This second edition of Ronald Britton’s personal reappraisal of psychoanalytic theories is based on further clinical experience, further study of current neuroscience and continued reflection on the relationship of brain and mind, selfhood and self-awareness, belief and knowledge, and certainty and uncertainty.Divided into three parts – "Hysteria," "The ego and superego," and "Narcissism" – this new edition adds content on brain, mind and self, the death instinct and a discussion o...

Winner of the 2013 Sigourney Award!Belief and Imagination brings together Ronald Britton's writing on these subjects over the last 15 years, exploring the concepts from a Kleinian perspective. The book covers:The status of phantasies in an individuals mind - are they facts or possibilities?How the notions of objectivity and subjectivity are interrelated and have their origins in the Oedipal triangleHow phantasies ...

A collection of papers focusing on the Kleinian conception of the Oedipus complex, how this is now understood, and what effect it has had on clinical practice. The papers by the authors which form the greater part of The Oedipus Complex Today were originally given at the Melanie Klein Conference on the Oedipus Complex in September 1987 at University College, London. The conference, jointly organized by Professor J. Sandler of the Psychoanalysis Unit at University College and Mrs. ...

Psychoanalytic Approaches to Forgiveness and Mental Health considers the role of forgiveness in mental life, concerning both forgiving and being forgiven.Each chapter addresses concepts including superego, repetition compulsion, enactment, and notions such as sacrifice, penance, justification, absolution, and contrition. The contributors consider both their professional and clinical experience and their ethical, cultural, or philosophical background when considering aspect...

This book begins with an exploration of the relationship between mind and brain. It then examines various psychoanalytic models of the mind and moves to the task of the analyst to discover the unconscious models that shape his or her patients' picture of him/herself and others. The familiar models are mainly drawn from psychoanalytic practice but are supplemented from myths, religion, and literature. Developments in adjacent scientific fields such as quantum biology and new ideas about evo...

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) revolutionized the way in which we think about ourselves. From its beginnings as a theory of neurosis, Freud developed psycho-analysis into a general psychology which became widely accepted as the predominant mode of discussing personality and interpersonal relationships.

Essentially clinical in its approach, Psychic Retreats discusses the problem of patients who are 'stuck' and with whom it is difficult to make meaningful contact. John Steiner, an experienced psychoanalyst, uses new developments in Kleinian theory to explain how this happens.He examines the way object relationships and defences can be organized into complex structures which lead to a personality and an analysis becoming rigid and stuck, with little opportunity for developm...

Seeing and Being Seen: Emerging from a Psychic Retreat examines the themes that surface when considering clinical situations where patients feel stuck and where a failure to develop impedes the progress of analysis.This book analyses the anxieties and challenges confronted by patients as they begin to emerge from the protection of psychic retreats. Divided into three parts, areas of discussion include:embarrassment, shame, and humiliationh...

The nature of psychoanalysis seems contradictory - deeply personal, subjective and intuitive, yet requiring systematic theory and principles of technique.In The Dove that Returns, The Dove that Vanishes, Michael Parsons explores the tension of this paradox. As they respond to it and struggle to sustain creatively, analysts discover their individual identities. The work of outstanding clinicians such as Marion Milner and John Klauber is examined in detail. The reader also e...

Guilt is an original, closely argued examination of the opposition between guilty man and tragic man. Starting from the scientific and speculative writings of Freud and the major pioneers of psychoanalysis to whom we owe the first studies of this complex question, Roberto Speziale-Bagliacca goes on to focus on the debate between Klein and Winnicott in an enlightened attempt to remove blame and the sense of guilt from religion, morality and law.Drawing on an impressive rang...

Though he was a prolific writer and an original thinker of vast erudition, Jung lacked a gift for clear exposition and his ideas are less widely appreciated than they deserve.In this concise introduction, Anthony Stevens explains clearly the basic concepts of Jungian psychology: the collective unconscious, complex, archetype, shadow, persona, anima, animus, and the individuation of the Self. He examines Jung's views on such disparate subjects as myth, religion, alchemy, `sychronicity', and...

Author of many respected psychoanalytic works including Narcissism: A New Theory, Emotion and Spirit, Making of a Psychotherapist and Spirit of Sanity, the distinguished psychoanalyst Neville Symington's latest book expands, refines and deepens what has become an ever more impressive, far-reaching and absorbing inquiry into the nature of madness and sanity. It is Symington's central contention that the core psychopathology of our times can be identified and designated as narcissism, althou...