Many people come to analysis appearing quite ''ordinary'' on the surface. However, once below that surface, we often come into contact with something quite unexpected: ''extra-ordinary protections'' created to keep at bay any awareness of deeply traumatic happenings occurring at some point in life.

Judith Mitrani investigates the development and the function of these protections, allowing the reader to witness the evolution of the process of transformation, wherein defensiveness steadily mutates into communication.

She lucidly and artfully weaves detailed clinical with a variety of analytic concepts, and her original notions - including ''unmentalized experience'' and its expression in enactments; ''adhesive pseudo-object relations'' and the way in which this contracts and compares with normal and narcissistic object relations - provide valuable tools for understanding the infantile transference/countertransference and for the refinement of our technique with primitive mental states.

Ordinary People and Extra-Ordinary Protections will prove stimulating and accessible in its style and substance to a broad analytic readership, from the serious student of psychoanalysis to the most seasoned professional.

Many people come to analysis appearing quite ''ordinary'' on the surface. However, once below that surface, we often come into contact with something quite unexpected: ''extra-ordinary protections'' created to keep at bay any awareness of deeply traumatic happenings occurring at some point in life.

Judith Mitrani investigates the development and the function of these protections, allowing the reader to witness the evolution of the process of transformation, wherein defensiveness steadily mutates into communication.

She lucidly and artfully weaves detailed clinical with a variety of analytic concepts, and her original notions - including ''unmentalized experience'' and its expression in enactments; ''adhesive pseudo-object relations'' and the way in which this contracts and compares with normal and narcissistic object relations - provide valuable tools for understanding the infantile transference/countertransference and for the refinement of our technique with primitive mental states.

Ordinary People and Extra-Ordinary Protections will prove stimulating and accessible in its style and substance to a broad analytic readership, from the serious student of psychoanalysis to the most seasoned professional.

Frances Tustin Today explores some of the ways and means by which Tustin’s work has enabled psychoanalytic clinicians to enter into the elemental domain of sensation: what Bion called the ‘proto-mental’ area of the psyche-soma. Through detailed clinical contributions of several of her exponents worldwide, this book demonstrates how her ideas -- rooted in decades of work with children on the autistic spectrum -- have influenced and are being expanded, extended and applied to the treatment of ordinary patients from early childhood through adulthood.

The contributors to this volume represent a selection of the contemporary thinking that organically grew out of Tustin’s discoveries, and show that Tustin''s model has added new dimensions to the fields of infant observation, family therapy and neuro-psychology. Each chapter is augmented by demonstrable clinical experience. Frances Tustin Today is a valuable resource for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, educators and parents who are interested in learning more about this uniquely independent clinical observer''s findings and their impact upon the treatment of autistic states in children, adolescents and adults by contemporary workers in the field of mental health.

Judith L. Mitrani, and Theodore Mitrani, are Fellows of The International Psycho-Analytical Association, Training and Supervising Psychoanalysts at The Psychoanalytic Center of California in Los Angeles. They are founding members of the Board of Trustees of The Frances Tustin Memorial Trust, and authors, editors, translators and teachers in the private practice of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy with Adults and Children in Los Angeles, California.

Frances Tustin Today explores some of the ways and means by which Tustin’s work has enabled psychoanalytic clinicians to enter into the elemental domain of sensation: what Bion called the ‘proto-mental’ area of the psyche-soma. Through detailed clinical contributions of several of her exponents worldwide, this book demonstrates how her ideas -- rooted in decades of work with children on the autistic spectrum -- have influenced and are being expanded, extended and applied to the treatment of ordinary patients from early childhood through adulthood.

The contributors to this volume represent a selection of the contemporary thinking that organically grew out of Tustin’s discoveries, and show that Tustin''s model has added new dimensions to the fields of infant observation, family therapy and neuro-psychology. Each chapter is augmented by demonstrable clinical experience. Frances Tustin Today is a valuable resource for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, educators and parents who are interested in learning more about this uniquely independent clinical observer''s findings and their impact upon the treatment of autistic states in children, adolescents and adults by contemporary workers in the field of mental health.

Judith L. Mitrani, and Theodore Mitrani, are Fellows of The International Psycho-Analytical Association, Training and Supervising Psychoanalysts at The Psychoanalytic Center of California in Los Angeles. They are founding members of the Board of Trustees of The Frances Tustin Memorial Trust, and authors, editors, translators and teachers in the private practice of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy with Adults and Children in Los Angeles, California.

The intimate, touching, witty, and unique memoir by a renowned psychoanalytic author and clinician who discovers the unexpected site of the most beautiful place in the world.

This riveting memoir tells the tale of how the roots of one woman''s yearnings, planted deeply in fertile dreams and disappointments, sprouted fresh possibilities, leafed out page by page and blossomed into a colorful and enduring romance. The author, a retired American psychoanalyst from Los Angeles, recognized for her many clinical publications, chronicles four years that fluttered by like autumn foliage into mounds of flashbacks upon an existence often blown off track and swept up as if by a gust of wind at surprising times and in unexpected directions. Following a sequence of sundry seasons and throughout broad and narrow ups and downs, the author settles not only in that most beautiful place that is the scintillating city of Paris, but even more significantly in a crisp, enduring, and resilient state of mind, a sturdy foundation for living experienced as the most beautiful place in the world.

"This is the fascinating story about a brilliant young woman who, caught in a dead-end marriage, took control of her destiny and became a world-renowned psychoanalyst. Her colorful descriptions of destinations around the world have resulted in my adding a number of them to my bucket list."

Virginia in California, Retired Nuclear Physicist 

Many people come to analysis appearing quite ''ordinary'' on the surface. However, once below that surface, we often come into contact with something quite unexpected: ''extra-ordinary protections'' created to keep at bay any awareness of deeply traumatic happenings occurring at some point in life.

Judith Mitrani investigates the development and the function of these protections, allowing the reader to witness the evolution of the process of transformation, wherein defensiveness steadily mutates into communication.

She lucidly and artfully weaves detailed clinical with a variety of analytic concepts, and her original notions - including ''unmentalized experience'' and its expression in enactments; ''adhesive pseudo-object relations'' and the way in which this contracts and compares with normal and narcissistic object relations - provide valuable tools for understanding the infantile transference/countertransference and for the refinement of our technique with primitive mental states.

Ordinary People and Extra-Ordinary Protections will prove stimulating and accessible in its style and substance to a broad analytic readership, from the serious student of psychoanalysis to the most seasoned professional.

Many people come to analysis appearing quite ''ordinary'' on the surface. However, once below that surface, we often come into contact with something quite unexpected: ''extra-ordinary protections'' created to keep at bay any awareness of deeply traumatic happenings occurring at some point in life.

Judith Mitrani investigates the development and the function of these protections, allowing the reader to witness the evolution of the process of transformation, wherein defensiveness steadily mutates into communication.

She lucidly and artfully weaves detailed clinical with a variety of analytic concepts, and her original notions - including ''unmentalized experience'' and its expression in enactments; ''adhesive pseudo-object relations'' and the way in which this contracts and compares with normal and narcissistic object relations - provide valuable tools for understanding the infantile transference/countertransference and for the refinement of our technique with primitive mental states.

Ordinary People and Extra-Ordinary Protections will prove stimulating and accessible in its style and substance to a broad analytic readership, from the serious student of psychoanalysis to the most seasoned professional.

Frances Tustin Today explores some of the ways and means by which Tustin’s work has enabled psychoanalytic clinicians to enter into the elemental domain of sensation: what Bion called the ‘proto-mental’ area of the psyche-soma. Through detailed clinical contributions of several of her exponents worldwide, this book demonstrates how her ideas -- rooted in decades of work with children on the autistic spectrum -- have influenced and are being expanded, extended and applied to the treatment of ordinary patients from early childhood through adulthood.

The contributors to this volume represent a selection of the contemporary thinking that organically grew out of Tustin’s discoveries, and show that Tustin''s model has added new dimensions to the fields of infant observation, family therapy and neuro-psychology. Each chapter is augmented by demonstrable clinical experience. Frances Tustin Today is a valuable resource for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, educators and parents who are interested in learning more about this uniquely independent clinical observer''s findings and their impact upon the treatment of autistic states in children, adolescents and adults by contemporary workers in the field of mental health.

Judith L. Mitrani, and Theodore Mitrani, are Fellows of The International Psycho-Analytical Association, Training and Supervising Psychoanalysts at The Psychoanalytic Center of California in Los Angeles. They are founding members of the Board of Trustees of The Frances Tustin Memorial Trust, and authors, editors, translators and teachers in the private practice of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy with Adults and Children in Los Angeles, California.

Frances Tustin Today explores some of the ways and means by which Tustin’s work has enabled psychoanalytic clinicians to enter into the elemental domain of sensation: what Bion called the ‘proto-mental’ area of the psyche-soma. Through detailed clinical contributions of several of her exponents worldwide, this book demonstrates how her ideas -- rooted in decades of work with children on the autistic spectrum -- have influenced and are being expanded, extended and applied to the treatment of ordinary patients from early childhood through adulthood.

The contributors to this volume represent a selection of the contemporary thinking that organically grew out of Tustin’s discoveries, and show that Tustin''s model has added new dimensions to the fields of infant observation, family therapy and neuro-psychology. Each chapter is augmented by demonstrable clinical experience. Frances Tustin Today is a valuable resource for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, educators and parents who are interested in learning more about this uniquely independent clinical observer''s findings and their impact upon the treatment of autistic states in children, adolescents and adults by contemporary workers in the field of mental health.

Judith L. Mitrani, and Theodore Mitrani, are Fellows of The International Psycho-Analytical Association, Training and Supervising Psychoanalysts at The Psychoanalytic Center of California in Los Angeles. They are founding members of the Board of Trustees of The Frances Tustin Memorial Trust, and authors, editors, translators and teachers in the private practice of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy with Adults and Children in Los Angeles, California.

The intimate, touching, witty, and unique memoir by a renowned psychoanalytic author and clinician who discovers the unexpected site of the most beautiful place in the world.

This riveting memoir tells the tale of how the roots of one woman''s yearnings, planted deeply in fertile dreams and disappointments, sprouted fresh possibilities, leafed out page by page and blossomed into a colorful and enduring romance. The author, a retired American psychoanalyst from Los Angeles, recognized for her many clinical publications, chronicles four years that fluttered by like autumn foliage into mounds of flashbacks upon an existence often blown off track and swept up as if by a gust of wind at surprising times and in unexpected directions. Following a sequence of sundry seasons and throughout broad and narrow ups and downs, the author settles not only in that most beautiful place that is the scintillating city of Paris, but even more significantly in a crisp, enduring, and resilient state of mind, a sturdy foundation for living experienced as the most beautiful place in the world.

"This is the fascinating story about a brilliant young woman who, caught in a dead-end marriage, took control of her destiny and became a world-renowned psychoanalyst. Her colorful descriptions of destinations around the world have resulted in my adding a number of them to my bucket list."

Virginia in California, Retired Nuclear Physicist