Exigent Psychoanalysis: The Interventions of Jean Laplanche

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Exigent Psychoanalysis: The Interventions of Jean Laplanche offers a bold exploration of the contemporary psychoanalytic field by focusing on key issues through the lens of one of this century's most exacting and invigorating psychoanalytic theorists. Deliberately taking an integrative approach that spans a vast range of psychoanalytic ideas - with particular focus on the enduring tension between Freudian and Relational paradigms - Ashtor shows how a rigorous close reading of Laplanche’s work can disrupt stale binaries and forge new possibilities for revolutionizing the foundations of psychoanalysis. Organized as pointed interventions on such topics as metapsychology, motivation, the unconscious and psychic structure, Ashtor integrates cutting edge research on Affect theory and sexuality to demonstrate the potential for fieldwide innovation. Of interest to established and emerging clinicians alike and aimed at addressing a broad spectrum of theoretical positions, Exigent Psychoanalysis offers the first extensive clinical and theoretical study of Laplanche’s work, thus facilitating a timely and cutting-edge intervention in contemporary psychoanalytic debates. Cover Half Title Endorsements Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction: Innovation and deviation in psychoanalysis The "self-reflective" turn Introducing Jean Laplanche The road half-taken: two paths for psychoanalysis Reproblematization of the whole Psychoanalysis and the "Sinai complex" "Slipping the knife" into psychoanalysis: Laplanche's approach to critique A third way: Laplanche's interventions in contemporary theory Laplanche's new foundations for psychoanalysis: translation, sexuality, seduction Notes Bibliography Chapter 1: Metapsychology – Mytho-symbolic versus metapsychology My "witch": the history of metapsychology Attempts to revise scientific foundations Freud's relationship to science The exigency of psychoanalysis Metapsychology versus the sexual theories of children Notes Bibliography Chapter 2: Sexuality - Laplanche's theory of the unconscious Atavism vs. dynamism Part I. The fantasy vs. reality debate Part II. Critique of the traditional unconscious Critique of the progressive unconscious Part III. The realism of the unconscious: a third way Unconscious content Notes Bibliography Chapter 3: Seduction - Laplanche's theory of psychic structure Pathogenesis and psychic structure Drive vs. attachment The "leaning-on" hypothesis Traditional model of psychic structure Progressive model of psychic structure General theory of seduction Between determinism and hermeneutics Notes Bibliography Chapter 4: Translation - Laplanche's theory of motivation The need for "new foundations" Affect in psychoanalysis: a history of the problem Affect vs. unconscious: a genealogy of the problem Motivation and drive: critique of the traditionalist view Motivation and attachment: critique of the progressive view Notes Bibliography Index