Analytic Listening in Clinical Dialogue focuses on the work of four leading clinicians as they assess how their unconscious basic assumptions impact their clinical work. Using the case study of a seven-year-old boy, the authors evaluate a videotaped psychoanalytic first interview and exchange their mutual clinical approaches. Their discussions uncover the way that unconscious basic assumptions arise from the core of one’s personality and act as the pillars that support primary- and secondary-process thinking. These fundamental models of thought and emotion result in convictions which play a key role in the processes of understanding, evaluating, classifying, anticipating and regulating. The authors show how an ‘analytic listening’ approach can also be used to good effect in supervisions and intervisions, as it provides a path out of the domain of ‘being right’ into a space of what is shared as well as what is different. They argue that this method allows an analyst’s own blind spots to be reduced. Translated from the original German, Analytic Listening in Clinical Dialogue will be of great interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and psychologists.

'Joseph Breuer's celebrated patient, Anna O., designated psychoanalysis to be a "talking cure". She was correct insofar as psychoanalysis does place verbal exchange at the center stage. However, the focus upon the patient's and therapist's speaking activities diverted attention from how the two parties listen to each other. Psychoanalysis is a listening and talking cure. Both elements are integral to clinical work. Listening with no talking can only go so far. Talking without listening can mislead and harm. And yet, the listening end of the equation has received short shrift in analytic literature. This book aims to rectify this problem by focusing upon analytic listening. Taking Freud's early description of how an analyst ought to listen as its starting point, the book traverses considerable historical, theoretical, and clinical territory. The ground covered ranges from diverse methods of listening through the informative potential of the countertransference to the outer limits of our customary attitude where psychoanalytic listening no longer helps and might even be contraindicated.'- Salmon Akhtar, from his Introduction

Salman Akhtar is a Professor of Psychiatry, a Training and Supervising Analyst, a member of numerous editorial boards, winner of many awards, including the highly prestigious Sigourney Award, a writer of several hundred articles, a poet, and the author or editor of over one hundred books. A modern-day Renaissance man, his elegant writing is simultaneously scholarly and literary and brings a light touch to profound material. Phoenix Publishing House is proud to present his most inspiring works in a stunning ten-volume hardback set, fit to grace the shelves of collectors and libraries with its high-quality finish.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: The 'listening cure': an overview / Salman Akhtar -- The unending struggle to listen: locating oneself within the other / Evelyne Albrecht Schwaber -- "Getting it" and knowing what to do when one does not "get it": discussion of Schwaber's chapter "The unending struggle to listen: locating oneself within the other" / Sydney E. Pulver -- Listening together: intersubjective aspects of the analytic process of losing and restoring recognition / Jessica Benjamin -- Listening to the child within: discussion of Benjamin's chapter "Listening together: intersubjective aspects of the analytic process of losing and restoring recognition" / Theodore Fallon -- Listening, dreaming, sharing: on the uses of the analyst's inner experiences / Theodore Jacobs -- Listening, reading, and the "in-between" space: discussion of Jacobs' chapter "Listening, dreaming, sharing: on the uses of the analyst's inner experiences" / David M. Sachs -- Relatedness and listening: a concluding commentary / M. Hossein Etezady.

This book explores the phenomenon of creativity and creation from a psychoanalytic point of view, focusing on understanding the psychoemotional dynamics underlying artistic creative activities, such as theatre, literature, and painting. Throughout, Delgado considers these works of art through a Bionian, Kleinian, and Freudian lens. He uses three major psychoanalytic models of the creative process, two of them classic: the first, Freudian, based on the theory of conflict between impulse and defense, the result of the effort to manage an excessive drive activity, and in which the concept of sublimation is central; the second, Kleinian, based on the attachment theory, in which creative effort corresponds to an attempt to repair the damage done to the object or to the self; and the third, more recent, affiliated with the more expanded attachment relationship theory, based on W. Bion’s theory of thinking, and emphasizing the continent’s capacity for psyche and the oscillation between schizo-paranoid and depressive positions. With illustrations throughout, this book will be vital reading for anyone interested in the intersection of creativity, the Arts, and psychoanalysis.

This book is the first comprehensive treatment in recent decades of silence and silencing in psychoanalysis from clinical and research perspectives, as well as in philosophy, theology, linguistics, and musicology. The book approaches silence and silencing on three levels. First, it provides context for psychoanalytic approaches to silence through chapters about silence in phenomenology, theology, linguistics, musicology, and contemporary Western society. Its central part is devoted to the position of silence in psychoanalysis: its types and possible meanings (a form of resistance, in countertransference, the foundation for listening and further growth), based on both the work of the pioneers of psychoanalysis and on clinical case presentations. Finally, the book includes reports of conversation analytic research of silence in psychotherapeutic sessions and everyday communication. Not only are original techniques reported here for the first time, but research and clinical approaches fit together in significant ways. This book will be of interest to all psychologists, psychoanalysts, and social scientists, as well as applied researchers, program designers and evaluators, educators, leaders, and students. It will also provide valuable insight to anyone interested in the social practices of silence and silencing, and the roles these play in everyday social interactions.

Transference in Institutional Work with Psychosis and Autism presents Pierre Delion’s extensive experience in psychiatric institutions, focusing on the concept of the transferential constellation. Delion first discusses the pioneering work of François Tosquelles at the Saint Alban psychiatric hospital, which enabled psychoanalytic treatment to be applied in cases of severe psychopathologies. The book then explains how the transferential constellation can provide a deeper and more effective understanding of a patient’s needs by engaging all caregivers within an organisation over the course of the patient’s treatment history. Delion describes how regular meetings of all the team participants allow them to express different and even divergent views of the patient and to appreciate their complementary contributions to the institution. The transferential constellation is presented as an important development in the history of patient-centered psychiatric care and a touchstone for its ongoing humanistic development. Transference in Institutional Work with Psychosis and Autism will be of great interest to psychiatrists and psychotherapists in practice and in training. It will also be key reading for other practitioners and caregivers working in mental health institutions.