New Books In Psychoanalysis

On this episode, J.J. Mull interviews author Hannah Zeavin about her new book, The Distance Cure: A History of Teletherapy (MIT Press, 2021). Among Zeavin’s central interventions in the book is to reframe what is normally understood as the “therapeutic dyad” as always already a triad: therapist, patient, and mediating communication technology. Across the book’s chapters, she traces teletherapy’s history from Freud’s epistolary treatments to contemporary algorithmic therapies. Her account of the “distanced intimacy” characteristic of all therapeutic encounters complicates narratives of technologically mediated treatments as somehow inherently “less than.” J.J. Mull is a poet, training clinician, and fellow in the Program for Psychotherapy at Cambridge Health Alliance. Originally from the west coast, he currently lives and bikes in Somerville, MA. He can be reached at: jay.c.mull@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newb

Trauma, Guilt and Reparation: The Path from Impasse to Development (Routledge, 2019) identifies the emotional barriers faced by people who have experienced severe trauma, as well as the emergence of reparative processes which pave the way from impasse to development. The book explores the issue of trauma with particular reference to issues of reparation and guilt. Referencing the original work of Klein and others, it examines how feelings of persistent guilt work to foil attempts at reparation, locking trauma deep within the psyche. It provides a theoretical understanding of the interplay between feelings of neediness with those of fear, wrath, shame and guilt, and offers a route for patients to experience the mourning and forgiveness necessary to come to terms with their own trauma. The book includes a Foreword by John Steiner. Illustrated by clinical examples throughout, it is written by an author whose empathy and experience make him an expert in the field. The book will be of great interest to psychothera

Gillian Straker’s name has long been on my radar, particularly for the ways in which she has used psychoanalytic thought to contend with the vicissitudes of apartheid and its aftermath in her home country, South Africa. But she has also made use of what apartheid taught her about the human mind. Indeed, there is much for psychoanalysis to learn from apartheid. For over 20 years, Straker has published, largely in relational journals, about racism, and the ways in which living under the extremes of racist duress take their particular toll. (It is high time for those articles to be collected and published.) Straker begins with trauma and dissociation—and the work of thinkers like Donnell Stern on unformulated experience gird some of her thinking. But she also turns to minds outside the field as well to elaborate certain ideas that pertain to fetishism, morality, mutuality, and perversion—foremost among them Bourdieu, Butler and Bhabha. Straker’s reflections on her own capacity to block from consciousness the dam

Derek Hook and Sheldon George's Lacan and Race: Racism, Identity and Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2021) is a path-breaking edited volume that draws upon Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to examine the conscious and unconscious forces underlying race as a social formation. In my conversation with Derek and Sheldon, touching on the main themes of the volume, we explore the problems with popular psychological conceptualisations of racism, the promises and pitfalls of bringing Lacanian concepts like jouissance to bear on historical phenomena, and the possibility of a Lacanian anti-racist politics.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Over the past seventy years, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, has evolved from a virtually unknown and little-used pamphlet to an imposing and comprehensive compendium of mental disorder. Its nearly 300 conditions have become the touchstones for the diagnoses that patients receive, students are taught, researchers study, insurers reimburse, and drug companies promote. Although the manual is portrayed as an authoritative corpus of psychiatric knowledge, it is a product of intense political conflicts, dissension, and factionalism. The manual results from struggles among psychiatric researchers and clinicians, different mental health professions, and a variety of patient, familial, feminist, gay, and veterans' interest groups. The DSM is fundamentally a social document that both reflects and shapes the professional, economic, and cultural forces associated with its use. In DSM: A History of Psychiatry's Bible (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021), Allan V. Horwitz examines how the manual, kn

Towards an Ecopsychotherapy (Confer Books, 2020) provides an overview of ecopsychology and introduces the newly emerging field of ecopsychotherapy, including insightful case examples for practitioners. However, ecopsychotherapy is not simply a technique to be applied in therapy; for practitioner and client, it involves a change in perspective. Rust gives a solid introduction to this evolving work, with a critical eye and a deep awareness of the quickening impacts of climate change. Mary Jayne Rust is an ecopsychologist, art therapist, and Jungian analyst. Her numerous publications include the timely book VItal Signs: Psychological Response to Ecological Crisis. She grew up by the sea and now lives and works overlooking ancient woodlands in North London. Dr. Susan Grelock Yusem is an independent researcher trained in depth psychology, with an emphasis on community, liberation, and eco-psychologies. Her work centers around interconnection and encompasses regenerative food systems, the arts and conservation. Lea

Stigma about mental illness makes life doubly hard for people suffering from mental or emotional distress. In addition to dealing with their conditions, they must also contend with social shame and secrecy. But by examining how mental illness is conceived of and treated in other cultures, we can improve our own perspectives in the Western world. In his new book, Nobody’s Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness (Norton, 2021), anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker offers a critique of our current mental health system based on cross-cultural observations as well as suggestions for improving upon it. In our interview, we talk about the impact of stigma on mental health treatment and his ideas about where it comes from. He also explains why he feels optimistic about recent trends in the way individuals speak about their mental health challenges. Roy Richard Grinker is professor of anthropology and international affairs at George Washington University. His specialties include ethnicity, nationalism,

Gender Dysphoria: A Therapeutic Model for Working with Children, Adolescents and Young Adults (Phoenix Publishing House, 2021) by Susan and Marcus Evans is an uncomfortable book on the politically and clinically contested subject of gender dysphoria in young people. From their psychoanalytically informed perspective, gender dysphoria is a developmental disorder that looks to control ordinary developmental processes by employing primitive psychological mechanisms, much like a psychic retreat in John Steiner's sense. By firmly asserting basic psychoanalytical tenets like the inevitability of psychic pain in coming to terms with the developing sexual body or the need to take psychodynamic account of so called comorbidities, they question a one-size-fits-all affirmative approach to adolescent gender dysphoria and the wish to transition. Rather they offer a model of psychotherapeutic treatment for the complex difficulties faced by some gender-dysphoric teens that they elaborate in a rich array of case descriptions

What does psychoanalysis want? In The Desire of Psychoanalysis: Exercises in Lacanian Thinking (Northwestern UP, 2021), analyst and academic Gabriel Tupinambá takes the Lacanian world to task for failing to properly address this question and, in so doing, both overestimating the field's political applicability, and undervaluing the role of analysands, contributing to the socio-economic and racial inequalities that plague the discipline. In our interview, Tupinambá introduces us to some of the major themes of his strikingly original book, alongside a discussion of how his experiments in political work in Brazil have informed his thinking. Jordan Osserman is a postdoctoral research fellow and psychoanalyst in training in London. He can be reached at jordan.osserman@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Scott Krzych's book Beyond Bias: Conservative Media, Documentary Form, and the Politics of Hysteria (Oxford University Press, 2021) offers the first scholarly study of contemporary right-wing documentary film and video. Drawing from contemporary work in political theory and psychoanalytic theory, the book identifies what author Scott Krzych describes as the hysterical discourse prolific in conservative documentary in particular, and right-wing media more generally. In our chat, Scott and I review the development of conservative documentaries and discuss the various frameworks used to present ideas, as well as specific methods used to present information. Joel Tscherne is an Adjunct History Professor at Southern New Hampshire University. His Twitter handle is @JoelTscherne. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis began as a politicized form of treatment for people from all walks of life. Yet in the United States, it has become divorced from these roots and transformed into a depoliticized treatment for the most well-to-do, according to my guests, Drs. Patricia Gherovici and Christopher Christian. Their edited book, Psychoanalysis in the Barrios: Race, Class, and the Unconscious (Routledge, 2018), returns psychoanalysis to its social activist origins, with special emphasis on its urgency and usefulness for Latinx patients, including the poor. In our interview, we discuss the possibilities and necessity for bringing psychoanalysts to the barrios, as well as the unique offerings the barrio might have for psychoanalysis. Patricia Gherovici, Ph.D. is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Philadelphia and New York, an analytic supervisor, and a recipient of the 2020 Sigourney Award for her clinical and scholarly work with Latinx and gender variant communities. Her single-authored books include The Puerto Ric

The relational revolution led to what is arguably the most radical revision of our understanding of how to effect healing and change in the mind since Freud’s ground-breaking work more than a century ago. In The Relational Revolution in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (Confer Books, 2021), Steven Kuchuck addresses core theories as well as newer, cutting edge trends within relational psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. This book defines postmodern relational concepts, and offers a clear, thoughtfully curated examination of relationality and its impact on psychoanalytic technique for both experienced clinicians and those newer to the field. Roy Barsness is a Clinical Psychoanalytic Psychologist, Founder and Executive Director of the Post-Graduate Program in Relationally-Focused Psychodynamic Therapy; Professor at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology and have been in clinical practice for 30+ years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium memb

Pan plays a central role in European mythology, originating as a figure who represented all that was impossible to tame in the world, something anyone who has ever worked with goats will understand. This primitive origin was slowly assimilated by the Greeks as a celebration of life and vitality, although through Plato’s radical dualism and the moral inflection introduced by Christianity, his transition from goatlike deity to devil leaves us with a complicated relationship today towards everything he represented, giving birth to a collection of complexes and pathologies that demand addressing. Joining me to discuss these ideas is Sharon Coggan, here to discuss her new book Sacred Disobedience: A Jungian Analysis of the Saga of Pan and the Devil (Lexington Books, 2020). Synthesizing Jungian psychology with the history of mythology and theology, Coggan works her way through the history of Pan as a way of thinking about the development of various forms of consciousness, both individual and social. This is then a

A rich examination of the history of trans medicine and current day practice Surfacing in the mid-twentieth century, yet shrouded in social stigma, transgender medicine is now a rapidly growing medical field. In Trans Medicine: The Emergence and Practice of Treating Gender (NYU Press, 2021), stef shuster makes an important intervention in how we understand the development of this field and how it is being used to “treat” gender identity today. Drawing on interviews with medical providers as well as ethnographic and archival research, shuster examines how health professionals approach patients who seek gender-affirming care. From genital reconstructions to hormone injections, the practice of trans medicine charts new medical ground, compelling medical professionals to plan treatments without widescale clinical trials to back them up. Relying on cultural norms and gut instincts to inform their treatment plans, shuster shows how medical providers’ lack of clinical experience and scientific research undermines th

This is part two of a two part interview with Carol Owens and Stephanie Swales about their book Psychoanalysing Ambivalence with Freud and Lacan: On and Off the Couch (Routledge, 2019) Taking a deep dive into contemporary Western culture, this book suggests we are all fundamentally ambivalent beings. A great deal has been written about how to love - to be kinder, more empathic, a better person, and so on. But trying to love without dealing with our ambivalence, with our hatred, is often a recipe for failure. Any attempt, therefore, to love our neighbour as ourselves - or even, for that matter, to love ourselves - must recognise that we love where we hate and we hate where we love. Psychoanalysis, beginning with Freud, has claimed that to be in two minds about something or someone is characteristic of human subjectivity. Owens and Swales trace the concept of ambivalence through its various iterations in Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis in order to question how the contemporary subject deals with its ambiva

This is part one of a two part interview with Carol Owens and Stephanie Swales about their book Psychoanalysing Ambivalence with Freud and Lacan: On and Off the Couch  (Routledge, 2019) Taking a deep dive into contemporary Western culture, this book suggests we are all fundamentally ambivalent beings. A great deal has been written about how to love - to be kinder, more empathic, a better person, and so on. But trying to love without dealing with our ambivalence, with our hatred, is often a recipe for failure. Any attempt, therefore, to love our neighbour as ourselves - or even, for that matter, to love ourselves - must recognise that we love where we hate and we hate where we love. Psychoanalysis, beginning with Freud, has claimed that to be in two minds about something or someone is characteristic of human subjectivity. Owens and Swales trace the concept of ambivalence through its various iterations in Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis in order to question how the contemporary subject deals with its ambiv

The laws that govern psychiatric treatment under coercion have remain largely unchanged since the eighteenth century. But this is not because of their effectiveness, rather, these laws cling to outdated notions of disability, mental illness and mental disorder why deny the fundamental rights of this category of people on an equal basis with all others. In Men in White Coats: Treatment Under Coercion (Oxford University Press, 2017) Professor George Szmukler examines the violation of these rights, such as the right to autonomy, self-determination, liberty, and security and integrity of the person in the context of the domestic laws which themselves perpetuate ongoing discrimination against people with mental impairments. Tracing first the history of the medical coercion and involuntary treatment of people with mental illnesses and mental disorders, Professor Szmukler offers a potential path which he argues would end discrimination against this category of people. He puts forward a legal framework which is non-d

Neil Altman’s White Privilege: Psychoanalytic Perspectives (Routledge, 2020) is a slip (80 pages including references and the index) of a book that reads as both addendum and antidote to some of the literature aimed at waking white people (Ta-Nahesi-Coates’ “dreamers”) up to the realities of racism. I say antidote as some of that literature (the work of Robin Di Angelo and Ibram X. Kendi come to mind) seems to depend on commands from the super ego to shed the scales from white eyes. On finishing Di Angelo’s White Fragility (which was required reading last summer) I felt both paranoid and ashamed and had to wonder how self-policing was going diminish my racism? Altman’s book intervenes precisely in this potentially deleterious cycle arguing that anti-racist thinking that relies on “should” and “oughts”, are potentially doomed to fail. By attacking the defenses rather than softening them, such efforts run the risk of hardening the racism they set out to transform. Humans hate. Freud tells us it is our first fee

When Minds Meet: The Work of Lewis Aron (Routledge, 2020) offers a sampling of Lewis Aron's most important contributions to relational psychoanalysis. One of the founders of relational thinking, Aron was an internationally recognized psychoanalyst, sought after teacher, lecturer, and the Director of the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. His pioneering work introduced and revolutionized the concepts of mutuality, the analyst's subjectivity, and the paradigm of mutual vulnerability in the analytic setting. During the last few years of his life, Aron was exploring the ethical considerations of writing psychoanalytic case histories and the importance of self-reflection and skepticism not only for analysts with their patients, but also as a stance towards the field of psychoanalysis itself. Aron is known for his singular, highly compelling teaching and writing style and for an unparalleled ability to convey complex, often comparative theoretical concepts in a uniquely in

Conversations with Lacan: Seven Lectures for Understanding Lacan (Routledge, 2019)brings a unique, non-partisan approach to the work of Jacques Lacan, linking his psychoanalytic theory and ideas to broader debates in philosophy and the social sciences, in a book that shows how it is possible to see the value of Lacanian concepts without necessarily being defined by them. In accessible, conversational language, the book provides a clear-sighted overview of the key ideas within Lacan’s work, situating them at the apex of the linguistic turn. It deconstructs the three Lacanian orders – the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real – as well as a range of core Lacanian concepts, including alienation and separation, après-coup, and the Lacanian doctrine of temporality. Arguing that criticism of psychoanalysis for a lack of scientificity should be accepted by the discipline, the book suggests that the work of Lacan can be helpful in re-conceptualizing the role of psychoanalysis in the future. This accessible introducti