Initiating Psychoanalysis presents an international collection of papers addressing the specific clinical and technical issues involved in launching the processes that are at the core of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic treatment.

How does a psychoanalysis begin? What goes on when analyst and prospective analysand meet for the first time, and what processes are activated to make the project for an analysis possible? This unique contribution to the surprisingly sparse literature on this most essential aspect of the psychoanalytical practitioner’s work, is the clinical companion to Initiating Psychoanalysis: Perspectives, also part of the ‘Teaching’ Series of the New Library of Psychoanalysis. Replete with clinical illustrations, this book is based on the findings of an ambitious research project on first interviews carried out from 2004 to 2016 by an international group of psychoanalysts, the Working Party on Initiating Psychoanalysis (WPIP) of the European Psychoanalytic Federation. The authors, all members of the Investigative Team, are senior psychoanalysts from member societies of the European Psychoanalytic Federation, all with extensive experience in the practice and teaching of psychoanalytic consultation. Psychoanalysts and analytic therapists, in particular those in training or setting up their practice, will find Beginning Analysis to be essential reading in deepening their understanding of how analysand and analyst arrive at the decision to begin analysis.

Bringing together the findings from psychoanalysts across the globe, this book introduces and describes the research practices utilised by the Working Parties that were created by the European Psychoanalytical Federation and later supported by the International Psychoanalytical Association. The book opens with a discussion of the epistemology of research in psychoanalysis, then the various Working Parties describe their methodology and findings, and finally, in the last chapter, an assessment is made of what contributions this oxygenating movement has made to psychoanalysis. It examines topics including individual and group work, supervision, clinical interpretation, erotic transference and psychosomatics, and contains contributions from many distinguished analysts. Providing a wealth of information on the place of research in evaluating new clinical methods and tools, this book is key reading for psychoanalysts both in practice and in training.

In the face of considerable scepticism over the function and effectiveness of psychoanalysis, Lena Ehrlich demonstrates how analysis is unique in its potential to transform patients at an emotionally cellular level by helping them access and process long-standing conflicts and traumatic experiences. Using detailed clinical vignettes, the author illustrates that when analysts practice from the inside out, i.e. consider that external obstacles to initiating and deepening an analysis inevitably reflect analysts’ fears of their internal world and of intimacy, they become better able to speak to patients’ long-term suffering. This book, free from psychoanalytic jargon, stands out in its ability to help readers feel more effective, confident, and optimistic about practicing psychoanalysis by providing insights and recommendations about beginning and deepening analysis and sustaining oneself as an analyst over time. It will appeal to both beginners and experienced analysts, as well as supervisors, educators, and those interested in the workings of their minds and in building more intimate relationships.

Like his other papers on technique, Freud's 1913 essay "On beginning the treatment" had an enduring influence on psychoanalysts for generations to come, providing them with a solid and worldwide-accepted conceptual basis on how to initiate psychoanalytic treatments. After a century of clinical experience and theoretical research, are all of Freud's rules and advice still valid today? The authors have asked ten eminent analysts to comment upon this seminal paper of Freud's, each of them focusing on one of the fundamental issues originally propounded by the "father of psychoanalysis". The result is an overall and careful view on the actuality of the technical bases of analysis, in what can be considered a good introduction to contemporary psychoanalytic theory and practice.

This book offers different theoretical approaches about what clinical research is. Clinical Research in Psychoanalysis is a unique contribution to the attempts to bridge the gap between clinicians and researchers and to create a culture of a more rigorous and systematic inquiry. It provides an innovative experience because for the first time different methods and perspectives were used to analyse one same clinical material. This was done by analysts from different working parties of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), from a range of different schools of psychoanalytic thought. This allows the reader to have a vision of the different methods that are currently being used by some working parties of the IPA and to learn about the strengths of each one for certain situations and types of research. This book revaluates clinical research, intending to make links between the analysts working through the working parties and the different ways of thinking in clinical research. By covering key topics, such as how working parties can facilitate different types of research; the place of metaphor in psychoanalytic research and practice; and the future for psychoanalytic research, this text is a fruitful dialogue between different theoretical conceptions and between clinicians and researchers, that will expand our perspectives on the evidence we find in clinical material and will broaden our views on the patient. This book offers a unique and invaluable experience to psychologists and psychoanalysts who are trying to improve their clinical practice and bring research evidence into their psychoanalytic practice. It is an invaluable contribution to psychoanalytic training of candidates, teachers, and students.

This collection of some of Louis Althusser's major essays on psychoanalytic thought documents his relationship with Jacques Lacan and presents aspects of his personal and intellectual life