How has Herbert Rosenfeld contributed to psychoanalysis today? Rosenfeld in Retrospect presents original psychoanalytic papers showing the influence of Herbert Rosenfeld on psychoanalysis today, and reproduces some of Rosenfeld's most important clinical writings. In the first part of this book, The Conference Papers: Contemporary Developments of Rosenfeld's Work, the editor brings together papers and discussions by Rosenfeld's well-known contemporaries, Ronald Britton, Michael Feldman, Edna O'Shaughnessy, Hanna Segal and Riccardo Steiner who explore his contribution to psychoanalysis. John Steiner demonstrates the importance of Rosenfeld's classic papers, and critically surveys the more controversial developments in his later work. Part II contains four papers by Rosenfeld, chosen by his colleagues to be his most significant and original contributions. This collection conveys Rosenfeld's liveliness and influence, and will be of interest to all of those attracted to his work.

With contributions from Hermann Beland, Franco De Masi, Hans-Jurgen Eilts, Claudia Frank, With contributions from Hermann Beland, Irma Brenman Pick, Franco De Masi, Hans-Jurgen Eilts, Claudia Frank, Angela Goyena, Carolin Haas, Wolfgang Hegener, Angela Rosenfeld, John Steiner, Riccardo Steiner, Nils F. Topfer, Klaus Wilde, and Karin Johanna Zienert-Eilts. This collection presents new insights into the life and work of Herbert Rosenfeld and his continuing influence on psychoanalytic theory and practice. It includes accounts from both personal and professional perspectives and is illustrated with 55 black and white images. Part I looks at historical perspectives and includes Karin Johanna Zienert-Eilts' excellent biography of Rosenfeld, Angela Rosenfeld's personal view of her father, Ronald Britton's discussion of the distinction between "defensive" and "destructive" narcissism, and Claudia Frank's look at the iconic figures of Kleinian thought. Part II shines a light on Rosenfeld's extensive supervisory work with a highly personal account from Riccardo Steiner about experience in Italy, Klaus Wilde on Rosenfeld's significance for German psychoanalysts, and reminiscences and afterthoughts from Angela Goyena. In the descriptions of his clinical work in Part III, Franco De Masi, Hans-Jurgen Eilts, Carolin Haas, and Nils F. Topfer demonstrate how Rosenfeld's theoretical discoveries - especially his concept of destructive narcissism - and his related clinical and technical recommendations not only continue to facilitate psychoanalytic work with difficult patients today, but also made this work possible in the first place. The final part of the book examines the sociopolitical applications of Herbert Rosenfeld's concept of destructive narcissism. It begins with a significant paper from Herbert Rosenfeld: Applying my theory of psychosis to the Nazi phenomenon. This is followed by an interview of Rosenfeld by Hermann Beland and two chapters from the editors. Wolfgang Hegener examines how Herbert Rosenfeld can help us to understand Nazi perpetrators, with a particular focus on Adolf Eichmann, and Karin Johanna Zienert-Eilts takes the lens of destructive narcissism to destructive populism to cast new light on the phenomenon. Rounded out by a bibliography of Herbert Rosenfeld's most important writings, an extensive appendix of documents, photographs and three previously unpublished letters which are of historical significance, and prefaces from Irma Brenman Pick and John Steiner, this volume is a must-read for clinicians, academics, and trainees.

This book presents an examination and exploration of the concept of omnipotence, its qualities and expression as a psychic state, its origins in the psyche and its appearance in the psychoanalytic process and in society. Linked with narcissism but underdeveloped as a concept in its own right, omnipotence is explored in this book from a range of psychoanalytic perspectives, including its positive value in normal development through to its potential as a destructive element in the personality. The Omnipotent State of Mind is presented in five parts, each exploring a specific theme. The contributors explore omnipotence in infants, children, adolescents and adults, consider why it is so difficult to give up, and examine how the omnipotent state of mind is expressed in culture and society. The range of attitudes towards omnipotence within different psychoanalytic traditions is represented by the international selection of contributors. The Omnipotent State of Mind will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in practice and in training, to psychoanalytic psychotherapists and to other professionals interested in omnipotent states of mind.

Psychoanalysis, Science and Power reexamines the current state of psychoanalysis and science and technology studies as they have been influenced by Robert Maxwell Young’s work. Robert Maxwell Young, a Texas émigré to Britain, was a scholar, publisher, TV documentarian, psychoanalytic psychotherapist, journal editor, conference organizer and political activist. Young urged that psychoanalysis, particularly in its Kleinian incarnation, illuminated new aspects of science and technology studies, and vice versa. This volume not only provides an overview of Young’s life and interests by a stellar cast of scholars and practitioners but also commemorates the many and intersecting streams of his contributions, reasoning for their continuing relevance in the contemporary studies of psychoanalysis, biological sciences, technology and Darwinian thought. Presenting perspectives that are rigorously analytical and yet often poignant, Psychoanalysis, Science and Power will be an important read for students, analysts and analytic therapists of all orientations who are interested in broadening their understanding of their practice.

This book explores how Kleinian psychoanalysis has developed over the past 75 years and how it illuminates human experience and relationships inside and outside the consulting room. The text will help the reader gain a deeper understanding of processes of splitting, projection, and identification in clinical work; a broader conception of how internal and external worlds interact and affect each other; greater clarity on key theoretical and ethical issues; and an overview of what the Kleinian tradition has contributed to mental health and wellbeing. Concepts are presented in a structured progression, accompanied by summaries of key papers by prominent clinicians. Offering an accessible account of a key strand of British Object Relations, this essential resource will be of value to trainee, newly qualified, and experienced psychodynamic counsellors and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, as well as teachers, social workers, and nurses.

This book introduces the importance of echoism as a clinical entity and a theoretical concept. In Ovid's version of the myth of Echo and Narcissus, the character Echo receives equal attention to her counterpart, Narcissus, yet she has been completely marginalised in the pervasive literatures on narcissism. The author draws upon her work with patients who have experienced relationships with narcissistic partners or parents, and have developed a particular configuration of object relations and ways of relating for which she uses the term echoism. She uses psychoanalytic theory and existential philosophical ideas to underpin her formulations and inform her clinical thinking. Donnna Savery explores the question 'Am I an Echoist?' and introduces the concept of Echoism in the following YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEyjolXL7lA

Practitioners of psychoanalysis find three central themes to be recurrent and ubiquitous in every analysis; firstly, issues around identity, the struggle to know the self, to understand the self and to be the self in an authentic way. Intricately entangled with self-identity is the problem of narcissism, essentially viewed as a defensive retreat to a mental state characterized by an unconscious belief in the special value of the self and the diminution of the Other. However, there are a multitude of inherent anxieties involved in close and intimate relationships. As Freud pointed out, even in our most intimate relationships there is an element of hostility. Threats to both the self and other, and various anxieties around libidinal contact, will be examined in this book using case material, and the relationship between these three important themes, identity, narcissism and the other, separate but interconnected, will be explored.

An arresting un-coming-of-age story, from a breathtaking talent Becca has always longed to break free from her small, backwater hometown. But the discovery of an unidentified dead girl on the side of a dirt road sends the town--and Becca--into a tailspin. Unable to make sense of the violence of the outside world creeping into her backyard, Becca finds herself retreating inward, paralyzed from moving forward for the first time in her life. Short chapters detailing the last days of Amelia Anne Richardson's life are intercut with Becca's own summer as the parallel stories of two young women struggling with self-identity and relationships on the edge twist the reader closer and closer to the truth about Amelia's death.

The New Dictionary of Kleinian Thought provides a comprehensive and wholly accessible exposition of Kleinian ideas. Offering a thorough update of R.D. Hinshelwood’s highly acclaimed original, this book draws on the many developments in the field of Kleinian theory and practice since its publication. The book first addresses twelve major themes of Kleinian psychoanalytic thinking in scholarly essays organised both historically and thematically. Themes discussed include: unconscious phantasy, child analysisthe paranoid schizoid and depressive positions, the oedipus complex projective identification, symbol formation. Following this, entries are listed alphabetically, allowing the reader to find out about a particular theme - from Karl Abraham to Whole Object - and to delve as lightly or as deeply as needed. As such this book will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists as well as all those with an interest in Kleinian thought.