New Books in Psychoanalysis

Latest Episodes:

Jack Drescher, "Psychotherapeutic Engagements With LGBTQ+ Patients and Their Families" (American Psychiatric Association, 2020) Dec 10, 2020

Show notes

In this episode, Philip Lance interviews Jack Drescher, a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who is an expert in psychotherapy with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender patients. The interview focuses on a recently published series articles about LGBT mental health in an online journal of the American Psychiatric Association. The LGBT population group is heterogeneous, meaning that differences among the members of this group are as important as the similarities. In many ways, psychotherapy for this group does not differ from psychotherapy for heterosexual, gender conforming, and cisgender patients, however, concepts and considerations that arise in psychotherapy with LGBT patients can parallel issues that arise in psychotherapy with patients of other stigmatized minority groups. In this interview, the author discusses the concept of minority stress and its relationship with mental health conditions and reviews specific issues that may arise, including being in the closet, coming out of the closet, the psychotherapeutic search for “causes” of sexual orientation and gender identity, and therapist self-disclosure.

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

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Fred Busch, "Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind: A Psychoanalytic Method and Theory" (Routledge, 2013) Dec 07, 2020

Show notes

Bringing a fresh contemporary Freudian view to a number of current issues in psychoanalysis, this book is about a psychoanalytic method that has been evolved by Fred Busch over the past 40 years called Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind: A Psychoanalytic Method and Theory (Routledge, 2013). It is based on the essential curative process basic to most psychoanalytic theories—the need for a shift in the patient’s relationship with their own mind. Busch shows that with the development of a psychoanalytic mind, the patient can acquire the capacity to shift the inevitability of action to the possibility of reflection.

Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind is derived from an increasing clarification of how the mind works that has led to certain paradigm changes in the psychoanalytic method. While the methods of understanding the human condition have evolved since Freud, the means of bringing this understanding to patients in a way that is meaningful have not always followed. Throughout, Fred Busch illustrates that while the analyst’s expertise is crucial to the process, the analyst’s stance, rather than mainly being an expert in the content of the patient’s mind, is primarily one of helping the patient to find his own mind.

Fred Busch is a Training and Supervising Analyst, Boston Psychoanalytic Institute and Society. He has published 5 books and over 70 papers. His work has been translated into multiple languages.

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

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Rosamond Rhodes, "The Trusted Doctor: Medical Ethics and Professionalism" (Oxford UP, 2020) Nov 23, 2020

Show notes

Common morality has been the touchstone of medical ethics since the publication of Beauchamp and Childress's Principles of Biomedical Ethics in 1979. Rosamond Rhodes challenges this dominant view by presenting an original and novel account of the ethics of medicine, one deeply rooted in the actual experience of medical professionals. She argues that common morality accounts of medical ethics are unsuitable for the profession, and inadequate for responding to the particular issues that arise in medical practice. Instead, Rhodes argues that medicine's distinctive ethics should be explained in terms of the trust that society allows to the profession. Trust is the core and starting point of Rhodes' moral framework, which states that the most basic duty of doctors is to "seek trust and be trustworthy."

In The Trusted Doctor: Medical Ethics and Professionalism (Oxford UP, 2020), Rhodes explicates the sixteen specific duties that doctors take on when they join the profession, and demonstrates how her view of these duties is largely consistent with the codes of medical ethics of medical societies around the world. She then explains why it is critical for physicians to develop the attitudes or "doctorly" virtues that comprise the character of trustworthy doctors and buttress physicians' efforts to fulfill their professional obligations. Her book's presentation of physicians' duties and the elements that comprise a doctorly character, together add up to a cohesive and comprehensive description of what medical professionalism really entails. Rhodes's analysis provides a clear understanding of medical professionalism as well as a guide for doctors navigating the ethically challenging situations that arise in clinical practice.

Claire Clark is a medical educator, historian of medicine, and associate professor at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.

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Pilar Jennings, "To Heal a Wounded Heart: The Transformative Power of Buddhism and Psychotherapy in Action" (Shambala, 2017) Nov 10, 2020

Show notes

Early on in her clinical practice, psychoanalyst Pilar Jennings was presented with a particularly difficult case: a six-year-old girl who, traumatized by loss, had stopped speaking. Challenged by the limitations of her training to respond effectively to the isolating effect of childhood trauma, Jennings takes the unconventional path of inviting her friend Lama Pema--a kindly Tibetan Buddhist monk who experienced his own life-shaping trauma at a very young age--into their sessions. In the warm therapeutic space they create, the young girl slowly begins to heal. The result is a fascinating case study of the intersection of Western psychology and Buddhist teachings. Pilar's To Heal a Wounded Heart: The Transformative Power of Buddhism and Psychotherapy in Action(Shambala, 2017) is for therapists, parents, Buddhists, or any of us who hold out the hope that even the deepest childhood wounds can be the portal to our capacity to love and be loved.

Dr. Yakir Englander is the National Director of Leadership programs at the Israeli-American Council. He also teaches at the AJR. He is a Fulbright scholar and was a visiting professor of Religion at Northwestern University, the Shalom Hartman Institute and Harvard Divinity School. His books are Sexuality and the Body in New Religious Zionist Discourse (English/Hebrew and The Male Body in Jewish Lithuanian Ultra-Orthodoxy (Hebrew). He can be reached at: Yakir1212englander@gmail.com

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Steven H. Knoblauch, "Bodies and Social Rhythms: Navigating Unconscious Vulnerability and Emotional Fluidity" (Routledge, 2020) Oct 27, 2020

Show notes

Psychotherapy tends to be thought of as a verbal enterprise, wherein participants speak and construct meaning through words. However, much goes on between patient and therapist at an embodied, nonverbal level that deserves attention. This is the focus of the book Bodies and Social Rhythms: Navigating Unconscious Vulnerability and Emotional Fluidity (2020, Routledge), written by my guest, Dr. Steven H. Knoblauch. In his new book, he describes the way that cultural meaning can be inscribed and communicated in bodily gestures, and how being open to difference necessitates attention to these embodied registers. For our interview, Dr. Knoblauch unpacks his ideas and shares insights into the personal experiences that have shaped his work. This interview will be relevant for those interested in expanding their awareness of communication that happens outside of words.

Steven H. Knoblauch is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. He is a Clinical Adjunct Associate Professor at the Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis of New York University. His prior books are The Musical Edge of Therapeutic Dialogue (2000) and Forms of Intersubjectivity in Infant Research and Adult Treatment (2005).

Eugenio Duarte, Ph.D. is a psychologist and psychoanalyst practicing in Miami. He treats individuals and couples, with specialties in gender and sexuality, eating and body image problems, and relationship issues. He is a graduate and faculty of William Alanson White Institute in Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology in New York City and former chair of their LGBTQ Study Group; and faculty at Florida Psychoanalytic Institute in Miami. He is also a contributing author to the book Introduction to Contemporary Psychoanalysis: Defining Terms and Building Bridges (2018, Routledge).

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Li Zhang, "Anxious China: Inner Revolution and Politics of Psychotherapy" (U California Press, 2020) Oct 22, 2020

Show notes

The breathless pace of China’s economic reform has brought about deep ruptures in socioeconomic structures and people’s inner landscape. Faced with increasing market-driven competition and profound social changes, more and more middle-class urbanites are turning to Western-style psychological counseling to grapple with their mental distress. Anxious China: Inner Revolution and Politics of Psychotherapy (University of California Press, 2020) offers an in-depth ethnographic account of how an unfolding “inner revolution” is reconfiguring selfhood, psyche, family dynamics, sociality, and the mode of governing in post-socialist times. Li Zhang shows that anxiety—broadly construed in both medical and social terms—has become a powerful indicator for the general pulse of contemporary Chinese society. It is in this particular context that Zhang traces how a new psychotherapeutic culture takes root, thrives, and transforms itself across a wide range of personal, social, and political domains.

Suvi Rautio is a Course Lecturer at the University of Helsinki. As an anthropologist, her research seeks to deconstruct the social orderings of marginalized populations living in China to reveal the layers of social difference that characterize the nation today. She can be reached at suviprautio@gmail.com

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Jessica Gross, "Hysteria" (Unnamed Press, 2020) Sep 25, 2020

Show notes

“But creative writers are valuable allies and their evidence is to be prized highly for they are apt to know a whole host of things between heaven and earth of which our philosophy has not yet let us dream.” Freud (1907)

Jessica Gross is a valuable ally. An intuitive reader of Freud her debut novel--Hysteria (Unnamed Press, 2020)--embraces Oedipal conflict, unconscious fantasy, and voracious sexuality. The narrator, a young woman living in current day Brooklyn, discovers Freud tending bar at a neighborhood haunt “perfect for making trouble” which she does and which Freud sees. He also sees her for a session on the couch. An analysand herself, Gross renders the treatment with such emotional precision that “delusion and dream” slip away and we eavesdrop on a highly relatable woman confronting overlapping desires. Throughout the novel, Gross’ generosity with her narrator is a sensitive illustration of “say everything” the fundamental request of analysis. It is a gift for anyone who has never had the experience nor been given the space to do so. It celebrates what it means to meet oneself as sexual being.

Jessica Gross is a writer whose nonfiction has appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, Longreads, and The Paris Review Daily. She's received fellowships in fiction from the Yiddish Book Center and the 14th Street Y, and teaches fiction and nonfiction writing at Eugene Lang College at The New School. jessicargross.com

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Roger Kennedy, "The Power of Music: Psychoanalytic Explorations" (Phoenix House, 2020) Sep 10, 2020

Show notes

Today I discussed why music so powerful in eliciting emotions with Roger Kennedy, the author of The Power of Music: Psychoanalytic Explorations (Phoenix Publishing House, 2020)

Now at The Child and Family Practice in London, Kennedy is a training analyst and past President of the British Psychoanalytical Society. This is his fourteenth book.

Topics covered in this episode include:

The ability of music to reward close listening because of qualities like movement and the web of interactions involved.
How music can draw on and has parallels to a range of situations, like “baby talk” sounds shared by mother and child, and the sounds animals make (especially in mating rituals).
Discussion of parallels between music and entering a dream state, rich with free association as opposed to a concrete, logically coherent “narrative”

Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of eight books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). To check out his “Faces of the Week” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com.

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Mark Bork, Jr., "Don’t Be a Dick: Change Yourself, Change Your World" (Central Recovery Press, 2019) Aug 27, 2020

Show notes

When we are hurt, we hurt others—yet when they hurt us back, we wonder why. This is one of the central phenomena addressed by Mark Bork, Jr. in his new book, Don’t Be a Dick: Change Yourself, Change Your World (Central Recovery Press).

He applies his psychoanalytic perspective towards understanding the deep-seated insecurities which drive us to treat others exactly as we wish not to be treated. Yet he also offers practical skills and insights for breaking the cycles that lead to our bad behavior which, in turn, invites ‘dickish’ behavior from others. In our interview, he shares about very personal experiences which served as inspiration for this book and breaks down his concepts so that we might all be better at not being ‘dicks.’ This interview will speak to anyone struggling to understand and overcome toxic behavior, in others or in oneself.

Mark Borg is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in New York City who has been in private practice for twenty-two years, and the coauthor of the books Irrelationship and its follow-up book, Relationship Sanity. He is also a community psychologist and founding partner of the Community Consulting Group who has written extensively about the intersection of psychoanalysis and community crisis intervention.

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Mark Winborn, "Jungian Analysis: Art and Technique" (Routledge 2019) Aug 25, 2020

Show notes

Engaging with one’s patients is one of the most complicated aspects of being a psychoanalyst. Going well beyond simply processing information and spitting out a ready-made answer for them, it involves learning how to listen, slowly teasing out insights, speaking not only the right words but with the right tone, creating an environment where a trusting relationship can be fostered. While much of this comes with time and experience, much can be learned by thinking critically about the mechanics that go into good analytic practice.

Here to discuss some of these is my guest today, Mark Winborn, here to discuss his recent Interpretation in Jungian Analysis: Art and Technique (Routledge 2019). Placing interpretation at the center of the practice, Winborn develops the creative and expressive elements of analysis, the importance of being attentive to language, the ways metaphors can be used to engage at a deeper level, and how a connection can be forged between an analyst and analysand. Clearly written and filled with lots of useful examples, the book will be of interest not only to analysts looking to better understand their craft, but to anyone interested in learning how to make sense of oneself.

Mark Winborn is a Jungian psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist. He is a training analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland, and also sits on the editorial board for both the Journal of Analytical Psychology and the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. He is also the author of Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey (2011) and Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond (2014). He maintains a private practice in Memphis, Tennessee.

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