Encompassing diverse perspectives on the psychoanalyst as individual, social being, and member of psychoanalytic institutions, this book provides practical and informed answers to the question of how psychoanalysts can take care of their psychoanalytic institutions. The book draws urgent attention to concerns about how the field of psychoanalysis can be sustained into the future, and sets out several studies in institutional dynamics as a form of provocation for psychoanalysts to reflect on their position as members of the institution and to act courageously in their collective efforts. Correlations between institutional dynamics and familial relationships are emphasized, alongside varied and detailed accounts of the styles of leadership required to facilitate improved cooperation in psychoanalytic institutions. The authors draw on their experiences as group participants, leaders and observers at both local and supranational levels, to investigate the historical context underpinning the disillusion among psychoanalysts, offering readers richly informed perspectives on how to nurture collegial ethics. With an emphasis on a shared ethics of responsibility, and the work involved in building secure professional relationships among psychoanalytic groups of all kinds, this book will prove essential to those engaged in understanding the work involved in psychoanalysis, whether in training or in practice.

The Work of Donald Meltzer Revisited: 100 Years After His Birth returns to and reassesses the contributions of Donald Meltzer, one of the most significant disciples of Melanie Klein and who was deeply inspired by Wilfred Bion.

Living Psychoanalysis: From Theory to Experience represents a decade of work from one of today's leading psychoanalysts. Michael Parsons brings to life clinical psychoanalysis and its theoretical foundations, offering new developments in analytic theory and vivid examples of work in the consulting room. The book also explores connections between psychoanalysis, art and literature, showing how psychoanalytic insights can enrich our lives far beyond the clinical situation. Living Psychoanalysis comprises four main sections: Life and Death – asks what it means to be fully and creatively alive, and introduces the concept of avant-coup Sexuality, Narcissism and the Oedipus complex – develops fresh ways of understanding these key concepts How analysts listen – explores links between psychoanalytic listening and the way artists look at the world, and introduces the concept of the internal analytic setting The Independent tradition in British psychoanalysis – considers the theoretical foundations of Independent clinical technique, and discusses from various perspectives the role of training in developing the identity of analysts and analytic therapists With fresh theoretical concepts and a focus on specific aspects of clinical practice, Living Psychoanalysis: From Theory to Experience will be a valuable resource for analysts, therapists and professionals who wish to extend their vision of psychoanalysis. It will also be of great interest to general readers concerned to deepen their understanding of the links between culture and the mind.

This is a scholarly study in which the author explores a difficult subject matter that has been a tabooed topic in psychoanalysis. She undertakes a serious study of the underlying arguments as to why psychoanalysts have seldom been able to live in harmony with each other. In a very lucid and systematic manner, the author examines how a discipline, in this case psychoanalysis, can be manipulated to its detriment. She explains the disquieting processes that take place, which impede the development of psychoanalysis. These influences insidiously infiltrate the organisational ranks as a kind of arguing which should ostensibly enrich psychoanalysis but instead deprives it of its creativity. For a discipline to prosper, it is necessary to have the freedom to air doubts, ask questions, raise hypotheses, and contrast discoveries by sharing them with others, debating different positions to reflect on the discussions, and to change one's views if necessary.

In this book, the author criticises the isolationism of traditional psychoanalytic associations, compared to those of other branches of psychology, and their suspicion of neuroscience. Today, affective neuroscience is investigating the unconscious affects, which psychoanalysis has always done with different methods and a different language. The author points out how Freud's energy-drive theory, although contradicted by scientific progress, has continued to characterise, a religiousness underpinning the spirit of psychoanalytic institutions: the icon of Freud. This spirit is accompanied by confusion between different psychoanalytic theories which are often incompatible with one another. The author blames the poor social image that psychoanalysis has earned in the past few years on this confusion of theories and haughty withdrawal into a single presumed orthodoxy. A former President of the IPA, Otto Kernberg, has even predicted the suicide of psychoanalytic institutions. The author has addressed this chaos of theories throughout his life, integrating work on psychoanalysis, experimental psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive science, attachment theory and now neuroscience.

The Organizational Life of Psychoanalysis is a wide-ranging exploration and examination of the organizational conflicts and dilemmas that have troubled psychoanalysis since its inception. Kenneth Eisold provides a unique, detailed, and closely reasoned account of the systems needed to carry out the tasks of training, quality control, community building, and relationships with the larger professional community. He explores how the freedom to innovate and explore can be sustained in a context where the culture has insisted on certain standards being set and enforced, standards that have little to do with providing effective pathways to cure. Each chapter in this collection addresses a specific dilemma faced by the profession, including: Who is to be in charge of training and who will determine those who succeed the existing leadership? Which theories and practices are to be approved and which proscribed and censored? How is the competition with alternative methods, including psychotherapy informed by psychoanalysis, to be managed? Several chapters are devoted to exploring the reciprocal influence of Freudian psychoanalysis and Jungian Analytical Psychology. Others explore the specific dilemmas and difficulties affecting the field currently, stemming from the massive restructuring of the health care industry and the changes affecting all professions, as they are reshaped into massive organizations no longer marked by personal relationships and individual control. The Organizational Life of Psychoanalysis will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, and anyone interested in the future of psychoanalysis as a profession. It will appeal greatly to anyone who has assumed full or partial responsibility for the management of a psychoanalytic institute or association.

This book focuses on the priority that psychoanalysis places on the individual, how the treatment is conceived theoretically and the ways it can be incorporated in the overall organisation of an institution. It brings together the histories of a number of psychoanalytically informed hospitals.