Léon Wurmser – författare

Work with patients with severe neuroses very often has to cope with the phenomenon that every progress in the analytic or therapeutic work is followed paradoxically by a clinical deterioration. There are a number of dynamic factors that converge to bring about this negative therapeutic reaction, including many-layered guilt and shame, aspects of envy and jealousy, attachment to negative affects, turning trauma from passive to active, conflicts within the superego, and the defensive use of omnipotence of responsibility.

In Nothing Good Is Allowed to Stand, Wurmser, Jarass, and their colleagues consider these and other factors insightfully, such as the extent to which traumatization lives on in self-directed aggressions of the superego in the claim of omnipotence; the significant role of deep conflicts between opposite values and loyalties in bringing about the prohibition of anything "good" and thus of the negative therapeutic reaction in particular and masochism in general; and the extent to which envy, jealousy, and resentment can be encountered in the "inner object," the "inner judge" (i.e., the superego), and how they are directed against the self.

Work with patients with severe neuroses very often has to cope with the phenomenon that every progress in the analytic or therapeutic work is followed paradoxically by a clinical deterioration. There are a number of dynamic factors that converge to bring about this negative therapeutic reaction, including many-layered guilt and shame, aspects of envy and jealousy, attachment to negative affects, turning trauma from passive to active, conflicts within the superego, and the defensive use of omnipotence of responsibility.

In Nothing Good Is Allowed to Stand, Wurmser, Jarass, and their colleagues consider these and other factors insightfully, such as the extent to which traumatization lives on in self-directed aggressions of the superego in the claim of omnipotence; the significant role of deep conflicts between opposite values and loyalties in bringing about the prohibition of anything "good" and thus of the negative therapeutic reaction in particular and masochism in general; and the extent to which envy, jealousy, and resentment can be encountered in the "inner object," the "inner judge" (i.e., the superego), and how they are directed against the self.

Jealousy and envy permeate the practice of psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic work. New experience and new relevance of old but neglected ideas about these two feeling states and their origins warrant special attention, both as to theory and practice.

Their great complexity and multilayered nature are highlighted by a number of contributions: the very early inception of the "triangular" jealousy situations; the prominence of womb envy and hatred against femininity rooted in the envy of female procreativity; the role of shame and the core of both affects; the massive effects of the embodiment of these feelings in the conscience (i.e., the envious and resentful attacks by the "inner judge" against the self); the attempt to construct a cultic system of sacrifices the would countermand womb envy by an all-male cast of killing, rebirth, redemption, and blissful nourishment; and finally, the projection of envy, jealousy, and their context of shame and self-condemnation in the form of the Evil Eye.

Taken together, the contributions to the stunning and insightful volume form a broad spectrum of new insights into the dynamics of two central emotions of rivalry and their clinical and cultural relevance and application.

Jealousy and envy permeate the practice of psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic work. New experience and new relevance of old but neglected ideas about these two feeling states and their origins warrant special attention, both as to theory and practice.

Their great complexity and multilayered nature are highlighted by a number of contributions: the very early inception of the "triangular" jealousy situations; the prominence of womb envy and hatred against femininity rooted in the envy of female procreativity; the role of shame and the core of both affects; the massive effects of the embodiment of these feelings in the conscience (i.e., the envious and resentful attacks by the "inner judge" against the self); the attempt to construct a cultic system of sacrifices the would countermand womb envy by an all-male cast of killing, rebirth, redemption, and blissful nourishment; and finally, the projection of envy, jealousy, and their context of shame and self-condemnation in the form of the Evil Eye.

Taken together, the contributions to the stunning and insightful volume form a broad spectrum of new insights into the dynamics of two central emotions of rivalry and their clinical and cultural relevance and application.

Grief and its Transcendence: Memory, Identity, Creativity is a landmark contribution that provides fresh insights into the experience and process of mourning. It includes fourteen original essays by pre-eminent psychoanalysts, historians, classicists, theologians, architects, art-historians and artists, that take on the subject of normal, rather than pathological mourning. In particular, it considers the diversity of the mourning process; the bereavement of ordinary vs. extraordinary loss; the contribution of mourning to personal and creative growth; and individual, social, and cultural means of transcending grief.

The book is divided into three parts, each including two to four essays followed by one or two critical discussions. Co-editor Adele Tutter’s Prologue outlines the salient themes and tensions that emerge from the volume. Part I juxtaposes the consideration of grief in antiquity with an examination of the contemporary use of memorials to facilitate communal remembrance. Part II offers intimate first-person accounts of mourning from four renowned psychoanalysts that challenge long-held psychoanalytic formulations of mourning. Part III contains deeply personal essays that explore the use of sculpture, photography, and music to withstand, mourn, and transcend loss on individual, cultural and political levels. Drawing on the humanistic wisdom that underlies psychoanalytic thought, co-editor Léon Wurmser’s Epilogue closes the volume.

Grief and its Transcendence will be a must for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and scholars within other disciplines who are interested in the topics of grief, bereavement and creativity.

Grief and its Transcendence: Memory, Identity, Creativity is a landmark contribution that provides fresh insights into the experience and process of mourning. It includes fourteen original essays by pre-eminent psychoanalysts, historians, classicists, theologians, architects, art-historians and artists, that take on the subject of normal, rather than pathological mourning. In particular, it considers the diversity of the mourning process; the bereavement of ordinary vs. extraordinary loss; the contribution of mourning to personal and creative growth; and individual, social, and cultural means of transcending grief.

The book is divided into three parts, each including two to four essays followed by one or two critical discussions. Co-editor Adele Tutter’s Prologue outlines the salient themes and tensions that emerge from the volume. Part I juxtaposes the consideration of grief in antiquity with an examination of the contemporary use of memorials to facilitate communal remembrance. Part II offers intimate first-person accounts of mourning from four renowned psychoanalysts that challenge long-held psychoanalytic formulations of mourning. Part III contains deeply personal essays that explore the use of sculpture, photography, and music to withstand, mourn, and transcend loss on individual, cultural and political levels. Drawing on the humanistic wisdom that underlies psychoanalytic thought, co-editor Léon Wurmser’s Epilogue closes the volume.

Grief and its Transcendence will be a must for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and scholars within other disciplines who are interested in the topics of grief, bereavement and creativity.