A contemporary, wide-ranging exploration of one of the most provocative topics currently under psychoanalytic investigation: the relationship of dissociation to varieties of knowing and unknowing. The twenty-eight essays collected here invite readers to reflect upon the ways the mind is structured around and through knowing, not-knowing, and sort-of-knowing or uncertainty. The authors explore the ramifications of being up against the limits of what they can know as through their clinical practice, and theoretical considerations, they simultaneously attempt to open up psychic and physical experience. How, they ask, do we tolerate ambiguity and blind spots as we try to know? And how do we make all of this useful to our patients and ourselves? The authors approach these and similar epistemological questions through an impressively wide variety of clinical dilemmas (e.g., the impact of new technologies upon the analytic dyad) and theoretical specialties (e.g., neurobiology).

This book explores the practice and transmission of Lacanian and Freudian theory. It discusses the pure versus applied analysis of Lacanian and Freudian theory in practice; and the hierarchical versus circular transmissions within psychoanalytic organizations. Underpinned by extensive practical knowledge of the clinic, this work examines the differences between Freud and Lacan in their understanding of the subject and the unconscious and pushes them in new directions. The book also offers an analysis and commentary of several key Lacanian texts including an accessible study of the notoriously challenging text L'etourdit. Offering both divergent and reinforcing takes on Lacan, the author explores the traits that separate out the psychoanalyst from other twentieth-century thinkers and theorists. This book offers a clear clinical picture of where Lacanian psychoanalysis is today, both in the US and internationally.

For fans of Eckhart Tolle—a guide to mastering self-awareness through direct experience rather than old presumptions or harmful thought patterns Through decades of martial arts and meditation practice, Peter Ralston discovered a curious and paradoxical fact: that true awareness arises from a state of not-knowing. Even the most sincere investigation of self and spirit, he says, is often sabotaged by our tendency to grab too quickly for answers and ideas as we retreat to the safety of the known. This "Hitchhiker’s Guide to Awareness" provides helpful guideposts along an experiential journey for those Western minds predisposed to wandering off to old habits, cherished presumptions, and a stubbornly solid sense of self. With ease and clarity, Ralston teaches readers how to become aware of the background patterns that they are usually too busy, stressed, or distracted to notice. The Book of Not Knowing points out the ways people get stuck in their lives and offers readers a way to make fresh choices about every aspect of their lives—from a place of awareness instead of autopilot.

Why is stupidity sublime? What is the value of a 'dialectics of ignorance' for analysts and academics? Knowing Nothing, Staying Stupid draws on recent research to provide a thorough and illuminating evaluation of the status of knowledge and truth in psychoanalysis. Adopting a Lacanian framework, Dany Nobus and Malcolm Quinn question the basic assumption that knowledge is universally good and describe how psychoanalysis is in a position to place forms of knowledge in a dialectical relationship with non-knowledge, blindness, ignorance and stupidity. The book draws out the implications of a psychoanalytic theory of knowledge for the practices of knowledge construction, acquisition and transmission across the humanities and social sciences. The book is divided into two sections. The first section addresses the foundations of a psychoanalytic approach to knowledge as it emerges from clinical practice, whilst the second section considers the problems and issues of applied psychoanalysis, and the ambiguous position of the analyst in the public sphere. Subjects covered include: The Logic of Psychoanalytic Discovery Creative Knowledge Production and Institutionalised Doctrine The Desire to Know versus the Fall of Knowledge Epistemological Regression and the Problem of Applied Psychoanalysis This provocative discussion of the dialectics of knowing and not knowing will be welcomed by practicing psychoanalysts and students of psychoanalytic studies, but also by everyone working in the fields of social science, philosophy and cultural studies.

Indie Book Awards Winner A deeply affirming exploration of the unknown—with meditations and exercises for transforming the fear and uncertainty of ‘not knowing’ into a sense of openness, curiosity, and bravery For most of us, the unknown is both friend and foe. At times, it can be a source of paralyzing fear and uncertainty. At other times, it can be a starting point for transformation, creativity, and growth. The unknown is a deep current that runs throughout all religions and mystical traditions, plays an important role in contemporary psychotheraputic thought and practice, and is essential to personal growth and healing. In The Wisdom of Not Knowing, psychotherapist Estelle Frankel shows us that our psychological, emotional, and spiritual health is radically influenced by how comfortable we are with navigating the unknown and uncertain dimensions of our lives. Drawing on insights from Kabbalah, depth psychology, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and ancient myth, Frankel explores how we can grow our souls by tapping into the wisdom of not knowing. She also includes case studies of individuals who have grappled with fears of the unknown and, as a result, come out wiser, stronger, and more resilient. Each chapter includes experiential exercises and meditations for befriending the unknown, conveying how embracing a state of "not knowing" is the key to gaining new knowledge, learning to bear uncertainty, and enjoying a healthy sense of adventure and curiosity.

"Emily Ogden's On Not Knowing is at once a memoir and suite of pointed inquiries. Her brief, sharply observed essays invite the reader to think with her about problems she can't set aside: not knowing how to give birth, to listen, to hold it together, to love. Ogden moves nimbly across registers of experience, from the operation of a breast pump to the art of herding cattle; from one-night stands to the stories of Edgar Allan Poe; from kayaking near a whale to psychoanalytic meditation on drowning. Unapologetically personal in its range of reference and idiosyncratic in its canon, On Not Knowing takes for its subject neither a life nor a library, but a cherished world. Ultimately, Ogden wants to teach herself to resist the temptation of knowingness: to encounter passionate love, well remembered art, and the new lives of her children without forearming herself with a sense that these things are already understood. Committed, as a scholar, to the accumulation of knowledge, Ogden nonetheless finds that knowingness is, for her, a way of getting stuck, a way of not really living. These essays want to learn with us to resist the temptation to cling to the wall at the edge of the pool, and instead to swim"--

The importance of knowing and being known is at the heart of the human experience and has always been the core of the psychoanalytic enterprise. Freud named his central Oedipal construct after Sophocles’ great play that dramatically encapsulated the desire, difficulty, and dangers involved in knowing and being known. Psychoanalysis’ founder developed a methodology to facilitate unconscious material becoming conscious, that is, making the unknown known to help us better understand ourselves and our relational lives, including psychic trauma, and multigenerational histories. This book will stimulate readers to contemplate knowing and being known from multiple perspectives. It bursts with thought-provoking ideas and intriguing cases illuminated by penetrating reflections from diverse theoretical perspectives. It will sensitize readers to this theme’s omnipresent, varied importance in the clinical setting and throughout life. Accomplished contributors discuss a wide variety of fascinating topics, illustrated by rich clinical material. Their contributions are grouped under these headings: Knowing through dreams; Knowing through appearances; Dreading and longing to be known; The analyst’s ways of knowing and communicating; Knowing in the contemporary sociocultural context; The known analyst; and No longer known. Readers will find each section deeply informative, stimulating thought, insights, and ideas for clinical practice. Psychoanalytic Explorations in Knowing and Being Known will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, clinical social workers, counselors, students in these disciplines, and members of related scholarly communities.