Books in Progress
Books in Progress
The book series will open with seven planned volumes, and continue in an open-ended fashion thereafter, enabling us to publish books that represent the work of our members and our professional community. The series, which is entitled "Boundaries of Contemporary Psychoanalysis", will feature books that address differences and similarities in schools of psychoanalytic thought, as well as the relationship of psychoanalysis to adjacent disciplines.
Here is a brief description of the first seven publications currently in development:
(a) When Theories Touch by Steven J. Ellman, PhD, FIPA
The first volume of the series is a single author volume by Steven J. Ellman, The book, whose title is When Theories Touch, examines the interface of Freudian theory with Donald Winnicott, Melanie Klein, Wilfred Bion, and a variety of contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives. This book will be published in December 2009.
(b) The Second Century of Psychoanalysis: Pluralistic Perspectives on Therapeutic Action edited by Michael Diamond, PhD, FIPA, and Christopher Christian, PhD, FIPA.
This volume focuses on the question of the theory of therapeutic action underlying the multiple perspectives in psychoanalysis. The question of how psychoanalysis effects therapeutic change and the methods by which this change is achieved is answered from the perspectives of modern conflict theory, neo-Kleinian theory, contemporary object relations theory, attachment theory and self psychological theory, among others.
(c) The Modern Freudians, edited by Andrew Druck, PhD, FIPA, Carolyn Ellman, PhD, FIPA, Norbert Freedman, PhD, FIPA, and Aaron Thaler, PhD, FIPA.
This will be an updated statement of the contemporary Freudian psychoanalytic position, a new but distinctly different version of an earlier volume by the same name published a decade ago. In this volume eight senior Freudian analysts will provide a Freudian reinterpretation of a major contemporary theorist that has formed and transformed their work.
(d) Another Kind of Evidence by Norbert Freedman, PhD, FIPA, and colleagues.
This book, to be a co-authored volume by senior author Norbert Freedman and colleagues, will be based on empirical psychoanalytic research. The book will examine the evidence for the effectiveness of psychoanalysis, the nature of the change that psychoanalysis produces and, via the empirical analysis of recorded psychoanalytic sessions, investigates how that change comes about, concluding with a project on "a specimen of working through."
(e) Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Primitive Mental States, edited by Jane Van Buren, PhD, FIPA.
Drawing on the variety of psychoanalytic perspectives that issue from the various component societies of our organization, this volume focuses on the psychoanalytic understanding of psychosis, primitive thought, and fantasy.
(f) Philosophy and Psychoanalysis, edited by Meg Beaudoin, PhD, FIPA and Jared Russell, PhD.
This volume will examine the boundaries of contemporary psychoanalysis from a philosophical point of view.
(g) Battling the Life and Death Forces of Sadomasochism: Theoretical and Clinical Perspectives, co-edited by Harriet Basseches, PhD, FIPA, Paula Ellman, PhD, FIPA, and Nancy Goodman PhD, FIPA.
This volume will explore the effects of sadomasochistic phenomena on psychic life. Clinical presentations will be highlighted, especially the exploration of transference and countertransference enactments and the consideration of issues such as conflict, instinctual life, object relations trauma, narcissistic vulnerability, primitive states and perversion. Commentary and discussion of case material by analysts of differing psychoanalytic perspectives will make for a lively dialogue that will extend and enrich our clinical and theoretical understanding of the challenges posed by sadomasochism.
