In the modern lexicon, ‘object’ refers to an entity that is materially constituted, spatially defined, and functionally determined. In contrast, the Latin word ‘fantasia’ has, since antiquity, referred to an apparition or the ability to imagine something that could be equally an object, an image, or a concept. This tension prompts further inquiry into the interrelations and differences between the experience of tangible objects (their perception and handling) and the creation of new objects (their conception and formation). What correlations exist between object fantasies, the self-consciousness of subjects, and the concrete and imagined conditions of human beings’ social lives? By addressing this question, this interdisciplinary book opens new perspectives in the field of object studies.

In the modern lexicon, ‘object’ refers to an entity that is materially constituted, spatially defined, and functionally determined. In contrast, the Latin word ‘fantasia’ has, since antiquity, referred to an apparition or the ability to imagine something that could be equally an object, an image, or a concept. This tension prompts further inquiry into the interrelations and differences between the experience of tangible objects (their perception and handling) and the creation of new objects (their conception and formation). What correlations exist between object fantasies, the self-consciousness of subjects, and the concrete and imagined conditions of human beings’ social lives? By addressing this question, this interdisciplinary book opens new perspectives in the field of object studies.

Object Relations, in psychoanalysis are those in which the emotional relations between subject and object, in that which through a process of identification, is believed to constitute the developing ego. In this context, the word object refers to any person or thing, or representational aspect of them, with which the subject forms an intense emotional relationship. Object relations were first described by German psychoanalyst Karl Abraham in an influential paper, published in 1924. In the paper he developed the ideas of the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, on infantile sexuality and the development of the libido. Object relations theory has become one of the central themes of post Freudian psychoanalysis, particularly through the writings of British psychoanalysts Melanie Klein, Ronald Fairbairn, and Donald Winnicott, all deeply influenced by Abraham. They have each developed distinctly, though complementary, approaches to analysis, evolving theories of personal development based on early parental attachments.

In this book, David P. Levine applies psychoanalytic object relations theory to understanding work motivation and the meaning of work. Drawing on the writings of authors such as Donald Winnicott, Otto Kernberg and Melanie Klein, he explores three factors central to our effort to understand work: guilt, greed and the self. Special attention is paid to the factors that determine the individual’s emotional capacity to do work that engages the self and its creative potential and to the related matter of impairment in that capacity. Chapters include: the problem of work greed, envy and the search for the self skill, power and authority work and reality. Object Relations, Work and the Self will be of interest to psychoanalysts and organizational consultants as well as anyone concerned with what determines the quality of life in the workplace.

This 1998 book presents the underlying principles associated with object-orientation and its practical application.

First Published in 2013. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A collection of the most significant contributions to psychoanalytic and psychological understanding of the effect of object loss on adults and children. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

What is it about "having a life"- which is to say, about having a sense of separate existence as a subject or self - that is usually taken for granted but is so fragilely maintained in certain patients and, indeed, in most of us at especially difficult times? In Having A Life: Self Pathology After Lacan, Lewis Kirshner takes this Lacanian question as the point of departure for a thoughtful meditation on the conceptual problems and clinical manifestations of pathologies of the self. Beginning with the case of Margaret Little, analyzed by D. W. Winnicott, and proceeding to extended case presentations from his own practice, Kirshner weaves together an avowedly American reading of Lacan with the approaches to self pathology of an influential coterie of theorists. By drawing out common threads in their respective discourses on the self, Kirshner achieves an original integration of Lacanian theory with other contemporary approaches to self pathology. Of special note is his ability to sustain a dialogue between Lacan and Kohut, whose shared clinical object, discernible through divergent vocabularies and conceptions, is the struggle of the subject to avoid fragmentation that would obliterate a sense of aliveness and preclude active engagement with the world. Kirshner's opening chapter on the gifted, troubled Margaret Little and his concluding chapter on the eminent political philosopher Louis Althusser, whose self pathology culminated in his strangling of his wife, Hélène Rytman, in 1980, frame a study that is brilliantly successful in bringing "self" issues down to the messy actualities of lived experience. Analytic therapists no less than students of the human sciences will be edified by this cogent, readable attempt to infuse Lacanian concepts with the conceptual rigor and clinical pragmatism of American psychoanalysis and to apply the resulting model of therapeutic action to a fascinating range of case material.

In this provocative and original work, Slavoj _i_ek takes a look at the question of human agency in a postmodern world. From the sinking of the Titanic to Hitchcock’s Rear Window, from the operas of Wagner to science fiction, from Alien to the Jewish Joke, the author’s acute analyses explore the ideological fantasies of wholeness and exclusion which make up human society. _i_ek takes issue with analysts of the postmodern condition from Habermas to Sloterdijk, showing that the idea of a ‘post-ideological’ world ignores the fact that ‘even if we do not take things seriously, we are still doing them’. Rejecting postmodernism’s unified world of surfaces, he traces a line of thought from Hegel to Althusser and Lacan, in which the human subject is split, divided by a deep antagonism which determines social reality and through which ideology operates. Linking key psychoanalytical and philosophical concepts to social phenomena such as totalitarianism and racism, the book explores the political significance of these fantasies of control. In so doing, The Sublime Object of Ideology represents a powerful contribution to a psychoanalytical theory of ideology, as well as offering persuasive interpretations of a number of contemporary cultural formations.