New Books in Psychoanalysis

Latest Episodes:

William R. Miller, "On Second Thought: How Ambivalence Shapes Your Life" (Guilford, 2021) Feb 23, 2022

Show notes

The rich inner world of a human being is far more complex than either/or. You can love and hate, want to go and want to stay, feel both joy and sadness. In On Second Thought: How Ambivalence Shapes Your Life (Guilford, 2021), psychologist William Miller--one of the world's leading experts on the science of change--offers a fresh perspective on ambivalence and its transformative potential in this revealing book. Rather than trying to overcome indecision by force of will, Dr. Miller explores what happens when people allow opposing arguments from their “inner committee members” to converse freely with each other. Learning to tolerate and even welcome feelings of ambivalence can help you get unstuck from unwanted habits, clarify your desires and values, explore the pros and cons of tough decisions, and open doorways to change. Vivid examples from everyday life, literature, and history illustrate why we are so often "of two minds," and how to work through it.

William R. Miller, PhD, is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Jerome S. Gans, "Addressing Challenging Moments in Psychotherapy: Clinical Wisdom for Working with Individuals, Groups and Couples" (Routledge, 2021) Feb 03, 2022

Show notes

This practical and helpful volume details how clinicians can work through various common challenges in individual, couple, or group psychotherapy.

Chapters draw upon clinical wisdom gleaned from the author’s 48 years as a practicing psychiatrist to address topics such as using countertransference for therapeutic purposes; resistance, especially when it needs to be the focus of the therapy; and a prioritization of exploration over explanation. Along with theory and clinical observations, Dr. Gans offers a series of "Clinical Pearls," pithy comments that highlight different interventions to a wide range of clinical challenges. These include patient hostility, the abrupt and unilateral termination of therapy, the therapist’s loss of compassionate neutrality when treating a couple, and many more. Many of the "Clinical Pearls" prioritize working in the here-and-now. In addition to offering advice and strategies for therapists, the book also addresses concerns like the matter of fees in private practice and the virtue of moral courage on the part of the therapist.

Written with clarity, heart, and an abundance of clinical wisdom, Addressing Challenging Moments in Psychotherapy: Clinical Wisdom for Working with Individuals, Groups and Couples (Routledge, 2021) is essential reading for all clinicians, teachers, and supervisors of psychotherapy.

Jerome S. Gans, MD, is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Group Psychotherapy Association and the American Psychiatric Association. Now retired, he previously worked in private practice and as Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School.

Elizabeth Cronin, Psy.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher with offices in Brookline and Norwood, MA. You can follow her on Instagram or visit her website.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Jon Mills, "Debating Relational Psychoanalysis: Jon Mills and His Critics" (Routledge, 2020) Feb 01, 2022

Show notes

In Debating Relational Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2020), Jon Mills provides an historical record of the debates that had taken place for nearly two decades on his critique of the relational school, including responses from his critics. Since he initiated his critique, relational psychoanalysis has become an international phenomenon with proponents worldwide. This book hopes that further dialogue may not only lead to conciliation, but more optimistically, that relational theory may be inspired to improve upon its theoretical edifice, both conceptually and clinically, as well as develop technical parameters to praxis that help guide and train new clinicians to sharpen their own theoretical orientation and therapeutic efficacy. Because of the public exchanges in writing and at professional symposiums, these debates have historical significance in the development of the psychoanalytic movement as a whole simply due to their contentiousness and proclivity to question cherished assumptions, both old and new. In presenting this collection of his work, and those responses of his critics, Mills argues that psychoanalysis may only advance through critique and creative refinement, and this requires a deconstructive praxis within the relational school itself.

Debating Relational Psychoanalysis will be of interest to psychoanalysts of all orientations, psychotherapists, mental health workers, psychoanalytic historians, philosophical psychologists, and the broad disciplines of humanistic, phenomenological, existential, and analytical psychology.

Jon Mills, PsyD, PhD, ABPP is a philosopher, psychoanalyst, and clinical psychologist. He is a faculty member in the postgraduate programs in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology, Adelphi University, emeritus professor of psychology and psychoanalysis, Adler Graduate Professional School, and runs a mental health corporation in Ontario, Canada. Recipient of numerous awards for his scholarship, he is the author and editor of over 20 books in psychoanalysis, philosophy, psychology, and cultural studies.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Susan E. Schwartz, "The Absent Father Effect on Daughters: Father Desire, Father Wounds" (Routledge, 2020) Jan 25, 2022

Show notes

The Absent Father Effect on Daughters: Father Desire, Father Wounds (Routledge, 2020) investigates the impact of absent – physically or emotionally – and inadequate fathers on the lives and psyches of their daughters through the perspective of Jungian analytical psychology. This book tells the stories of daughters who describe the insecurity of self, the splintering and disintegration of the personality, and the silencing of voice. Issues of fathers and daughters reach to the intra-psychic depths and archetypal roots, to issues of self and culture, both personal and collective.

Susan E. Schwartz illustrates the maladies and disappointments of daughters who lack a father figure and incorporates clinical examples describing how daughters can break out of idealizations, betrayals, abandonments and losses to move towards repair and renewal. The book takes an interdisciplinary approach, expanding and elucidating Jungian concepts through dreams, personal stories, fairy tales and the poetry of Sylvia Plath, along with psychoanalytic theory, including Andre Green’s ‘dead father effect’ and Julia Kristeva’s theories on women and the body as abject. Examining daughters both personally and collectively affected by the lack of a father, The Absent Father Effect on Daughters is highly relevant for those wanting to understand the complex dynamics of daughters and fathers to become their authentic selves. It will be essential reading for anyone seeking understanding, analytical and depth psychologists, other therapy professionals, academics and students with Jungian and post-Jungian interests.

Christopher Russell is a Psychoanalyst in Chelsea, Manhattan.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Amy Schwartz Cooney and Rachel Sopher, "Vitalization in Psychoanalysis: Perspectives on Being and Becoming" (Routledge, 2021) Jan 24, 2022

Show notes

In Vitalization in Psychoanalysis: Perspectives on Being and Becoming(Routledge, 2021), Schwartz Cooney and Sopher develop and explore the concept of vitalization, generating new ways of approaching and conceptualizing the psychoanalytic project.

Vitalization refers to the process between two people that ignites new experiences and brings withdrawn aspects of the self to life. This book focuses on how psychoanalysis can be a uniquely creative encounter that can aid this enlivening internal process, offering a vibrant new take on the psychotherapeutic project. There is a long tradition in psychoanalysis that addresses the ways that the unique subjectivities of each member of the therapeutic dyad contribute to the repetition of entrenched patterns of relating, and how the processing of enactments can be reparative. But this overlap in subjectivities can also bring to life undeveloped experiences. This focus on generativity and progressive action represents a significant, cutting-edge turn in psychoanalysis. Vitalization in Psychoanalysis represents a deep meditation on this transformational moment in the history of psychoanalytic thought.

Pulling together work from major writers on vitalization from all the main psychoanalytic schools of thought, and covering development, theory and clinical practice, this book will be an invaluable guide for clinicians of all backgrounds, as well of students of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

Amy Schwartz Cooney, Ph.D., is on faculty at the New York University (NYU) Post-Doctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. She is on the Board of Directors and is faculty/supervisor at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies (NIP) and at the Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies. She is Joint Editor in Chief of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and is in private practice in New York City.

Rachel Sopher is Board Director, Faculty and Supervisor, National Institute for the Psychotherapies (NIP) Training Institute; Faculty and Supervisor, National Training Program for NIP; and Faculty, Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies. She is Editor-in-Chief of Psychoanalytic Perspectives and maintains a private practice in New York City.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Claudia Heilbrunn, "What Happens When the Analyst Dies: Unexpected Terminations in Psychoanalysis" (Routledge, 2019) Jan 19, 2022

Show notes

What Happens When the Analyst Dies: Unexpected Terminations in Psychoanalysis(Routledge, 2019) explores the stories of patients who have experienced the death of their analyst. The book prioritizes the voices of patients, letting them articulate for themselves the challenges and heartache that occur when grappling with such a devastating loss. It also addresses the challenges faced by analysts who work with grieving patients and/or experience serious illness while treating patients.

Claudia Heilbrunn brings together contributors who discuss their personal experiences with bereavement and/or serious illness within the psychoanalytic encounter. Chapters include memoirs written by patients who describe not only the aftermath of an analyst's death, but also how the analyst's ability or inability to deal with his or her own illness and impending death within the treatment setting impacted the patient's own capacity to cope with their loss. Other chapters broach the challenges that arise (1) in 'second analyses', (2) for the ill analyst, and (3) for those who face the death of an analyst or mentor while in training.

Aiming to give prominence to the often neglected and unmediated voices of patients, as well as analysts who have dealt with grieving patients and serious illness, What Happens When the Analyst Dies strives to highlight and encourage discussion about the impact of an analyst's death on patients and the ways in which institutes and therapists could do more to protect those in their care. It will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, counselors, gerontologists, trainees, and patients who are currently in treatment or whose therapist has passed away.

Christopher Russell is a Psychoanalyst in Chelsea, Manhattan.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Caron Harrang, "Body as Psychoanalytic Object: Clinical Applications from Winnicott to Bion and Beyond" (Routledge, 2021) Dec 29, 2021

Show notes

Body as Psychoanalytic Object: Clinical Applications from Winnicott to Bion and Beyond (Routledge, 2021) explores the role of bodily phenomena in mental life and in the psychoanalytic encounter, encouraging further dialog within psychoanalysis, philosophy, and the humanities, and contributing new clinical and theoretical perspectives to the recent resurgence of psychoanalytic interest in the body.

Presented in six parts in which diverse meanings are explored, Body as Psychoanalytic Object focuses on the clinical psychoanalytic encounter and the body as object of psychoanalytic inquiry, spanning from the prenatal experience to death. The contributors explore key themes including mind-body relations in Winnicott, Bion, and beyond; oneiric body; nascent body in early object relations; body and psychosensory experience; body in breakdown; and body in virtual space. With clinical vignettes throughout, each chapter provides unique insight into how different analysts work with bodily phenomena in the clinical situation and how it is conceived theoretically.

Building on the thinking of Winnicott and Bion, as well as contributions from French psychoanalysis, Body as Psychoanalytic Object offers a way forward in a body-based understanding of object relations theory for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists.

Roy Barsness is a Clinical Psychoanalytic Psychologist, Founder and Executive Director of the Post-Graduate Program in Relationally-Focused Psychodynamic Therapy; Professor at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology and have been in clinical practice for 30+ years.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Paul Ian Steinberg, "Applying Psychoanalytic Thought to Contemporary Mental Health Practice" (Routledge, 2021) Dec 27, 2021

Show notes

Dr. Paul Steinberg, Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, returns to New Books Network to discuss his latest book, Applying Psychoanalytic Thought to Contemporary Mental Health Practice (Routledge, 2021). In this latest work, a “sister” publication his prior Psychoanalysis in Medicine (Routledge, 2020), Dr. Steinberg describes the potential for psychoanalytic ideas and practice to be applied to a variety of mental health care contexts, including group therapy and partial hospitalization programs. He writes about how psychoanalysis has, and how it can continue to, reinvent itself on an ongoing basis, in parallel with evolving theory and technology. Through clinical vignettes, citation of psychoanalytic literature, and direct analysis, Dr. Steinberg offers an approachable, engaging, and personal discourse on psychoanalysis in modern mental health practice.

Alec Kacew is a medical school student at the University of Chicago.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Noreen Giffney, "The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis: Cultural Experiences and the Clinic" (Routledge, 2021) Dec 27, 2021

Show notes

The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis: Cultural Experiences and the Clinic (Routledge, 2021) introduces "the culture-breast," a new clinical concept, to explore the central importance played by cultural objects in the psychical lives of patients and psychoanalytic clinical practitioners inside and outside the consulting room. Bringing together clinical writings from psychoanalysis and cultural objects from the applied fields of film, art, literature and music, the book also makes an argument for the usefulness of encounters with cultural objects as "non-clinical case studies" in the training and further professional development of psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. Through its engagement with psychosocial studies, the text, furthermore, interrogates, challenges and offers a way through a hierarchical split that has become established in psychoanalysis between "clinical psychoanalysis" and "applied psychoanalysis."

Noreen Giffney is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, a psychosocial theorist and the director of Psychoanalysis +, an international, interdisciplinary initiative that brings together clinical, artistic and academic approaches to, and applications of, psychoanalysis. She has published and lectured extensively on psychoanalysis, psychosocial studies and critical theory. She works as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice in County Donegal and as a lecturer in counselling at Ulster University.

Philip Lance, Ph.D. is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Los Angeles. He can be reached at PhilipJLance@gmail.com

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Karen J. Maroda, "The Analyst’s Vulnerability: Impact on Theory and Practice" (Routledge, 2021) Dec 23, 2021

Show notes

The Analyst’s Vulnerability: Impact on Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2021) closely examines the analyst's early experiences and character traits, demonstrating the impact they have on theory building and technique. Arguing that choice of theory and interventions are unconsciously shaped by clinicians' early experiences, this book argues for greater self-awareness, self-acceptance, and open dialogue as a corrective.

Linking the analyst's early childhood experiences to ongoing vulnerabilities reflected in theory and practice, this book favors an approach that focuses on feedback and confrontation, as well as empathic understanding and acceptance. Essential to this task, and a thesis that runs through the book, are analysts' motivations for doing treatment and the gratifications they naturally seek. Maroda asserts that an enduring blind spot arises from clinicians' ongoing need to deny what they are personally seeking from the analytic process, including the need to rescue and be rescued. She equally seeks to remove the guilt and shame associated with these motivations, encouraging clinicians to embrace both their own humanity and their patients', rather than seeking to transcend them. Providing a new perspective on how analysts work, this book explores the topics of enactment, mirror neurons, and therapeutic action through the lens of the analyst's early experiences and resulting personality structure. Maroda confronts the analyst's tendencies to favor harmony over conflict, passivity over active interventions, and viewing the patient as an infant rather than an adult.

Exploring heretofore unexamined issues of the psychology of the analyst or therapist offers the opportunity to generate new theoretical and technical perspectives. As such, this book will be invaluable to experienced psychodynamic therapists and students and trainees alike, as well as teachers of theory and practice.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis