Evolutions in Psychoanalysis Book Series – serie

This book explores the implications of Arnold Rachman’s work in interpreting and applying Sándor Ferenczi’s approach to psychoanalysis to contemporary psychoanalytic theory and practice.Drawing on contributions from colleagues, analysands, and supervisees, this book allows us to see how, through Rachman’s work, the ideas that Ferenczi had have been amplified and used as a base for a clear approach to psychoanalytic work. In doing so, he has allowed Ferenczi’s work to go from being a forgotten part of psychoanalytic history to being an influential figure in psychoanalysis today, especially in the United States and in Europe.With fascinating insights on the place of Ferenczi and Rachman’s work in contemporary psychoanalytic theory and practice, this book is key reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and historians of thought.

This book explores the implications of Arnold Rachman’s work in interpreting and applying Sándor Ferenczi’s approach to psychoanalysis to contemporary psychoanalytic theory and practice.Drawing on contributions from colleagues, analysands, and supervisees, this book allows us to see how, through Rachman’s work, the ideas that Ferenczi had have been amplified and used as a base for a clear approach to psychoanalytic work. In doing so, he has allowed Ferenczi’s work to go from being a forgotten part of psychoanalytic history to being an influential figure in psychoanalysis today, especially in the United States and in Europe.With fascinating insights on the place of Ferenczi and Rachman’s work in contemporary psychoanalytic theory and practice, this book is key reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and historians of thought.

Gabriela Mann's book explores the work of an Israeli psychoanalyst who encounters the trauma and tragedy of Israelis living in an environment saturated with existential anxieties and threats to their well-being. This work offers clinical materials that illustrate the possibility of expansion of the mind through a spiritual dimension in psychoanalysis. The main theme focuses on transcending from a narrow perspective to a broad compassionate view by uncovering the interconnectedness between seemingly different phenomena. This cultivates the patients' ability to free themselves from past and contemporary trauma. Drawing on Kohut, Bion, and Winnicott, as well as from Buddhist thinking, Seeing Through Blindness describes the transformation of archaic narcissism, usually concerned with individual goals, to mature narcissism which strives for a supra-individual perspective. The reader is invited to choose among the chapters that describe splits in the self, paradoxes of belonging, perpetrators and victims, perversion, and selfobject needs at times of threat and bereavement. The book offers new ways of thinking about trauma in a troubled world, for all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists.

Gabriela Mann's book explores the work of an Israeli psychoanalyst who encounters the trauma and tragedy of Israelis living in an environment saturated with existential anxieties and threats to their well-being. This work offers clinical materials that illustrate the possibility of expansion of the mind through a spiritual dimension in psychoanalysis. The main theme focuses on transcending from a narrow perspective to a broad compassionate view by uncovering the interconnectedness between seemingly different phenomena. This cultivates the patients' ability to free themselves from past and contemporary trauma. Drawing on Kohut, Bion, and Winnicott, as well as from Buddhist thinking, Seeing Through Blindness describes the transformation of archaic narcissism, usually concerned with individual goals, to mature narcissism which strives for a supra-individual perspective. The reader is invited to choose among the chapters that describe splits in the self, paradoxes of belonging, perpetrators and victims, perversion, and selfobject needs at times of threat and bereavement. The book offers new ways of thinking about trauma in a troubled world, for all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists.

This critical historical review of psychoanalytic theory and practice reflects on the place of psychoanalysis in contemporary Western culture in light of its preoccupation with the self and associated failure to emphasize the role of close interpersonal relationships as central to the human psyche.The elusive presence of the separate other in psychoanalytic theory is discussed vis-à-vis the life stories of Freud, Winnicott, and Kohut. The underlying narcissistic bias in the theories of these three pioneers of psychoanalysis – classical Freudian drive theory, Winnicott’s theory of the parent-infant relationship, and Kohut's theory of self-psychology – is traced back to their narcissistic personality traits, which impacted their views and perceptions and obscured the fundamental centrality of interpersonal relationships per se in the inner world of the individual, with far-reaching implications for psychoanalytic thought and practice.With fresh insights on the subjectivity of personality theories, the core features of the narcissistic personality, and the implications of the narcissistic position for theory and clinical practice, this book will interest psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, and other professionals in the field, specifically those interested in personality diagnosis, narcissism, attachment theory, and psychotherapeutic approaches and psychoanalytic theories in general.