Born in 1846 in Ireland at the start of the "Great Hunger," James Kinnier Wilson emigrated to Philadelphia to start a new life at seventeen years old.After his life took a dramatic turn, he found himself attending Princeton and then a college in Scotland, where he met Agnes Hately, the talented daughter of a famous figure in the Scottish "Disruption"-the emergence of the Free Church of Scotland.Agnes and James, now newlyweds, crossed the dangerous Atlantic and settled in ru...

Psychoanalysis and the Wisdom of Ecclesiastes looks at one of the most profound books in the Hebrew Bible – Ecclesiastes, known as Koheleth in Hebrew – through a psychoanalytic lens.Paul Marcus explores Ecclesiastes’ understanding of the profound and compelling problematics of the human condition and explains how he offers a sensible and feasible attitude toward contemporary life. Comparing Ecclesiastes’ way of looking at life to the Freudian worldview, Marcus suggests wha...

The Spiritual Resistance of Rabbi Leo Baeck provides an overview of the life of Dr. Leo Baeck (1873–1956), a German-Jewish rabbi, theologian, historian and Holocaust survivor, from a psychoanalytic perspective.Paul Marcus approaches Baeck’s life and intellectual/theological contribution as it interfaces with a broadly defined psychoanalysis. This book describes and explains how Baeck maintained the rudiments of his autonomy, integration and humanity while remaining in Nazi...

Psychoanalysis and Wisdom applies psychoanalytic insights into one of the great examples of wisdom literature, the Ethics of the Fathers, an ethical tractate of the Talmud.Paul Marcus quotes key passages from the Ethics of the Fathers, providing a psychoanalytic commentary to enlarge and deepen our understanding of its contents, focusing primarily on what constitutes a flourishing life. Marcus then considers what psychoanalysis can provide in its engagement with this class...

Psychoanalysis and Toileting is an accessible book that delineates and interprets the psychological meanings of defecating and urinating in everyday life.Paul Marcus’ work gives the clinician an in-depth view of an activity that every patient and practitioner engage in and shows how not dealing with toileting in its wide range of social and practical contexts leaves out a huge aspect of the patient’s everyday experience. Drawing from psychoanalytic theory and practice, the...

Both criminal defense lawyers and criminal prosecutors must thoroughly understand the rights of the accused under the Sixth Amendment in order to provide competent service and ensure that they are following all court procedures according to the rule of law. The Rights of the Accused under the Sixth Amendment provides an in-depth look at seven key aspects of this area of the law:The right to a speedy trial;The right to a jury trial;The right to a p...

The great existential psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger famously pointed out to Freud that therapeutic failure could "only be understood as the result of something which could be called a deficiency of spirit." Binswanger was surprised when Freud agreed, asserting, "Yes, spirit is everything." However, spirit and the spiritual realm have largely been dropped from mainstream psychoanalytic theory and practice.This book seeks to help revitalize a culturally aging psychoanalysis that is ...

In Psychoanalysis, Classic Social Psychology and Moral Living: Let the Conversation Begin, Paul Marcus uniquely draws on psychoanalysis and social psychology to examine what affects the ethical decisions people make in their everyday life.Psychoanalysis traditionally looks at early experiences, concepts and drives which shape how we choose to behave in later life. In contrast, classic social psychology experiments have illustrated how specific situational forces can shape ...

The Psychoanalysis of Overcoming Suffering: Flourishing Despite Pain offers a guide to understanding and working with a range of everyday causes of suffering from a psychoanalytic perspective.The book delineates some of the underappreciated, everyday facets of the troubling and challenging psychological experiences associated with love, work, faith, mental anguish, old age, and psychotherapeutic caregiving. Examining both the suffering of the patient and therapist, Paul Ma...

Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995), French phenomenological philosopher and Talmudic commentator, is regarded as perhaps the greatest ethical philosopher of our time. While Levinas enjoys prominence in the philosophical and scholarly community, especially in Europe, there are few if any books or articles written that take Levinas's extremely difficult to understand, if not obtuse, philosophy and apply it to the everyday lives of real people struggling to give greater meaning and purpose, especia...

This book is a most impressive and important study of the presence of the spiritual and the sacred in the writings of the twentieth century French philosopher Gabriel Marcel, offering immense help in understanding Marcel and in seeing the usefulness of his ideas in psychoanalysis.

This book claims that a tragicomic outlook—the kind that echoes in black and gallows humour and the "laughter through tears" of Jewish humour—is the most effective way to manage what Freud called the "harshness" of everyday life.