The Designed Self: Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Identities, Strenger Carlo

The clinical examples provided here demonstrate contemporary psychoanalytic techniques that uncover meanings that are both fresh　and　enlightening, 　and address heterosexuality, homosexuality,　gender,　and perversion　from a psychoanalytic perspective. Divided into four parts,　the book includes the following:

Historical context

Foundational concepts: Contemporary elaborations

Homosexuality

Perversion revisited

Throughout　Sexualities: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspectives　the reader will find psychoanalytic wisdom that is transferrable to work with patients of all sexualities, and will see that the essentials of sexuality may be more similar than they are different for homo- and hetero-sexuality. 　Psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, as well as academics interested in the　subjects　of psychoanalysis, gender, sexuality, or homosexuality will find this book an invaluable resource.

Alessandra Lemma, 　PhD is Director of the Psychological Therapies Development Unit at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. She is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytic Society and Visiting Professor in the Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London. She is a Consultant Adult Psychotherapist at the Portman Clinic where she specializes in working with transsexuals. She has published extensively on psychoanalysis, the body and trauma.

Paul E. Lynch, MD is on the faculty of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, and the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance.　 He teaches about psychoanalysis, gender, and sexuality, and has been a popular speaker on issues of homosexuality and psychoanalysis. 　　He is also a Clinical Instructor of Psychiatry at the Tufts University School of Medicine.

Field theory is a family of related bi-personal psychoanalytic perspectives falling into three principal models, which developed relatively independently. One of the principal models is based upon the work of Madeleine and Willy Baranger. The second, constructed by Katz, draws upon what is held in common by the implicit field theories in the United States of the interpersonal, intersubjective, relational and motivational systems' psychoanalytic perspectives. The third is based upon the work of Antonino Ferro. For each, Katz elucidates its conception of mind, unconscious processes, the specific field concept employed, therapeutic goals, and clinical techniques. Similarities and differences of the models are illustrated.

In the book, a fabricated analytic process is offered in which an analysand, Zoe, is engaged in three analyses. Each analyst works with the techniques of one of the three field theories. Katz conveys the diverging thought processes and technical choices of each analyst and the potentially different therapeutic outcomes of the application of each model.? In the final chapters, Katz moves beyond the specific field theories to articulate a concept of a general field which underlies the three field concepts. She explores how to use this generalized field to find a form of common ground amongst the field theories, conjecturing that this generalized concept has application beyond field theory to a greater range of psychoanalytic perspectives.?

Contemporary Psychoanalytic Field Theory provides a clear and comprehensive guide that will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, mental health professionals and clinicians, as well as philosophers, psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists.

Sukhanova and Thomashoff bring together contributions from psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychiatrists and scholars in the fields of the social sciences and the humanities to explore representations of the body in literature and the arts across different times and cultures. The chapters analyse the social construction of the 'ideal' body in terms of beauty, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class and disability, from a broadly psychoanalytic perspective, and traces the mechanisms which define the role of the physical appearance in the formation of identity and the assumption of social roles.

Body Image and Identity in Contemporary Societies' unique interdisciplinary outlook aims to bridge the current gap between clinical observations and research in semiotic theory. It will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, art therapists, art theorists, academics in the humanities and social sciences, and those interested in an interdisciplinary approach to the issues of body image and identity.

Ekaterina Sukhanova is University Director of Academic Program Review at the City University of New York USA. She serves as Scientific Secretary of the Section for Art and Psychiatry and the Section of Art and Psychiatry of the World Psychiatric Association. She is also engaged in interdisciplinary research on cultural constructs of mental health and illness and curates exhibits of art brut as a vehicle for fighting stigma.

Hans-Otto Thomashoff was born in Germany and lives in Vienna.　 He is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, art historian and author of fiction and non-fiction books.　 He has been curator of several art exhibitions highlighting the connection between the psyche and art as well as president of the section of Art and Psychiatry of the World Psychiatric Association and advisory committee member of the Sigmund Freud Foundation, Vienna.

Richard Sembera begins with a close reading of Freud's own metapsychological writings, isolating the many unresolved difficulties and inconsistencies which continue to burden psychoanalytical theory today. By returning to the actual observable clinical phenomena in the analytic situation, it is shown that an alternative interpretation is possible that eliminates the theoretical difficulties in question. In the analytic situation, Sembera argues that clinicians do not in fact see individuals struggling against the expression of biological drives, rather they observe individuals struggling to clarify their experience of themselves in the presence of the analyst and put this experience into words. When this process is formalized and expressed in theoretical terms, it is found to consist of three distinct aspects: 　objectification, imagination, and symbolization. This process as a whole--ascent towards the other, relationship with the other, disclosure of self in the light of the other--is termed the dialectical structure of the self. It is conceptualized as the main accomplishment of the core mental process, the process of contextualization.

This work is distinguished from other attempts at theoretical revision by its fundamental commitment to coherence and clarity as well as its determination to challenge accepted psychoanalytic dogma. It argues for the complete irrelevance of biology and neuroscience to the psychoanalytic enterprise and rejects the theory of drives in its entirety. Instead it affirms the centrality of the traumatic response to mental functioning, emphasises the social matrix in which drives are embedded, re-examines the concepts of free will, accountability, and responsibility, and concludes with an attempt to understand waking life as a creative product analogous to the lucid dream.　

Drawing on major psychoanalytic thinkers including Bollas and Benjamin, and current philosophy of mind, this book provides readers with a clear, updated model of metapsychology. Metapsychology for Contemporary Psychoanalysis will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, as well as philosophy scholars and anyone with an interest in the philosophy of psychoanalysis.

Introduction to Contemporary Psychoanalysis seeks to make this rich wealth of information more accessible to clinicians and trainees. Psychoanalytic clinicians from various schools here describe the key ideas that underlie their particular perspective, helping the reader to see how they apply those ideas in their clinical work. Inviting the contributors to speak about their actual practice, rather than merely providing an overview, this book helps the reader to see common threads that run across perspectives, but also to recognize ways in which the different lenses from each of the perspectives inform interventions Through brief vignettes, the reader is offered an experience-near sense of what it might be like to apply those ideas in their own work. Each contributor also notes the limits or weaknesses of their particular theory, inviting the reader to consider the broader spectrum of these diverse offerings so that the benefits of each might be more visible.

Introduction to Contemporary Psychoanalysis offers the reader the richness and diversity of psychoanalytic theory and technique, so that the advantages of each particular lens might be visible and accessible as a further tool in their clinical work. This novel, comparative work will be an essential text for any psychoanalyst or psychoanalytically-inclined therapist in training, as well as clinicians and those who teach psychoanalytic theory and technique.

Through explorations of the history, theory, and clinical practice of psychoanalysis, Ferro and contributors reveal the changes and developments it has undergone in the research laboratory of the consulting room. Contemporary Bionian Theory and Technique in Psychoanalysis brings together the theories, clinical practice, and techniques that have gradually been developed in a variety of cultural contexts, exploring how they are understood, clarified and enriched by various analysts in daily practice. The book is circular, opening many paths of access to the reader. It aims to revive an experience of creative dialogue exactly as occurs in analysis when two minds think and dream together to transform each other reciprocally. The book sets forth, for instance, a new model of the mind called the oneiric model, taking inspiration from Bion's conceptualizations and field theory.

Covering central psychoanalytic concepts such as transference, dreams and child analysis, this book provides an excellent introduction to the most important contemporary features of Bionian theory and practice. Contemporary Bionian Theory and Technique in Psychoanalysis will appeal to ppsychoanalysts and psychotherapists in training and practice, as well as students of psychiatry and psychology.