst in private practice in Hofheim am Taunus. He has previously published in the fields of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and health communication. Alf Gerlach, MD, is an academically qualified sociologist who studied sociology and medicine at the Universities of Saarbruecken and Frankfurt am Main. He has worked at the Department for Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics in the University Hospital of Frankfurt, and is currently lecturer for psychoanalytic oriented psychotherapy in the program of the German-Chinese Academy for Psychotherapy. He is a member of the German Psychoanalytic Society and of the International Psychoanalytical Association and a training analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institutes in Mainz and Saarbruecken. He has also been chair of the German Society for Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics and Depth Psychology (DGPT), and a member of the China Committee of the International Psychoanalytical Association.

'An excellent and well-presented overview of the complex field of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, this book starts with a clear and general expose of the psychoanalytic theory of the human mind and of psychic development from birth to old age. This is developed and enlarged in further chapters through the careful description of the conflicts that are caused by the demands of reality, to which every individual has to adapt. The authors clarify and deepen the meaning and role of trauma, defence mechanisms, symptom-formation, as well as dreams in this crucial process. The central body of the volume describes with examples and real accuracy the complexity of the therapeutic encounter. It invites the reader to consider the clinical understanding of psychoanalytic psychotherapy by examining the role of the relationship between patients and therapists, the expectation and aims of treatment, and the importance of the psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic setting. In the chapter on diagnosis and treatment, some ideas shed particularly interesting light, very much from the German perspective, onto the role of first interviews and the idea of considering the non-verbal aspect of communication in the interview as scenic information. The book ends with two chapters, the first dedicated to psychopathology and psychodynamics of neuroses and the other with psychopathology and psychodynamics of psychosomatic disorders, which give this volume both a welcome quality of scholarship and practical down-to-earth appeal. This lucid, detailed and well-written book is the result of years of teaching and will appeal to all the workers in the therapeutic field and many others interested in psychoanalytic therapy.'- Anne-Marie Sandler

• Series Editor’s Preface -- Preface -- Psychoanalytic Theory of the Human Mind -- Psychoanalytic Theory of Psychic Development through the Life Span -- Conflict, Trauma, Defence Mechanisms, and Symptom Formation -- Dreams -- The Therapeutic Relationship -- The Setting in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy -- Diagnosis and Treatment in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy -- Psychopathology and Psychodynamics of Neurosis -- Psychopathology and Psychodynamics of Psychosomatic Disorders -- Psychotic Disorders, Addiction, and Suicide