Marilyn Charles – författare

Working with Trauma: Lessons from Bion and Lacan by Marilyn Charles takes concepts from the psychoanalytic literature and translates them into user-friendly language. In this book, Charles focuses on clinical work with more severely disturbed patients, for whom trauma has impeded their psychosocial development. Introducing ideas from Bion and Lacan, such as “empty speech” and “attacks on linking,” she shows the reader their clinical utility. Her use of clinical moments, rather than more lengthy vignettes, invites readers to recognize that type of dilemma and imagine how they might use the concept in their own work.

Working with Trauma: Lessons from Bion and Lacan by Marilyn Charles takes concepts from the psychoanalytic literature and translates them into user-friendly language. In this book, Charles focuses on clinical work with more severely disturbed patients, for whom trauma has impeded their psychosocial development. Introducing ideas from Bion and Lacan, such as “empty speech” and “attacks on linking,” she shows the reader their clinical utility. Her use of clinical moments, rather than more lengthy vignettes, invites readers to recognize that type of dilemma and imagine how they might use the concept in their own work.

In recent years, various tributaries of psychoanalytic and developmental theory have flowed into our dawning understanding of the role of early sensory and affective experiences in the construction of our personal worlds. In Patterns: Building Blocks of Experience, Marilyn Charles shows how such primary experiences coalesce into patterns, those essential units of meaning that capture the unique subjectivity of each individual. Frequently "known" by their prosody or affective melody, patterns come to have profound meanings that we utilize in constructing basic notions of self and other. Through pattern, Charles holds, we approach elusive meanings through dimensions of shape, contour, and affective resonance. Such patterned understandings, in turn, become a mode of interchange through which we touch one another in ways that go beyond the overtly physical.Analytic patients, Charles finds, have often led early lives too full of "noise" to use their early sensory and affective experiences constructively. Such patients tend to live out patterns that operate unconsciously and have become literally incomprehensible. Analytic communication, by drawing explicit attention to such patterned experience, provides new images that intrude on ingrained patterns of thinking about the self and other. Out of the productive clash of analytically co-constructed images and the invariant patterns of the past emerge new conceptions of what the patient may choose to be in the present moment.Through it all, Charles displays an admirable willingness to sit in difficult spaces and to work through troubling therapeutic impasses from the inside out, rather than from some point of ostensible safety. This finely textured and richly evocative study, which grows out of Charles' extensive clinical work with artists, writers, and musicians, is a signal contribution to developmental theory, clinical theory, and the psychology of creativity.

An important task facing all clinicians, and especially challenging for younger, less experienced clinicians, is to come to know oneself sufficiently to be able to register the patient's experience in useful and progressively deeper ways.  In an effort to aid younger clinicians in the daily struggle to "know thyself," Marilyn Charles turns to key ideas that have facilitated her own clinical work with difficult patients.  Concepts such as "container" and "contained," transitional space, projective identification, and transference/countertransference are introduced not as academic ideas, but as aspects of the therapeutic environment that elicit greater creativity and vitality on the therapist's part.  In Charles's skillful hands, the basic ideas of Klein, Winnicott, and Bion become newly comprehensible without losing depth and richness; they come to life in the fulcrum of daily clinical encounter.

In recent years, various tributaries of psychoanalytic and developmental theory have flowed into our dawning understanding of the role of early sensory and affective experiences in the construction of our personal worlds. In Patterns: Building Blocks of Experience, Marilyn Charles shows how such primary experiences coalesce into patterns, those essential units of meaning that capture the unique subjectivity of each individual. Frequently "known" by their prosody or affective melody, patterns come to have profound meanings that we utilize in constructing basic notions of self and other. Through pattern, Charles holds, we approach elusive meanings through dimensions of shape, contour, and affective resonance. Such patterned understandings, in turn, become a mode of interchange through which we touch one another in ways that go beyond the overtly physical.Analytic patients, Charles finds, have often led early lives too full of "noise" to use their early sensory and affective experiences constructively. Such patients tend to live out patterns that operate unconsciously and have become literally incomprehensible. Analytic communication, by drawing explicit attention to such patterned experience, provides new images that intrude on ingrained patterns of thinking about the self and other. Out of the productive clash of analytically co-constructed images and the invariant patterns of the past emerge new conceptions of what the patient may choose to be in the present moment.Through it all, Charles displays an admirable willingness to sit in difficult spaces and to work through troubling therapeutic impasses from the inside out, rather than from some point of ostensible safety. This finely textured and richly evocative study, which grows out of Charles' extensive clinical work with artists, writers, and musicians, is a signal contribution to developmental theory, clinical theory, and the psychology of creativity.

An important task facing all clinicians, and especially challenging for younger, less experienced clinicians, is to come to know oneself sufficiently to be able to register the patient's experience in useful and progressively deeper ways.  In an effort to aid younger clinicians in the daily struggle to "know thyself," Marilyn Charles turns to key ideas that have facilitated her own clinical work with difficult patients.  Concepts such as "container" and "contained," transitional space, projective identification, and transference/countertransference are introduced not as academic ideas, but as aspects of the therapeutic environment that elicit greater creativity and vitality on the therapist's part.  In Charles's skillful hands, the basic ideas of Klein, Winnicott, and Bion become newly comprehensible without losing depth and richness; they come to life in the fulcrum of daily clinical encounter.

This book provides a clear introduction to the main contemporary psychoanalytic theoretical perspectives. Psychoanalysis is often thought of as an obscure and outdated method, and yet those familiar with it recognize the profound value of psychoanalytic theory and technique. Part of the obscurity may come from psychoanalytic language itself, which is often impenetrable. The complexity of the subject matter has lent itself to a confusion of tongues and yet, at base, psychoanalysis remains an earnest attempt to make sense of and ease human distress. Introduction to Contemporary Psychoanalysis seeks to make this rich wealth of information more accessible to clinicians and trainees. Psychoanalytic clinicians from various schools here describe the key ideas that underlie their particular perspective, helping the reader to see how they apply those ideas in their clinical work. Inviting the contributors to speak about their actual practice, rather than merely providing an overview, this book helps the reader to see common threads that run across perspectives, but also to recognize ways in which the different lenses from each of the perspectives inform interventions Through brief vignettes, the reader is offered an experience-near sense of what it might be like to apply those ideas in their own work. The contributors also note the limits or weaknesses of their particular theory, inviting the reader to consider the broader spectrum of these diverse offerings so that the benefits of each might be more visible. Introduction to Contemporary Psychoanalysis offers readers the richness and diversity of psychoanalytic theory and technique, so that the advantages of each particular lens might be visible and accessible as a further tool in their clinical work. This novel, comparative work will be an essential text for any psychoanalyst or psychoanalytically inclined therapist in training, as well as clinicians and those who teach psychoanalytic theory and technique.

This book provides a clear introduction to the main contemporary psychoanalytic theoretical perspectives. Psychoanalysis is often thought of as an obscure and outdated method, and yet those familiar with it recognize the profound value of psychoanalytic theory and technique. Part of the obscurity may come from psychoanalytic language itself, which is often impenetrable. The complexity of the subject matter has lent itself to a confusion of tongues and yet, at base, psychoanalysis remains an earnest attempt to make sense of and ease human distress. Introduction to Contemporary Psychoanalysis seeks to make this rich wealth of information more accessible to clinicians and trainees. Psychoanalytic clinicians from various schools here describe the key ideas that underlie their particular perspective, helping the reader to see how they apply those ideas in their clinical work. Inviting the contributors to speak about their actual practice, rather than merely providing an overview, this book helps the reader to see common threads that run across perspectives, but also to recognize ways in which the different lenses from each of the perspectives inform interventions Through brief vignettes, the reader is offered an experience-near sense of what it might be like to apply those ideas in their own work. The contributors also note the limits or weaknesses of their particular theory, inviting the reader to consider the broader spectrum of these diverse offerings so that the benefits of each might be more visible. Introduction to Contemporary Psychoanalysis offers readers the richness and diversity of psychoanalytic theory and technique, so that the advantages of each particular lens might be visible and accessible as a further tool in their clinical work. This novel, comparative work will be an essential text for any psychoanalyst or psychoanalytically inclined therapist in training, as well as clinicians and those who teach psychoanalytic theory and technique.

The Importance of Play in Early Childhood Education presents various theories of play and demonstrates how it serves communicative, developmental, and relational functions, highlighting the importance and development of the capacity to play in terms useful to early childhood educators. The book explicitly links trauma, development, and interventions in the early childhood classroom specifically for teachers of young children, offering accessible information that can help teachers better understand the meanings of children’s expressive acts. Contributors from education, psychoanalysis, and developmental psychology explore techniques of play, how cultural influences affect how children play, the effect of trauma on play, factors that interfere with the ability to play, and how to apply these ideas in the classroom. They also discuss the relevance of ideas about playfulness for teachers and other professionals. The Imprtance of Play in Early Childhood Education will be of great interest to teachers, psychoanalysts, and psychotherapists as well as play therapists and developmental psychologists.

The Importance of Play in Early Childhood Education presents various theories of play and demonstrates how it serves communicative, developmental, and relational functions, highlighting the importance and development of the capacity to play in terms useful to early childhood educators. The book explicitly links trauma, development, and interventions in the early childhood classroom specifically for teachers of young children, offering accessible information that can help teachers better understand the meanings of children’s expressive acts. Contributors from education, psychoanalysis, and developmental psychology explore techniques of play, how cultural influences affect how children play, the effect of trauma on play, factors that interfere with the ability to play, and how to apply these ideas in the classroom. They also discuss the relevance of ideas about playfulness for teachers and other professionals. The Imprtance of Play in Early Childhood Education will be of great interest to teachers, psychoanalysts, and psychotherapists as well as play therapists and developmental psychologists.

"Essential reading for psychotherapists seeking to develop increased competency in the care of individuals who struggle with trauma or seeking a deeper experience in their therapeutic work. The book will also be helpful for psychotherapists interested in psychoanalytic or psychodynamic work. It will also be of interest to current therapists, as well as students in psychiatry and psychology, and other students pursuing careers in mental health...includes an extensive reference section, as well as a helpful index." --Doody's ReviewsIntricately weaves psychoanalytic and developmental theory to explain how we become who we are, and how we might grow beyond the places we get stuck.In recent decades psychological research and practice has focused heavily on cognitive domains, with far less attention paid to the nonverbal systems through which people register essential meanings. This has led many clinicians to seek disembodied and often mechanistic solutions to clients' problems. But these approaches fail to recognize hidden sources of trauma, which can be difficult to access through conscious reflection. As the source of a trauma recedes further into the past and remains unexplored and unmourned, the effect can become a lingering adversity that masquerades as destiny—and this worldview can even be passed along through subsequent generations. In this volume, Marilyn Charles argues for a more embodied, less mechanistic view of human development. To understand a client's problem at a particular moment in time, we must understand the history that has given rise to it, some of which the client may be able to tell us directly, but some that we must intuit from signs and symptoms because not all history can be recalled consciously. After drawing on psychoanalytic and developmental theory to ground her model, Charles uses clinical vignettes and comparisons with her own life to illustrate how we might facilitate our clients' development. Development is never final. It is an ongoing, lifelong process that can get off-track. Using the theory and techniques in this book, therapists can help clients find and integrate the missing pieces of their life story.

Psychoanalysis offers many concepts that are extremely useful clinically but not always accessible in the original. In Psychoanalysis and Literature:The Stories We Live, Marilyn Charles pairs case vignettes with examples from literature to highlight the essential human struggles that play out in the consulting room. This pairing depathologizes those struggles and offers a conceptual framework that can help the clinician facilitate these journeys of discovery. Describing first how literature affords an opportunity for vicarious engagement with struggles endemic to the human condition, she then focuses on trauma, dreams, and ‘cultural collisions’turning more explicitly to the developmental challenges of identity, relatedness, aging, and generativity. Psychoanalysis and Literature is accessible, relevant, and timely.

Fragments of Trauma and the Social Production of Suffering: Trauma, History, and Memory offers a kaleidoscope of perspectives that highlight the problem of traumatic memory. Because trauma fragments memory, storytelling is impeded by what is unknowable and what is unspeakable. Each of the contributors tackles the problem of narrativizing memory that is constructed from fragments that have been passed along the generations. When trauma is cultural as well as personal, it becomes even more invisible, as each generation’s attempts at coping push the pain further below the surface. Consequently, that pain becomes increasingly ineffable, haunting succeeding generations. In each story the contributors offer, there emerges the theme of difference, a difference that turns back on itself and makes an accusation. Themes of knowing and unknowing show the terrible toll that trauma takes when there is no one with whom the trauma can be acknowledged and worked through. In the face of utter lack of recognition, what might be known together becomes hidden. Our failure to speak to these unaspirated truths becomes a betrayal of self and also of others. In the case of intergenerational and cultural trauma, we betray not only our ancestors but also the future generations to come. In the face of unacknowledged trauma, this book reveals that we are confronted with the perennial choice of speaking or becoming complicit in our silence.

Interrogating the relationship between women and psychosis from a variety of perspectives, this edited collection explores personal, literary, spiritual, psychological, biological, and psychodynamic approaches. The contributors reflect on medieval mystics and witches, postpartum psychosis, disordered eating, art and literature, feminism, and male/female differences in schizophrenia. Women with experience of psychosis, psychotherapists, and a shaman provide first-person accounts to give the book a personal grounding. Curated with the intent to expand the way we think about women and psychosis, the contributors to this collection recognize that “voices and visions” do not occur in a vacuum, but are experienced within, and are influenced by, particular socio-cultural contexts.

Interrogating the relationship between women and psychosis from a variety of perspectives, this edited collection explores personal, literary, spiritual, psychological, biological, and psychodynamic approaches. The contributors reflect on medieval mystics and witches, postpartum psychosis, disordered eating, art and literature, feminism, and male/female differences in schizophrenia. Women with experience of psychosis, psychotherapists, and a shaman provide first-person accounts to give the book a personal grounding. Curated with the intent to expand the way we think about women and psychosis, the contributors to this collection recognize that “voices and visions” do not occur in a vacuum, but are experienced within, and are influenced by, particular socio-cultural contexts.