The Race Against Time

This is the second book in the pioneering investigation of adult develop­ ment by Robert A. Nemiroff and Calvin A. Colarusso. The first, Adult Development: A New Dimension in Psychodynamic Theory and Practice, ar­ rived to critical acclaim in 1981. It presented a psychodynamic theory of development during the second half of life and a model of normal adult functioning. This book is the logical sequel, expanding and elaborating the original formulations and applying them to the clinical practice of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. Nemiroff and Colarusso demonstrate that these are appropriate techniques for patients in the second half of life, regardless of age. They lay to rest many stereotypes and myths that have long interfered with the dynamic treatment of older patients, and they propose exciting new conceptualizations such as that of adult develop­ mental arrests. The genetic approach reaches beyond childhood and adolescence and takes on important new meaning by incorporating an adult developmental past that influences both psychopathology and transference. The relationship between theory and therapy is richly demonstrated in the clinical presentations, including ten detailed case histories of pa­ tients between the ages of 40 and BO. These and other clinical discussions provide ample evidence that a psychodynamic approach that is based on a sound adult developmental psychology can be extraordinarily effective. They also demonstrate both the similarities and differences in working with older versus younger patients. This work is a major contribution in a long-neglected dimension of clinical psychiatry. SHERWYN M.

Contenu

New Concepts in Adult Development.- A Review of Adult Development.- The Literature on Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis in the Second Half of Life.- Adult Development and Psychoanalytic Diagnosis and Treatment.- Adult Development and Transference.- Friendship in Midlife.- Clinical Presentations.- Turning Forty in Analysis.- Discussion.- The Development of Intimacy at Age Fifty.- Discussion.- Short-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy with a Sixty-Two-Year-Old Man.- Discussion.- New Beginnings at Seventy.- Discussion.- Psychotherapy with an Eighty-Year-Old Patient.- Discussion.- Critical Clinical Issues in the Treatment of Older Patients.- Object Loss and Development in the Second Half of Life.- When a Husband Dies.- When a Wife Dies.- The Ant and the Grasshopper in Later Life.- Being Sick and Facing Eighty.- Issues and Strategies for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis in the Second Half of Life.