Joseph Reppen – författare

Fantasies of omnipotence grow out of feelings of helplessness. We are all born helpless, completely dependent on others for nurturance and survival, and we all must face the ultimate annihilation of the self at the end of life. While fantasies of omnipotence help us to cope with these painful acts, they may also interfere with our ability to engage reality and deal with life. This important new book addresses all aspects of omnipotence, from the merger fantasies of the baby who feels like an extension of the powerful parent, to the rigid defence omnipotent fantasies of the frightened borderline patient, to the soothing spiritual and religious feelings that help many accept loss and mortality. Contributions by noted authors like Otto Kernberg, Jack and Kerry Kelly Novick, Henry Krystal, Paul Ornstein and Steven Ellman should make this a valuable resource to all clinicians and other students of human behaviour.

Mentoring intersects with memoir in this volume, as 31 psychotherapists share the origins of their professional ambitions and, mixing authority with levity, describe their professional odysseys. The psychotherapists include Martin A. Schulman, Jeffrey Seinfeld and Martha Stark.

Mentoring intersects memoir as 31 illustrious psychotherapist share the origins of their professional ambitions and, mixing authority with levity, selectively describe their professional odysseys.Martin A. Schulman reflects on his “deformative years” in the European Jewish culture of the Bronx.Sebastiano Santostefano remembers his youth in the less predictable crucible of rurarl Sicily, where his father and grandfather, functioning as village therapists, mediated family disputes. He divides his recollections into cycles of which his integrative approach to work with children is the intellectual climax.Jeffrey Seinfeld, who spent much of his adolescence in “special rehabilitation facilities for acting-out youth” (i.e. reform schools), regards his own psychotherapy as a form of salvation and the practice of psychotherapy as a calling.Martha Stark expresses the passion she sought and the engagement she found when she reconciled her strengths of heart and mind as a psychoanalyst in the title for her contribution: “If You Love Your Job, You’ll Never Work Another Day in Your Life.”Among Joseph Reppen’s other recruits are Maria Bergmann, Morris Eagle, Althea Horner, and Ruth Lax—sources all of career counsel, professional confessional, and high-brow gossip.