Janice S. Lieberman – författare

An increasing number of patients in psychotherapy, male and female alike, express anxieties and obsessive concerns about their bodies—thinness, facial features, being toned, or other aspects of their appearance. Less concerned with issues of gender and sexuality than with the narcissistic cathexis of the body and ways of shoring up the body ego, these patients require a specific responsiveness from clinicians. Dr. Janice Lieberman recommends that the traditional emphasis placed on patients speaking and therapists listening be balanced with an increased awareness and understanding of the many visual cues and communications exchanged in therapy. Stressing the important role of vision in the development of identity formation and self-esteem, she discusses such issues as mirroring, the gaze, the gleam in the eye, feeling invisible or falsely mirrored, and the learning early on to attach positive and negative values to one's appearance as they become manifest in the therapeutic relationship. These patients use the therapist as a spectator whose focus on their bodies helps supplement insufficient cathexis and repair feelings of deficit. Amply illustrated with clinical vignettes, Dr. Lieberman's treatment of patients who come to therapy with heightened narcissistic body awareness is both informative and instructive.

Patients in psychoanalytic treatment present with a variety of problems that reflect contemporary cultural issues and values. Clinical Evolutions on the Superego, Body, and Gender in Psychoanalysis explores the effects of such societal changes on psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice, covering topics such as greed, envy and deception, body narcissism, gender roles, and relationships. Janice S. Lieberman includes numerous clinical vignettes and insights into working clinically with changing norms.Lieberman explores how changes in values and norms of behavior in the world beyond the consulting room have influenced what is now heard by analysts within it, using clinical data to demonstrate the psychological underpinnings of the values promulgated by current trends in politics and in society more widely. She explores what she observes to be "a new superego"; where deception abounds and often goes unpunished, where greed and envy have arguably increased and there is an enhanced emphasis on the body and its appearance. Traditional gender roles have been challenged in fortuitous ways, but a certain amount of chaos and confusion has ensued. Relationships are found and maintained using technology, yet many feel lonely and empty. She writes about the clinical dilemmas she has faced and offers suggestions for resolving them in working with today’s patients. Lieberman also sees parallels for these developments in several artists’ lives and in their work.Clinical Evolutions on the Superego, Body, and Gender in Psychoanalysis will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists.

Patients in psychoanalytic treatment present with a variety of problems that reflect contemporary cultural issues and values. Clinical Evolutions on the Superego, Body, and Gender in Psychoanalysis explores the effects of such societal changes on psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice, covering topics such as greed, envy and deception, body narcissism, gender roles, and relationships. Janice S. Lieberman includes numerous clinical vignettes and insights into working clinically with changing norms.Lieberman explores how changes in values and norms of behavior in the world beyond the consulting room have influenced what is now heard by analysts within it, using clinical data to demonstrate the psychological underpinnings of the values promulgated by current trends in politics and in society more widely. She explores what she observes to be "a new superego"; where deception abounds and often goes unpunished, where greed and envy have arguably increased and there is an enhanced emphasis on the body and its appearance. Traditional gender roles have been challenged in fortuitous ways, but a certain amount of chaos and confusion has ensued. Relationships are found and maintained using technology, yet many feel lonely and empty. She writes about the clinical dilemmas she has faced and offers suggestions for resolving them in working with today’s patients. Lieberman also sees parallels for these developments in several artists’ lives and in their work.Clinical Evolutions on the Superego, Body, and Gender in Psychoanalysis will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists.