Theo L. Dorpat - Böcker

Few authors who have written about Hitler have understood the deeply damaging effects of psychic trauma on his private life and the way he functioned in the public sphere. Nearly all major biographers have neglected the importance of Hitler's childhood trauma and his later combat trauma during World War I. In Wounded Monster, Theo Dorpat demonstrates how extreme emotional and physical abuse from his father, and his unusually long combat service during the Great War became the most formative influences of his life, resulting in severe psychiatric disorders. This psychiatric biography of Hitler discusses the central importance of his vulnerability to shame emotions, as well as the trauma-induced construction of an extensive repertoire of mainly unconscious mechanisms for the avoidance of feelings of shame. Dorpat provides deep insights into Hitler's shame vulnerability as a prime cause of his suicidal behavior, including his suicide threats, two failed suicide attempts, and his final completed suicide. This work will assist those attempting to explain Hitler and his actions, through an examination of the influences that shaped his psyche.

Clinical Interaction and the Analysis of Meaning evinces a therapeutic vitality all too rare in works of theory. Rather than fleeing from the insights of other disciplines, Dorpat and Miller discover in recent research confirmation of the possibilities of psychoanalytic treatment. In Section I, "Critique of Classical Theory," Dorpat proposes a radical revision of the notion of primary process consonant with contemporary cognitive science. Such a revised conception not only enlarges our understanding of the analytic process; it also provides analysis with a conceptual language that can articulate meaningful connections with a growing body of empirical research about the development and nature of human cognition.In Section II, "Interactional Theory," Miller reverses the direction of inquiry. He begins with the literature on cognitive development and functioning, and proceeds to mine it for concepts relevant to the clinical process. He shows how a revised understanding of the operation of cognition and affect can impart new meaning to basic clinical concepts such as resistance, transference, and level of psychopathology. In Section III, "Applications and Exemplifications," Dorpat concludes this exemplary collaboration by exploring select topics from the standpoint of his and Miller's new psychoanalytic theory.At the heart of the authors' endeavor it "meaning analysis," a concept that integrates an up-to-date model of human information processing with the traditional goals of psychoanalysis. The patient approaches the clinical encounter, they argue, with cognitive-affective schemas that are the accumulatice product of his life experience to date; the manifold meanings ascribed to the clinical interaction must be understood as the product of these schemas rather than as distortions deriving from unconscious, drive-related fantasies. The therapist's goal is to make the patient's meaning-making conscious and thus available for introspection.