Dissecting the Superego: Moralities Under the Psychoanalytic Microscope offers a comprehensive overview of how the superego, the workings of our moral faculties, may be understood and clinically utilised in contemporary practice. Drawing on the latest psychoanalytic thinking – as well as neurobiological, psychological and ethical perspectives- this book reinstates the superego as a central concept, and gives a clear guide to its importance in the modern world. In addition to the theoretical background of this construct, the contributors provide a clear guide to the importance of the superego in a range of pathological and everyday scenarios, and particularly in clinical settings. With an emphasis on the wider social and cultural context, Dissecting the Superego: Moralities Under the Psychoanalytic Microscope will be of interest to trainee and qualified psychotherapists, social workers, youth offender and probation workers and ethicists.

Psychoanalytic Insights into Fundamentalism and Conviction: The Certainty Principle examines the role of, and need for, certainty in mental life, addressing questions raised by fundamentalism and extremism and exploring its relation to human nature. Murdin proposes a new synthesis in which certainty itself can be a cause of suffering and part of a defensive manoeuvre, and considers how the need for certainty can be managed in a positive way, rather than creating fear and extreme emotional responses. Illustrated throughout with examples from psychotherapy practice, literature and international politics, this book considers how the quest for certainty dominates much of human thinking. Murdin examines personal relationships, including politics and religion, where assumptions are taken for granted but function to hide fears and doubts, and argues that fundamentalist elements can generate harm in anyone but can be mitigated with understanding and work in therapy. Psychoanalytic Insights into Fundamentalism and Conviction helps to identify the underlying convictions that are causing mental harm. It is essential reading for psychotherapists, psychoanalysts and counsellors in practice and in training, and will be of interest to readers interested in fundamentalist states of mind.

The remains that archaeologists uncover reveal ancient minds at work as much as ancient hands, and for decades many have sought a better way of understanding those minds. This understanding is at the forefront of cognitive archaeology, a discipline that believes that a greater application of psychological theory to archaeology will further our understanding of the evolution of the human mind. Bringing together a diverse range of experts including archaeologists, psychologists, anthropologists, biologists, psychiatrists, neuroscientists, historians, and philosophers, in one comprehensive volume, this accessible and illuminating book is an important resource for students and researchers exploring how the application of cognitive archaeology can significantly and meaningfully deepen their knowledge of early and ancient humans. This seminal volume opens the field of cognitive archaeology to scholars across the behavioral sciences.

This book provides an integrative interdisciplinary view of how intellectual and moral virtues are understood in two separate practices, science and music. The authors engage with philosophical and psychological accounts of virtue to understand scientists’ and musicians’ understandings of intellectual and moral virtues. They present empirical evidence substantiating the MacIntyrean claim that traditions and practices are central to understanding the virtues."

The author formulates here the existence of an anxiety apparatus whose functioning is a part of the ego and the personality structure and illustrates how in attacking this apparatus the ego is attacking itself. An example is given of the workings of the death instinct, and a differentiation is made between the ego's defence mechanisms and other pathological character devices.

The uses of shame (and shamelessness) in spheres that range from social media and consumerism to polarized politics and mass violence Today, we are caught in a shame spiral—a vortex of mutual shaming that pervades everything from politics to social media. We are shamed for our looks, our culture, our ethnicity, our sexuality, our poverty, our wrongdoings, our politics. But what is the point of all this shaming and countershaming? Does it work? And if so, for whom? In Shame, David Keen explores the function of modern shaming, paying particular attention to how shame is instrumentalized and weaponized. Keen points out that there is usually someone who offers an escape from shame—and that many of those who make this offer have been piling on shame in the first place. Self-interested manipulations of shame, Keen argues, are central to understanding phenomena as wide-ranging as consumerism, violent crime, populist politics, and even war and genocide. Shame is political as well as personal. To break out of our current cycle of shame and shaming, and to understand the harm that shame can do, we must recognize the ways that shame is being made to serve political and economic purposes. Keen also traces the rise of leaders on both sides of the Atlantic who possess a dangerous shamelessness, and he asks how shame and shamelessness can both be damaging. Answering this question means understanding the different types of shame. And it means understanding how shame and shamelessness interact—not least when shame is instrumentalized by those who are selling shamelessness. Keen points to a perverse and inequitable distribution of shame, with the victims of poverty and violence frequently being shamed, while those who benefit tend to exhibit shamelessness and even pride.

Autonomy is one of the most foundational conditions of liberalism, a political philosophy that prizes individual freedom. Today, we still grapple with autonomy's value and its implications. How important is autonomy for a good life? Should people try to achieve autonomy for themselves? And does autonomy support healthy citizenship in free societies? In Ethical Autonomy, Lucas Swaine offers new and compelling answers to these key philosophical and political questions. Swaine charts the evolution of autonomy from ancient Greece to modern democratic life. Illuminating the history of the concept and its development within political theory, he focuses on autonomy at its most basic level: personal autonomy. Swaine methodically exposes the dark side of personal autonomy, pinpointing its deficiencies at both theoretical and practical levels. In so doing, he provides a powerful critique of the very idea of personal autonomy, arguing that it is so underspecified and indeterminate that it falls apart. Moreover, Swaine suggests, personally autonomous individuals devolve and degrade their moral agency, often at others' expense, and in many cases with shocking real-world consequences. Swaine's solution to problems of personal autonomy is to develop a new model of individual-level autonomy, which he calls "ethical autonomy." A form of self-rule integrating moral character and grounded in principles of liberty of conscience, ethical autonomy incorporates restraints on an autonomous individual's imagination, deliberation, and will. It supports the central commitments of liberalism and enhances active and astute forms of democratic citizenship. This novel understanding of autonomy stresses the values of freedom, toleration, respect, individual rights, limited government, and the rightful rule of law.