Alan Roland – författare

Views dissenting from the status quo in psychoanalysis are presented in four areas: Psychoanalysis and Early Dissidents, The Psychoanalytic Process, Psychoanalysis and Culture, and Psychoanalysis and Religion. Authors introduce ideas on the analyst's freedom and imagination, the use of humor and play, and the importance of small talk, as well as new perspectives on understanding and working with trauma. The section on psychoanalysis and culture addresses an area rarely considered in psychoanalysis today, regardless of theoretical model. As the global culture becomes more salient, clinicians can ignore the issues of culture with a diversity of patients only to their detriment. The volume's final attention to psychoanalysis and religion frames a new paradigm for understanding mysticism and the relationship to psychopathology to spiritual disciplines and experiences.

Cultural Pluralism and Psychoanalysis explores the creative dialogue that the major psychoanalysts since Freud have had with the modern Northern European/North American culture of individualism and tries to resolve major problems that occur when psychoanalysis, with its cultural legacy of individualism, is applied to those from various Asian cultures. Roland examines the theoretical issues involved in developing a multicultural psychoanalysis, and then looks at the interface between Asian-Americans and other Americans, discussing the frequent dissonances, miscommunications, and misunderstandings that result from each coming from vastly different cultural and psychological realms.

Cultural Pluralism and Psychoanalysis explores the creative dialogue that the major psychoanalysts since Freud have had with the modern Northern European/North American culture of individualism and tries to resolve major problems that occur when psychoanalysis, with its cultural legacy of individualism, is applied to those from various Asian cultures. Roland examines the theoretical issues involved in developing a multicultural psychoanalysis, and then looks at the interface between Asian-Americans and other Americans, discussing the frequent dissonances, miscommunications, and misunderstandings that result from each coming from vastly different cultural and psychological realms.

Drawing on work with Indian and Japanese patients, a prominent American psychoanalyst explores inner worlds that are markedly different from the Western psyche. A series of fascinating case studies illustrates Alan Roland's argument: the "familial self," rooted in the subtle emotional hierarchical relationships of the family and group, predominates in Indian and Japanese psyches and contrasts strongly with the Western "individualized self." In perceptive and sympathetic terms Roland describes the emotional problems that occur when Indians and Japanese encounter Western culture and the resulting successful integration of new patterns that he calls the "expanding self." Of particular interest are descriptions of the special problems of women in changing society and of the paradoxical relationship of the "spiritual self" of Indians and Japanese to the "familial self." Also described is Roland's own response to the broadening of his emotional and intellectual horizons as he talked to patients and supervised therapists in India and Japan."As we were coming in for a landing to Bombay," he writes, "the plane banked so sharply that when I supposedly looked down all I could see were the stars, while if I looked up, there were the lights of the city." This is the "world turned upside down" that he describes so eloquently in this book. What he has learned will fascinate those who wish to deepen their understanding of a different way of being.

`In this groundbreaking book, Alan Roland's stated purpose it to integrate psychoanalysis with art and the artist. For those treating artists, or those who want to bring greater understanding of the creative process into their consciousness, this book is indispensable' - Psychologist-Psychoanalyst Newsletter

Alan Roland is both a highly respected psychoanalyst and an exhibiting artist, giving him a fresh perspective on psychoanalytic studies of art and the artist. Here he argues for an interdisciplinary integration of psychoanalysis with art and artistic criticism, and against the reductionism of applied psychoanalysis.

Exploring the artistic process and the concept of the artistic self in terms of self-objects and transformational objects, Roland challenges the basic assumption of applied psychoanalysis - that the work of art is a dream or daydream expressed within a formal aesthetic framework. Written in an accessible, non-technical style, this book will appeal to anyone with an interest in psychoanalytic criticism or psychoanalytical theories of dreams and creativity.

`In this groundbreaking book, Alan Roland's stated purpose it to integrate psychoanalysis with art and the artist. For those treating artists, or those who want to bring greater understanding of the creative process into their consciousness, this book is indispensable' - Psychologist-Psychoanalyst Newsletter

Alan Roland is both a highly respected psychoanalyst and an exhibiting artist, giving him a fresh perspective on psychoanalytic studies of art and the artist. Here he argues for an interdisciplinary integration of psychoanalysis with art and artistic criticism, and against the reductionism of applied psychoanalysis.

Exploring the artistic process and the concept of the artistic self in terms of self-objects and transformational objects, Roland challenges the basic assumption of applied psychoanalysis - that the work of art is a dream or daydream expressed within a formal aesthetic framework. Written in an accessible, non-technical style, this book will appeal to anyone with an interest in psychoanalytic criticism or psychoanalytical theories of dreams and creativity.