Although there have been many attempts to apply the ideas of psychoanalysis to political thought, this book is the first to identify the political project inherent in the fundamental tenets of ...psychoanalysis. And this political project, Todd McGowan contends, provides an avenue for emancipatory politics after the failure of Marxism in the twentieth century.
Where others seeking the political import of psychoanalysis have looked to Freud's early work on sexuality, McGowan focuses on Freud's discovery of the death drive and Jacques Lacan's elaboration of this concept. He argues that the self-destruction occurring as a result of the death drive is the foundational act of emancipation around which we should construct our political philosophy. Psychoanalysis offers the possibility for thinking about emancipation not as an act of overcoming loss but as the embrace of loss. It is only through the embrace of loss, McGowan suggests, that we find the path to enjoyment, and enjoyment is the determinative factor in all political struggles-and only in a political project that embraces the centrality of loss will we find a viable alternative to global capitalism.
We know that the deepest disturbances must be reached to foster the deepest changes and growth. But what do we do when some of our patients suffer relentlessly through dissociated, dysregulated ...states of catastrophic proportons, when these states are repetitive but not generative, when our psychoanalytic forms of holding, provision, and containment are just not good enough? After a number of years in psychoanalytic practice, the author trained in Somatic Experiencing (SE), a non-psychoanalytic, bio-psychological model for treating trauma. He presents a psychotherapy case that began before his SE training and continued during and after. He illustrates how SE perspectives and approaches can inform and enrich our psychoanalytic ways of looking, listening, and responding. He emphasizes how SE can supplement and enfold into psychoanalytic processes of intersubjective regulation, crucial for patients who are exquisitely vulnerable to severe overactivation (overwhelming anxiety, panic, terror, agitation, rage, explosiveness, etc.) and/or underactivation (freeze, numbness, emptiness, deadness, etc.). He discusses the relationship between SE and major psychoanalytic paradigms (Classical, Kleinian, Winnicottian, Relational, and Self Psychology), looking at points of convergence, divergence, synergy and tension. He shares a professional and personal journey of interweaving SE into psychoanalytic treatment.
The Tripartite Matrix in the Developing Theory and Expanding Practice of Group Analysis explores the social unconscious in persons, groups and societies in terms of the "un-acknowledged" restraints ...and constraints of our social and cultural groupings.
In this context, Earl Hopper and an international team of contributors elucidate the theory and concept of the tripartite matrix as a tool for the deeper understanding of the human condition and for clinical work in various settings. They consider topics ranging from envy to intersectionality, and from addiction to the inability to mourn.
The Tripartite Matrix in the Developing Theory and Expanding Practice of Group Analysis will be of great interest to group analysts, psychoanalytical group therapists, psychoanalysts and psycho-dramatists, as well as to social scientists more generally. Its extensive bibliography will be of particular value to students.
The efforts of the Mexican authorities to defeat insecurity, violence, and crime have not been successful. It seems that the prison system plays a major role in this. Delinquent violence forces us to ...look for different options and conditions. Proposals that emanated from the humanist psychoanalysis promoted by Erich Fromm, who lived in Mexico for over 20 years from the late 1950s to the mid 1970s, are therapeutic resources and paths of analysis. These allow us to identify both the productive and the creative aspects of the individual personality propelling the person to their social integration. The aim is to guide individuals toward a biophilic character and to the construction of a fair society provided with hope and liberty. The mission of the Instituto Mexicano de Psicoanálisis (IMPAC; Mexican Institute of Psychoanalysis), founded in Mexico City in 1963 by Erich Fromm, is to: spread Fromm's intellectual legacy through psychoanalytic training; pay specialized attention to persons in need of psychotherapies and analytic psychotherapies; disseminate Fromm's thoughts by publishing them; undertake professional research; plus, recently, collaborate with federal agencies for justice procurement and human rights defense. This has made it possible to convince us of the appropriateness, validity, and efficacy of humanist psychoanalysis to approach and become involved in benefiting Mexican society.
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