New And Notable Books
When Theories Touch: A Historical and Theoretical Integration of Psychoanalytic Thought, by Steven J. Ellman.Publisher: Karnac Books
January 2010
Steven Ellman was Professor in the Graduate School of City University of New York (CUNY) where he was Director of the Ph.D. program in Clinical Psychology. He is now, after 30 years as a Professor at CUNY, Professor-Emeritus. He has published more than 70 papers in psychoanalysis, sleep and dreams the neurophysiology of motivation. He has published several books including Freud’s Technique Papers: A Contemporary Perspective and The Mind in Sleep (with Antrobus). He has been President of IPTAR twice, Program Chair and he is training and supervising analyst at IPTAR. He is also Clinical Professor at New York University Post-Doctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. He was the first President of the Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies (CIPS). CIPS is the national professional organization of the independent International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) societies of the United States. He is member of the IPA and was previously on the Executive Council of the IPA.
When Theories Touch is the first book in the CIPS book series. It reviews the thought and work of the great theorists of psychoanalysis. Dr. Ellman has a remarkable ability to dwell within the psychic reality of each of the great theorists he discusses, and to make it feel as if each one were explaining his or her theory in person.
Primitive Mental States, by Jane van Buren and Shelley Alhanati.
Publisher: Routledge
December 2009
CIPS member, Jane Van Buren is a psychoanalyst in full time private practice in Los Angeles, California and a training and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Centre of California (PCC). She has written widely on the themes of women and children, culture and psychoanalysis. Her co- author, Shelley Alhanati, is a psychoanalyst in northern California, and is a Supervising Analyst and faculty member of the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. She has lectured and written widely on various topics in psychoanalytic theory as well as on fetal, infant, and child developmental research. Their book, Primitive Mental States, examines how particular capacities including those for symbolizing, fantasizing, dreaming, experiencing and finding meanings in those experiences, can be taken for granted. In the book, international contributors were brought together to consider a radical evolution in contemporary psychoanalytic theory developed from a combination of ultrasound studies, infant analysis, and observation of mothers and babies. These findings demonstrate how much mental life exists even before birth. Topics covered in the book include: prenatal imprints on the mind and body, difficult to treat patients, non-verbal, non-symbolic, disembodied states of being and early relational and attachment trauma. The book is filled with original data and extensive clinical discussions from some of the biggest names in the field.
Therapeutic attachment relationships: Interaction structures and the processes of therapeutic change, by Geoff Goodman
Publisher: Jason Aronson
December 2009
CIPS direct member, Geoff Goodman, PhD, is associate professor of psychology at Long Island University. He is also a licensed clinical and school psychologist with a private practice in Manhattan and New City, New York. He is the author of more than a dozen articles on the development of psychopathology in high-risk infants, children, and adults, as well as The Internal World and Attachment (2002). In Therapeutic Attachment Relationships, Dr. Goodman explores the attachment relationship as an effective ingredient in all therapeutic change. He explains that Attachment theory and research have begun to specify the variety of therapist-patient interactions and the relation between the quality of these interactions and patient outcomes. The goal of this book is to contribute to our understanding of these interaction structures and their influence on therapeutic changes in the patient. Dr. Goodman invites the reader to consider the attachment relationship as an often-overlooked specific factor that nevertheless plays a key role in all therapeutic processes.
Transforming the internal world and attachment: Theoretical and empirical perspectives (Vol. 1) and Clinical applications (Vol.2), by Geoff Goodman
Publisher: Jason Aronson
December 2009
Transforming the Internal World and Attachment reviews and discusses four theories about what makes psychotherapy effective across forms of treatment, treatment settings, and diagnostic categories: mindfulness, mentalization, psychological mindedness, and the attachment relationship. Dr. Goodman offers some provisional hypotheses about therapeutic effectiveness and suggests some ways of testing these hypotheses empirically. He suggests that the therapeutic community’s survival depends on submitting its craft to empirical scrutiny.
For the Love of the Father, by Ruth Stein
Publisher: Stanford University Press
2009
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Ruth Stein's pioneering study explains suicidal terrorism from a psychoanalytic perspective. She argues that most Islamic extremists undertake destructive and self-destructive actions not out of blind hatred, nor even for political gain, but to achieve an explosive merger with a transcendent awesome Father, God. The extremist is thus motivated more by his love for God than his hatred of the infidel. The contemporary Islamic terrorist kills "God's enemies" to express his intoxication with and complete submission to the God-idea. Stein further shows that this same leitmotif of filial submission and sacrifice runs through patriarchal monotheism in general.
Music in the Head: Living at the Brain-Mind Border, by Leo Rangell
Foreword by Oliver Sacks
Publisher: Karnac Books
August 2009
In his nearly 500 papers and eight books, Leo Rangell has made major contributions to psychoanalytic theory for more than half a century. He has twice been elected President of both the American and International Psychoanalytical Associations, and is the only person besides Ernest Jones, Heinz Hartmann, and Anna Freud to be named Honorary President of the International Psychoanalytical Association.In Music in the Head, Dr. Rangell explores auditory hallucinations from both the personal and professional perspective. His hallucinations started in 1995 following surgery, and he has lived with them every day since then. He combines his professional training and his personal insight in this scientifically based, yet conversational book, making these intriguing phenomena approachable for any reader.