Winner of th 2023 American Board and Academy of Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Psychology (ABAPPP) Annual Award! This book aims to integrate different psychoanalytic schools and relevant research findings into an integrated psychoanalytic theory of the mind. A main claim explored here, is that a revised and expanded ego psychology constitutes the strongest foundation not only for a unified psychoanalytic theory, but also for the integration of relevant research findings from other disciplines. Sophisticated yet accessible, the book includes a description of the basic tenets of ego psychology and necessary correctives and revisions. It also discusses research and theory on interpersonal understanding, capacity for inhibition, defense, delay of gratification, autonomous ego aims and motives, affect regulation, the nature of psychopathology; and the implications of a revised and expanded ego psychology for approaches to treatment. The book will appeal to readers who are interested in psychoanalysis, the nature of the mind, the nature of psychopathology, and the implications of theoretical formulations and research findings for approaches to treatment. As such, it will also be of great value on graduate and training courses for psychoanalysis.

This book brings together important psychoanalytic papers which shed light on the psychological nature of psychotic states and address aspects of their psychotherapy. This book includes selections from the works of Harold F. Searles, Edith Jacobsen, Victor Tausk, Robert C. Bak, Nathaniel J. London, Norman Cameron, and others and offers a critical essay by Peter Buckley.

In Self and Other, Robert Rogers presents a powerful argument for the adoption of a theory of object relations, combining the best features of traditional psychoanalytic theory with contemporary views on attachment behavior and intersubjectivity. Rogers discusses theory in relation both to actual psychoanalytic case histories and imagined selves found in literature, and provides a critical rereading of the case histories of Freud, Winnicott, Lichtenstein, Sechehaye, and Bettelheim. At once scientific and humanistic, Self and Other engagingly draws from theoretical, clinical, and literary traditions. It will appeal to psychoanalysts as well as to literary scholars interested in the application of psychoanalysis to literature.

In this clear and thoughtful book, an international group of distinguished authors explore the central issues and future directions facing psychoanalytic theory and practice. The book explores four main questions in the development of psychoanalysis: what psychoanalysis is as an endeavour now and what it may be in the future; the effect of social issues on psychoanalysis and of psychoanalysis on social issues, such as race and gender; the importance of psychoanalytic institutes on shaping future psychoanalytic theory and practice; and the likely major issues that will be shaping psychoanalysis in years to come. Including contributions from within every school of psychoanalytic thought, this book is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists and all who are curious about the future directions of the profession.

The culmination of over three decades of investigation into traumatic processes, Repetition and Trauma is the late Max Stern's pioneering reconceptualization of trauma in the light of recent insights into the physiology and psychology of stress and the "teleonomic" character of human evolution in developing defenses against shock. As such, it is a highly original attempt to reformulate certain basic tenets of psychoanalysis with the findings of modern biology in general and neurobiology in particular. At the core of Stern's effort is the integration of laboratory research into sleep and dreaming so as to clarify the meaning of pavor nocturnus. In concluding that these night terrors represent "a defense against stress caused by threatening nightmares," he exploits, though he interpretively departs from, the laboratory research on dreams conducted by Charles Fisher and others in the 1960s. From his understanding of pavor nocturnus as a compulsion to repeat in the service of overcoming a developmental failure to attribute meaning to states of tension, Stern enlarges his inquiry to the phenomena of repetitive dreams in general. In a brilliant reconstruction of Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle, he suggests that Freud was correct in attributing the repetitive phenomena of traumatic dreams to forces operating beyond the pleasure principle, but holds that these phenomena can be best illumined in terms of Freud's conception of mastery and Stern's own notion of "reparative mastery."

This interdisciplinary collection of essays explores the malaise of the contemporary individual by returning the economic point of view of Freudian thinking, the concept of satisfaction, libido, and pleasure–unpleasure principle to their rightful place as the motivating forces of human existence. For Freud, pleasure stands apart from other human experiences, side by side with unpleasure, always a bonus in the search for satisfaction of the pleasure principle and beyond. Along with libido, emotional fulfillment, and the capacities for sublimation and play, pleasure has not been given enough attention in the psychoanalytic literature. The editors of this book address this lack and highlight the importance of examining today’s social and individual malaise through these specific lenses of inquiry. It is particularly timely and important today to address this lack, and thereby examine the impact of the social phenomena of the pandemic, the crises of ideals and virtuality on the subject who feels in a state of constant emergency, overwhelmed, addicted, and delibidinalized. With contributions from across psychoanalysis, this book is essential reading for psychoanalysts in training and in practice who want to understand how the modern world has shaped our understanding of pleasure.