The Contemporary Freudian Tradition: Past and Present

Description

This is the first book dedicated to the Contemporary Freudian Tradition. In its introduction, and through its selection of papers, it describes the development and rich diversity of this tradition over recent decades, showing how theory and practice are inseparable in the psychoanalytic treatment of children, adolescents and adults. The book is organized around four major concerns in the Contemporary Freudian Tradition: the nature of the Unconscious and the ways that it manifests itself; the extension of Freud’s theories of development through the work of Anna Freud and later theorists; the body and psychosexuality, including the centrality of bodily experience as it is elaborated over time in the life of the individual; and aggression. It also illustrates how within the Tradition different exponents have been influenced by psychoanalytic thinking outside it, whether from the Kleinian and Independent Groups, or from French Freudian thinking. Throughout the book there is strong emphasis on the clinical setting, in, for example, the value of the Tradition’s approach to the complex interrelationship of body and mind in promoting a deeper understanding of somatic symptoms and illnesses and working with them. There are four papers on the subject of dreams within the Contemporary Freudian Tradition, illustrating the continuing importance accorded to dreams and dreaming in psychoanalytic treatment. This is the only book that describes in detail the family resemblances shared by those working psychoanalytically within the richly diverse Contemporary Freudian Tradition. It should appeal to anyone, from student onwards, who is interested in the living tradition of Freud’s work as understood by one of the three major groups within British psychoanalysis. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents About the Editors and Contributors Previously Published Material 1 Introduction 2 Phantasy and its Transformations: A Contemporary Freudian View 3 Unconscious Phantasy and Après-Coup: The Controversial Discussions 4 The Vicissitudes of Preparing and Sustaining a Young Child in Psychoanalysis 5 The Oedipal Experience: Effects on Development of an Absent Father 6 Oedipus at Play 7 Female Masturbation in Adolescence and the Development of the Relationship to the Body 8 Modes of Communication—the Differentiation of Somatic and Verbal Expression 9 The Soma and the Body: Navigating Through the Countertransference 10 Pregnancy, Miscarriage and Abortion. A Psychoanalytic Perspective 11 Masculinity, Femininity and Internalization in Male Homosexuals 12 Doubt In the Psychoanalysis of a Paedophile 13 “I’m Like a Shattered Windscreen”: Struggles with Sadism and the Self 14 The Patient’s Discovery of the Psychoanalyst as a New Object 15 The Dream Space, the Analytic Situation and the Eating Disorder: Clinging to the Concrete 16 The Fate of the Dream in Contemporary Psychoanalysis 17 How Come Your House Does Not Fall Down? 18 Measure for Measure: Unconscious Communication in Dreams 19 Regression, Curiosity and the Discovery of the Object Name Index Subject Index