Introduction. Part 1: Between Death and the Primal Scene.Keeping Death Alive. Why Did Orpheus Look Back? Après-Coup, Avant-Coup. Appendix: More About Memory. In Defence of the Uncanny. Part 2: Concepts on the Move. Sexuality and Perversion: Discovering What Freud Discovered. Oedipal Disidentification: Au Nom Du Fils, Au Nom De La Fille.Narcissism as Prison, Narcissism as Springboard: A Reading of Sophocles’ Ajax. Part 3: The Activity of Listening. Listening Out, Listening In, Looking Out, Looking In. The Analyst’s Countertransference to the Psychoanalytic Process .Raiding the Inarticulate: Internal Setting, Beyond Countertransference. Part 4: Clinical Practice Taking Shape. What Does Interpretation Put Into Words? An Independent Theory of Clinical Technique. Forming an Identity: Reflections on Psychoanalytic Training.
Michael Parsons is a Training Analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society and a member of the French Psychoanalytic Association. With more than thirty years of experience in his field, he teaches and lectures all over the world. He is the author of The Dove that Returns, The Dove that Vanishes: Paradox and Creativity in Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2000).
"The language of the Independent tradition in British
psychoanalysis, carried by Donald Winnicott, Marion Milner, Nina
Coltart and many others, has always been non-dogmatic, lyrically
tentative, close to the heart of the life of being an analyst. Like
a deep, familiar drum the voice of Michael Parsons speaks from
within that tradition. He ranges widely and deeply from clinical
issues to theoretical axioms, to works of art and literature, and
further afield, always remaining close to experience. Independent
thinking lives on in this profound and creative work." –
Christopher Bollas, psychoanalyst."The psychoanalyst Donald
Winnicott noticed that a regular outcome of psychoanalytic
treatment was an enhanced sense of being alive. And he came to
think this ought to be an aim of psychoanalysis: to help analsands
recover their own lost sense of vibrancy. In Living Psychoanalysis,
Michael Parsons takes up this idea with nuance, sensitivity and
rich clinical detail. He shows us how crucial it is for human life
itself that we be able to celebrate life via our capacity for
feeling alive." - Jonathan Lear, The University of Chicago.
"BBC Radio 4 has a book programme called ‘A Good Read’. Living
Psychoanalysis is a good read. Michael Parsons has an ear for the
English language. He writes about difficult concepts, for example,
Après-coup, Remèmoration, Avant-coup, with clarity. A clarity that
enables the reader to think about the concepts them-selves rather
than first ‘hunt for the verb’, an activity which happens too often
in analytic writing." – Dorothy Girouard, British Psychotherapy
Foundation for the British Journal of Psychotherapy "Michael
Parsons’ Living Psychoanalysis ranges widely, from theories about
technique to a consideration of concepts including narcissism,
sexuality and perversion and oedipal disidentification, to
regression, to psychic growth and psychic fixedness, to listening
and countertransference, and far more. What is most notable about
the book, however, is not so much its breadth as its depth. Rooted
in the tradition of Independent psychoanalysis, it offers a
compelling view of what it can mean to be creatively alive." –
Renee Darniger, The International Journal of Psychoanalysis"The
language of the Independent tradition in British psychoanalysis,
carried by Donald Winnicott, Marion Milner, Nina Coltart and many
others, has always been non-dogmatic, lyrically tentative, close to
the heart of the life of being an analyst. Like a deep, familiar
drum the voice of Michael Parsons speaks from within that
tradition. He ranges widely and deeply from clinical issues to
theoretical axioms, to works of art and literature, and further
afield, always remaining close to experience. Independent thinking
lives on in this profound and creative work." – Christopher Bollas,
psychoanalyst."The psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott noticed that a
regular outcome of psychoanalytic treatment was an enhanced sense
of being alive. And he came to think this ought to be an aim of
psychoanalysis: to help analsands recover their own lost sense of
vibrancy. In Living Psychoanalysis, Michael Parsons takes up this
idea with nuance, sensitivity and rich clinical detail. He shows us
how crucial it is for human life itself that we be able to
celebrate life via our capacity for feeling alive." - Jonathan
Lear, The University of Chicago.
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