Elizabeth Allison

This book, founded on the in-depth discussion of sixteen clinical cases of psychoanalysis, tries to answer the question of what psychoanalysts do when they are practicing psychoanalysis. The authors have collaborated with over a thousand colleagues worldwide to collect a unique dataset of everyday clinical sessions using a new workshop discussion method designed to reveal differences. Faced with diversity but wanting to surface and understand it, not suppress it, they had to evolve a new theoretical framework. It covers different approaches to the analytic situation (using the metaphors, cinema, dramatic monologue, theatre and immersive theatre); different sources of data to use to infer unconscious content, differences in the troubles patients unconsciously experience and how to approach them and differences in when, about what and how a psychoanalyst should talk. Eventually taking the form of 11 very practical questions for psychoanalysts to ask of each session they conduct, the framework tries to help experienced psychoanalysts and students alike to choose what they want to try to do and to assess for themselves how far they are doing it. A final chapter applies the new framework and eleven practical questions to some contemporary technical controversies with some surprising results.

This book, founded on the in-depth discussion of sixteen clinical cases of psychoanalysis, tries to answer the question of what psychoanalysts do when they are practicing psychoanalysis. The authors have collaborated with over a thousand colleagues worldwide to collect a unique dataset of everyday clinical sessions using a new workshop discussion method designed to reveal differences. Faced with diversity but wanting to surface and understand it, not suppress it, they had to evolve a new theoretical framework. It covers different approaches to the analytic situation (using the metaphors, cinema, dramatic monologue, theatre and immersive theatre); different sources of data to use to infer unconscious content, differences in the troubles patients unconsciously experience and how to approach them and differences in when, about what and how a psychoanalyst should talk. Eventually taking the form of 11 very practical questions for psychoanalysts to ask of each session they conduct, the framework tries to help experienced psychoanalysts and students alike to choose what they want to try to do and to assess for themselves how far they are doing it. A final chapter applies the new framework and eleven practical questions to some contemporary technical controversies with some surprising results.

What is psychoanalysis? Is it relevant to today’s mental health crisis? How can psychoanalysis help people suffering from psychological distress and illness? This vital new book examines how psychoanalysis has changed since its inception, and how it has adapted to the needs and concerns of 21st-century mental health professionals and patients. The first part of this book provides a concise and unbiased account of the origins of psychoanalysis, and the theories which characterise the main post-Freudian schools – neo-Freudian, Kleinian, interpersonal, self-psychological, Lacanian – and the ways in which they agree and diverge. The second part uses clinical illustrations to examine the practicalities of psychoanalytic technique in the consulting room – assessment, free association, dream analysis, transference, and counter-transference. Whatever their allegiance or role, mental health professionals – psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, child mental health professionals, mental health nurses – need to be conversant with the strengths, relevance, and limitations of the psychoanalytic approach. This book provides an indispensable, up-to-date, and accessible account of psychoanalysis today. Shaped throughout by considering the viewpoint of an interested 21st-century reader, it is of great interest to psychoanalysts and related mental health professionals, as well as students and all those interested in the treatment of mental health.

What is psychoanalysis? Is it relevant to today’s mental health crisis? How can psychoanalysis help people suffering from psychological distress and illness? This vital new book examines how psychoanalysis has changed since its inception, and how it has adapted to the needs and concerns of 21st-century mental health professionals and patients. The first part of this book provides a concise and unbiased account of the origins of psychoanalysis, and the theories which characterise the main post-Freudian schools – neo-Freudian, Kleinian, interpersonal, self-psychological, Lacanian – and the ways in which they agree and diverge. The second part uses clinical illustrations to examine the practicalities of psychoanalytic technique in the consulting room – assessment, free association, dream analysis, transference, and counter-transference. Whatever their allegiance or role, mental health professionals – psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, child mental health professionals, mental health nurses – need to be conversant with the strengths, relevance, and limitations of the psychoanalytic approach. This book provides an indispensable, up-to-date, and accessible account of psychoanalysis today. Shaped throughout by considering the viewpoint of an interested 21st-century reader, it is of great interest to psychoanalysts and related mental health professionals, as well as students and all those interested in the treatment of mental health.

Overworked and underappreciated Emily Esposito thinks wrestling her young son Dante into his Halloween costume is her biggest worry-until her husband shows up with his new girlfriend and tells her their marriage is over. Emily's waitressing job is suddenly in jeopardy when the diner is put on the market, and she anxiously wonders how she will pay her half of the mortgage. If that's not enough, the dates she tentatively embarks on don't turn out quite as well as she expected, and the support she seeks from her mother is met with acute disapproval. Emily resolves to put three-year-old Dante first. Her sister Clara and best friend Michelle are her greatest cheerleaders while she works desperately to carve out a sunnier future for herself and her son. In her heart, Emily never stops dreaming of a man to grow old with and a true love to call her own.

Maggie Sullivan is a quirky and ambitious woman who loves her apartment, her cat, and fancy coffee she can't really afford. She has an almost-exciting life in New York where she is carving out a career in publishing - a career she makes a bit more glamorous on Facebook for the benefit of the girls from high school back home. Unfortunately, she also finds herself in love with a man who turns out to be her friend's new husband. This inconvenient fact threatens both her friendship and her professional prospects. As she tries to juggle work, her aging parents back in Buffalo and her ill-fated love interest, she starts to wonder if she's really cut out for the city that never sleeps.