The Work of Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysts working in clinical situations are constantly confronted with the struggle between conservative forces and those which enable something new to develop. Continuity and change, stasis and transformation, are the major themes discussed in The Work of Psychoanalysis, and address the fundamental question: How does and how can change take place?

The Work of Psychoanalysis explores the underlying coherence of the complex linked issues of theory and practice. Drawing on clinical cases from her own experience in the consulting room Dana Birksted-Breen focuses on what takes place between patient and analyst, giving a picture of the interlocking and overlapping vertices that make up the work needed in psychoanalysis. Some of the key topics covered include: sexuality; aspects of female identity; eating disorders; time; dreams; disturbances in modalities of thought; and terminating psychoanalysis.

This book draws different traditions into a coherent theoretical position with consequences for the mode of working analytically. The Work of Psychoanalysis will appeal to psychoanalysts and academics in psychoanalysis, psychotherapists, as well as postgraduate students studying courses in these fields.

Autorentext

Dana Birksted-Breen is a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society, member of the IPA, and current Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. She was the Editor of the New Library of Psychoanalysis for 10 years, and is a psychoanalyst in private practice in London.

Inhalt

Acknowledgments; Chapter 101 Introduction; Chapter 1 Setting the scene; Chapter 2 Modalities of thought and sexual identity; Chapter 3 The feminine and unconscious representation of femininity, a duality at the heart of femininity; Chapter 4 Sexuality in the consulting room; Chapter 5 Bulimia and anorexia nervosa in the transference; Chapter 6 Phallus, penis and mental space; Chapter 7 Time and the; après-coup; Chapter 8 The work of interpretation; Chapter 9 Reverberation time, dreaming and the capacity to dream; Chapter 10 Taking time, the tempo of psychoanalysis; Chapter 11 Bi-ocularity, the functioning mind of the psychoanalyst; Chapter 12 Termination in process;