Psychoanalytic Complexity is the application of a multidisciplinary, explanatory theory to clinical psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. It carries with it incisive and pivotal attitudes that aim to transform our understanding of therapeutic action and the change process. Here, William Coburn offers a revolutionary and far-reaching counterpoint to the remnants of Cartesianism and scientism, respecting and encouraging human anomaly rather than pathologizing or obliterating the uniqueness of the individual person. In Psychoanaltyic Complexity, William Coburn explores the value of complexity theory previously understood as an explanatory framework with which clinicians can better understand, retrospectively, therapeutic action and the change process. He further extends this sensibility by examining the ways in which such a rich theoretical framework can inform what clinicians can do, prospectively, to effect positive change within the therapeutic relationship. He persuasively argues that the medium of bringing to light new ways of relating, emotional experiencing, and meaning making resides in the fundamental attitudes derived from a complexity theory sensibility as applied to psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Using a variety of clinical illustrations throughout, Psychoanalytic Complexity is a radical corrective to reductionism and the more traditional presumption that the problem lies with the patient and the cure lies with the therapist. It offers a new language, vocabulary, way of thinking, and a new way of being with others that are pivotal in arriving at affirmative therapeutic change. This book is intended for psychoanalysts, clinical psychologists, therapists, mental health counsellors, academics and teachers who are interested in new trends in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

This book argues that psychoanalysis has a unique role to play in the climate change debate through its placing emphasis on the unconscious dimensions of our mental and social lives. Exploring contributions from Freudian, Kleinian, Object Relations, Self Psychology, Jungian, and Lacanian traditions, the book discusses how psychoanalysis can help to unmask the anxieties, deficits, conflicts, phantasies and defences crucial in understanding the human dimension of the ecological crisis. Yet despite being essential to studying environmentalism and its discontents, psychoanalysis still remains largely a 'psychology without ecology.' The philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, combined with new developments in the sciences of complexity, help us to build upon the best of these perspectives, providing a framework able to integrate Guattari's 'three ecologies' of mind, nature and society. This book thus constitutes a timely attempt to contribute towards a critical dialogue between psychoanalysis and ecology. Further topics of discussion include: ecopsychology and the greening of psychotherapy our ambivalent relationship to nature and the non-human complexity theory in psychoanalysis and ecology defence mechanisms against eco-anxiety and eco-grief Deleuze|Guattari and the three ecologies becoming-animal in horror and eco-apocalypse in science fiction films nonlinear ecopsychoanalysis. In our era of anxiety, denial, paranoia, apathy, guilt, hope, and despair in the face of climate change, this book offers a fresh and insightful psychoanalytic perspective on the ecological crisis. As such this book will be of great interest to all those in the fields of psychoanalysis, psychology, philosophy, and ecology, as well as all who are concerned with the global environmental challenges affecting our planet's future.

Nonlinear concepts from chaos theory, complexity studies, and fractal geometry have transformed the way we think about the mind. Nonlinear Psychoanalysis shows how nonlinear dynamics can be integrated with psychoanalytic thinking to shed new light on psychological development, therapeutic processes, and fundamental psychoanalytic concepts. Starting with a personal history of the author’s engagement with nonlinear dynamics and psychoanalysis, this book describes how his approach applies to diagnosis of psychological conditions, concepts of normal and pathological development, gender, research methods, and finally the theory and practice of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy. This book is full of new ideas about the basic nonlinear processes of human development, nonlinear views of gender and fundamental psychoanalytic process like working through, and the nature of the therapeutic process as conceptualized in terms of the theory of coupled oscillators. Galatzer-Levy questions many standard psychoanalytic formulations and points to a freer practice of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic thinking. His new approach opens the reader’s eyes to ways in which development and treatment can occur through processes not now included in standard psychoanalytic theory. The book not only provides useful theories but also helps readers take note of commonly passed over phenomena that were unseen for lack of a theory to explain them. Galatzer-Levy brings an unusual combination of training in psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and mathematics to this unique study, which summarizes his forty years of exploration of nonlinearity and psychoanalysis. Nonlinear Psychoanalysis will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists as well as students of nonlinear dynamics systems.

This book is concerned with whether we can develop our understanding of the mind through the application of new approaches to the study of complex systems. It is divided into two sections. The first is concerned with the application of non-linear systems theory to the psychoanalytic study of the mind. The second is concerned with the technical application of the ideas of chaos theory to the understanding of therapeutic action and psychic change. It concludes with a consideration of the research and clinical implications of considering the mind as a non-linear system.

The guiding thread of this theoretical review is the illumination of the impasses of binary thought and of the essentialist conceptions of women and the feminine. In this trajectory, the author's ongoing dialogue with Freud is connected with one aspect of his way of thinking: multicentred and complex. The text addresses questions relating to love, sexual desire, maternity, beauty and the passing of time and highlights current debates concerning women, the feminine, and sexual difference as well as some controversial topics that have been discussed throughout the history of the psychoanalytic movement. One of the most relevant subjects is the notion of 'feminine enigma' and the conceptions of the feminine as the negative of the masculine, which means going into the nature-nurture debate, as well as into considerations of the feminine seen as the other of the masculine. The author points out that the notion of 'feminine enigma' is a displacement of the enigmas inherent to the origins, to the finite time of life (the inevitability of death) and to sexual difference.

Historically, the language and concepts within clinical theory have been steeped in linear assumptions and reductionist thinking. Because the essence of psychotherapy involves change, Psyche’s Veil suggests that clinical practice is inherently a nonlinear affair. In this book Terry Marks-Tarlow provides therapists with new language, models and metaphors to narrow the divide between theory and practice, while bridging the gap between psychology and the sciences. By applying contemporary perspectives of chaos theory, complexity theory and fractal geometry to clinical practice, the author discards traditional conceptions of health based on ideals of regularity, set points and normative statistics in favour of models that emphasize unique moments, variability, and irregularity. Psyche’s Veil further explores philosophical and spiritual implications of contemporary science for psychotherapy. Written at the interface between artistic, scientific and spiritual aspects of therapy, Psyche’s Veil is a case-based book that aspires to a paradigm shift in how practitioners conceptualize critical ingredients for internal healing. Novel treatment of sophisticated psychoanalytical issues and tie-ins to interpersonal neurobiology make this book appeal to both the specialist practitioner, as well as the generalist reader. .

Self-Organizing Complexity in Psychological Systems offers a contemporary perspective on the mind through a compilation of original chapters written by some of the leading researchers in the area of complexity theory. In each of the chapters, the authors attempt to use complexity theory to inform and in some cases reformulate existing theories of brain function (Freeman; Grigsby & Osuch), personality (Grigsby & Osuch), psychic organization and structure (Goldstein; Piers), human development (Demos), psychopathology (Palombo; Piers) and psychotherapeutic change (Palombo).