Wisdom Won from Illness


Book Description

Wisdom Won from Illness brings into conversation two fields of humane inquiry—psychoanalysis and moral philosophy—that seem to have little to say to each other but which, taken together, form a basis for engaged ethical thought about how to live. Jonathan Lear begins by looking to the ancient Greek philosophers for insight into what constitutes the life well lived. Socrates said the human psyche should be ruled by reason, and much philosophy as well as psychology hangs on what he meant. For Aristotle, reason organized and presided over the harmonious soul; a wise person is someone capable of a full, happy, and healthy existence. Freud, plumbing the depths of unconscious desires and pre-linguistic thoughts, revealed just how unharmonious the psyche could be. Attuned to the stresses of modern existence, he investigated the myriad ways people fall ill and fail to thrive. Yet he inherited from Plato and Aristotle a key insight: that the irrational part of the soul is not simply opposed to reason. It is a different manner of thinking: a creative intelligence that distorts what it seeks to understand. Can reason absorb the psyche’s nonrational elements into a whole conception of the flourishing, fully realized human being? Without a good answer to that question, Lear says, philosophy is cut from its moorings in human life. Wisdom Won from Illness illuminates the role of literature in shaping ethical thought about nonrational aspects of the mind, offering rich readings of Shakespeare, Kierkegaard, J. M. Coetzee, Marilynne Robinson, and others.




Psychoanalysis and Wisdom


Book Description

Psychoanalysis and Wisdom applies psychoanalytic insights into one of the great examples of wisdom literature, the Ethics of the Fathers, an ethical tractate of the Talmud. Paul Marcus quotes key passages from the Ethics of the Fathers, providing a psychoanalytic commentary to enlarge and deepen our understanding of its contents, focusing primarily on what constitutes a flourishing life. Marcus then considers what psychoanalysis can provide in its engagement with this classic of the wisdom teachings, such as illuminating aspects of the Ethics that are overlooked or underappreciated, and how “pearls of wisdom” from the Ethics can be incorporated into psychoanalytic theory and practice. The book contains clinical material as well as the insights of philosophers like Martin Buber, Gabriel Marcel and Emmanuel Levinas. Psychoanalysis and Wisdom will appeal to readers interested in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy and to academics and students of psychoanalytic studies, religious studies, Judaic studies and philosophy.




Wisdom from the Couch


Book Description

A simple yet sophisticated model of personal growth that can lead to lasting change, drawn from the truths of psychoanalysis.




Wisdom of the Psyche


Book Description

In the quest for identity and healing, what belongs to the humanities and what to clinical psychology? Ginette Paris uses cogent and passionate argument as well as stories from patients to teach us to accept that the human psyche seeks to destroy relationships and lives as well as to sustain them. This is very hard to accept which is why, so often, the body has the painful and dispiriting job of showing us what our psyche refuses to see. In jargon-free language, the author describes her own story of taking a turn downwards and inwards in the search for a metaphorical personal 'death'. If this kind of mortality is not attended to, then more literal bodily ailments and actual death itself can result. Paris engages with one of the main dilemmas of contemporary psychology and psychotherapy: how to integrate findings and insights from neuroscience and medicine into an approach to healing founded upon activation of the imagination. At present, she demonstrates, what is happening is damaging to both science and imagination.




The Wisdom of the Ego


Book Description

One of America's preeminent psychiatrists draws on his famous Study of Adult Development to give us an exhilarating look at how the mind's defenses work. What we see as the mind's trickery, George Vaillant tells us, is actually healthy. What's more, it can reveal the mind at its most creative and mature, soothing and protecting us in the face of unbearable reality, managing the unmanageable, ordering disorder. And because creativity is so intrinsic to this alchemy of the ego, Vaillant mingles his studies of obscure lives with psychobiographies of famous artists and others--including Florence Nightingale, Sylvia Plath, Anna Freud, and Eugene O'Neill.




The Wisdom of Lived Experience


Book Description

This book is an exploration of contemporary understanding from philosophy, neuroscience, psychoanalysis, and metaphysical studies, which seem to verify the value of the Epicurean sentiments in terms of the wisdom of lived experience. It portrays the authoritarian culture of the Rome.




Beyond Yahweh and Jesus


Book Description

Beyond Yahweh and Jesus constitutes the first in-depth psychoanalytic study of the Old and New Testaments in terms of God's role in enabling humans to cope with death and the anxiety it evokes. The journey on which this study embarks leads through an examination of the related topics of knowledge acquisition; divine wisdom; conscious and unconscious morality; what the author argues is the failure of psychoanalysis to ally itself with religion and the failure of religion to bring peace to the world; and a proposition for how to enhance both religious and secular forms of morality and adaptation to death anxiety.




Mixing Minds


Book Description

"We cannot find ourselves, or be ourselves, alone." - from Mixing Minds Mixing Minds explores the interpersonal relationships between psychoanalysts and their patients, and Buddhist teachers and their students. Through the author's own personal journey in both traditions, she sheds light on how these contrasting approaches to wellness affect our most intimate relationships. These dynamic relationships provide us with keen insight into the emotional ups and downs of our lives - from fear and anxiety to love, compassion, and equanimity. Mixing Minds delves into the most intimate of relationships and shows us how these relationships are the key to the realization of our true selves.




Freud in Cambridge


Book Description

The authors explore the influence of Freud's thinking on twentieth-century intellectual and scientific life within Cambridge and beyond.




The How-To Book for Students of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy


Book Description

This is a book that grew out of the many practical "how-to" questions that the author's psychotherapy students have asked him over the years. It is neither an evidence-based compendium nor an attempt to summarize general practice or the viewpoints of others, but rather a handbook of practical answers to many of the questions that may puzzle students of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. Some of the short chapters include: How to choose a personal psychoanalyst. How to do an initial interview. How to listen to a patient. How to recognize and understand self-states, multiple identities, true and false selves, etc. How to tell what the transference is. How to deal with the sadomasochistic transference. How to understand the need for recognition. How to think about analytic processHow to practice holistic healing. How to refer a patient for medication. How to get paid for your work. How to manage vacations, weekends, illnesses, no-shows and other disturbances of continuity.




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