Psychic Suffering


Book Description

This book creates an awareness shows ways in which to talk and think about the enormous problem of a "gravitational force" in the surrounding: an excessive fear of pain that might ultimately paralyse our maturation, growth, and creativity.




Book of Love and Pain, The


Book Description

Addresses the limits in treating pain psychoanalytically, and offers a phenomenological description of psychic pain, particularly the pain of a lost loved one.




Cosmologies of Suffering


Book Description

The edited volume elaborates on a range of themes that emerged during a workshop of the 8th biennial of the European Association of Social Anthropologists in Vienna in 2004. Among these themes are: the paradoxical permanence of ‘transition’ in post-communist countries, the accompanying persistence of social suffering and the structural conditions that give rise to it. A final theme focuses on the re­sources that people mobilize to cope with suffering and trauma. Ways of coping manifest a stance towards agency shared by sufferers from diverse post-communist regions, such as ethnically divided Croatia, politically and economically unstable Zimbabwe, relatively more peaceful countries such as Hungary, Poland and Slovenia, and, finally, two religiously unique areas in Siberia, Russia. Ethnographic accounts from these diverse settings testify that agency has often involved relinquishing reliance on one’s self and turning towards a power higher than the self, whether this is conceptualized through the lens of transcendence, religion, or cosmology.




Problems of Theoretical Psychology


Book Description




Suffering and Sacrifice in the Clinical Encounter


Book Description

In Suffering and Sacrifice in the Clinical Encounter, the authors identify the ways in which some patients seek to create what Freud termed a "private religion" and unconsciously substitute sacrificial enactments of scapegoat surrogates to protect them against the pain of separation, mourning, and loss of primary figures of attachment. They investigate the function of sacrifice and its relationship to the breakdown of psychic structure and the development of manic defenses and pathological narcissism. Such treatments are complex, the "reversed roles" of victim and perpetrator central to the sacrificial process when enacted in therapy can trigger feelings of shame, guilt and inadequacy in the therapist. Perverse, vengeful, and sadistic transference distortions are explored to enable the therapist to appreciate the true nature of the patient's hidden traumatic experience, with the necessity for the working-through of genuine separation and grieving highlighted. Useful methods are detailed to counter the tendency to become overly active and inappropriately involved when working with patients who have deadened their desire to improve. This book is unique in utilising the dynamic concepts of the effects of trauma and sacrifice, the role of the scapegoat, and the distinctions between the experience of pain and the accomplishment of suffering in order to develop a foundational understanding of such patients. It is a must-read for all practising and trainee therapists.




The Wiley World Handbook of Existential Therapy


Book Description

An existential therapy handbook from those in the field, with its broad scope covering key texts, theories, practice, and research The Wiley World Handbook of Existential Therapy is a work representing the collaboration of existential psychotherapists, teachers, and researchers. It's a book to guide readers in understanding human life better through the exploration of aspects and applications of existential therapy. The book presents the therapy as a way for clients to explore their experiences and make the most of their lives. Its contributors offer an accurate and in-depth view of the field. An introduction of existential therapy is provided, along with a summary of its historical foundations. Chapters are organized into sections that cover: daseinsanalysis; existential-phenomenonological, -humanistic, and -integrative therapies; and existential group therapy. International developments in theory, practice and research are also examined.




The Mind's Affective Life


Book Description

The Mind's Affective Life is a refreshing and innovative examination of the relationship between feeling and thinking. Our thoughts and behaviour are shaped by both our emotions and reason; yet until recently most of the literature analysing thought has concentrated largely on philosophical reasoning and neglected emotions. This book is an original and provocative contribution to the rapidly growing literature on the neglected "affective" dimensions of modern thought. The author draws on contemporary psychoanalysis, philosophy, feminist theory and recent innovations in neuroscience to argue that in order to to understand thought, we need to consider not only both emotional and rational aspects of thought but also the complex interactions between these different aspects. Only through such a rich and complicated understanding of modern thought can we hope to avoid what the author identifies as a significant contemporary problems for individuals and cultures; that is, suppression or denial of intolerable states of feeling. The Mind's Affective Life will appeal to and inspire students and practitioners of philosophy, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and women's studies. It will also be of great interest to anyone interested in the interaction of feeling and thinking.




The Experience of Injustice


Book Description

In The Experience of Injustice, the French philosopher Emmanuel Renault opens an important new chapter in critical theory. He brings together political theory, critical social science, and a keen sense of the power of popular movements to offer a forceful vision of social justice. Questioning normative political philosophy’s conception of justice, Renault gives an account of injustice as the denial of recognition, placing the experience of social suffering at the heart of contemporary critical theory. Inspired by Axel Honneth, Renault argues that a radicalized version of Honneth’s ethics of recognition can provide a systematic alternative to the liberal-democratic projects of such thinkers as Rawls and Habermas. Renault reformulates Honneth’s theory as a framework founded on experiences of injustice. He develops a complex, psychoanalytically rich account of suffering, disaffiliation, and identity loss to explain these experiences as denials of recognition, linking everyday injustice to a robust defense of the politicization of identity in social struggles. Engaging contemporary French and German critical theory alongside interdisciplinary tools from sociology, psychoanalysis, socialist political theory, social-movement theory, and philosophy, Renault articulates the importance of a theory of recognition for the resurgence of social critique.




New Waves In Political Philosophy


Book Description

Comprising essays by eleven up-and-coming scholars from across the globe, this collection of essays provides an unparalleled snapshot of new work in political philosophy using such diverse methodologies as critical theory and social choice theory, historical analysis and conceptual analysis.




Existential Therapy


Book Description

In 1958 in their book Existence, Rollo May, Henri Ellenberger and Ernst Angel introduced existential therapy to the English-speaking psychotherapy world. Since then the field of existential therapy has moved along rapidly and this book considers how it has developed over the past fifty years, and the implications that this has for the future. In their 50th anniversary of this classic book, Laura Barnett and Greg Madison bring together many of today's foremost existential therapists from both sides of the Atlantic, together with some newer voices, to highlight issues surrounding existential therapy today, and look constructively to the future whilst acknowledging the debt to the past. Dialogue is at the heart of the book, the dialogue between existential thought and therapeutic practice, and between the past and the future. Existential Therapy: Legacy, Vibrancy and Dialogue, focuses on dialogue between key figures in the field to cover topics including: historical and conceptual foundations of existential therapy perspectives on contemporary Daseinanalysis the search for meaning in existential therapy existential therapy in contemporary society. Existential Therapy: Legacy, Vibrancy and Dialogue explores how existential therapy has changed in the last five decades, and compares and contrasts different schools of existential therapy, making it essential reading for experienced therapists as well as for anyone training in psychotherapy, counselling, psychology or psychiatry who wants to incorporate existential therapy into their practice.