Separation-Individuation Struggles in Adult life: Leaving Home focuses on the developmental task of separating from parents and siblings for individuals and couples who have not been able to resolve these issues earlier in life. Sarah Fels Usher extends Mahler’s theory, and includes the writing of Loewald and Modell, among others, stressing the right of adult patients to a separate life. She describes the predicament of Oedipal victors (or victims), their introjected feelings of responsibility for their parents, and their resultant inability to be truly individuated adults. Difficulties separating from siblings are also given analytic attention. Usher’s experience treating couples adds a new and powerful dimension to her theory. She is optimistic throughout about the therapist’s ability to help adult patients resolve the rapprochement sub-phase in a satisfying manner. An additional, crucial question is raised when the author asks if the therapist can allow the patient to terminate treatment. Has the therapist achieved separation from their own parents—or, indeed, from their analyst? Exploring the plight of patients of the unseparated analyst, Usher describes how these generational factors rear their unfortunate heads when it is time to end therapy. Listening to patients from the perspective of separation-individuation is not new; what is new is Usher’s emphasis on how these particular issues are often masked by significant achievement in adult professional life. Separation-Individuation Struggles in Adult Life: Leaving Home will be of great importance for psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists working with adults, as well as for clinical postgraduate students.

A collection of the papers of Margaret S. Mahler, providing an exposition of the development of Mahler's essential concepts.

Patients in psychoanalytic treatment present with a variety of problems that reflect contemporary cultural issues and values. Clinical Evolutions on the Superego, Body, and Gender in Psychoanalysis explores the effects of such societal changes on psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice, covering topics such as greed, envy and deception, body narcissism, gender roles, and relationships. Janice S. Lieberman includes numerous clinical vignettes and insights into working clinically with changing norms. Lieberman explores how changes in values and norms of behavior in the world beyond the consulting room have influenced what is now heard by analysts within it, using clinical data to demonstrate the psychological underpinnings of the values promulgated by current trends in politics and in society more widely. She explores what she observes to be "a new superego"; where deception abounds and often goes unpunished, where greed and envy have arguably increased and there is an enhanced emphasis on the body and its appearance. Traditional gender roles have been challenged in fortuitous ways, but a certain amount of chaos and confusion has ensued. Relationships are found and maintained using technology, yet many feel lonely and empty. She writes about the clinical dilemmas she has faced and offers suggestions for resolving them in working with today’s patients. Lieberman also sees parallels for these developments in several artists’ lives and in their work. Clinical Evolutions on the Superego, Body, and Gender in Psychoanalysis will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists.

Title #59. Why do so many go through so much disruption in their middle years? Why then? Why do we consider it to be a crisis? What does the pattern mean and how can we survive it? The Middle Passage shows how we may pass through midlife consciously, rendering our lives more meaningful and the second half of life immeasurably richer.

This fully revised fourth edition of Identity in Adolescence: The Balance Between Self and Other presents four theoretical perspectives on identity development during adolescence and young adulthood and their practical implications for intervention. Ferrer-Wreder and Kroger consider adolescent identity development as the unique intersection of social and cultural forces in combination with individual factors that each theoretical model stresses in attempting to understand the identity formation process for contemporary adolescents. Identity in Adolescence addresses the complex question of how adolescent identity forms and develops during adolescence and young adulthood and serves as the foundation for entering adult life. The book is unique in its presentation of four selected models that address this process, along with cutting-edge research and the implications that each of these models hold for practical interventions. This new edition has been comprehensively revised, with five completely new chapters and three that have been extensively updated. New special topics are also addressed, including ethnic, sexual, and gender identity development, the role of technology in adolescent identity development, and ongoing identity development beyond adolescence. The book is essential reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying adolescent development, self and social identity within developmental psychology, social psychology and clinical psychology, as well as practitioners in the fields of child welfare and mental health services, social work, youth and community work and counselling.

In this tribute to Selma Kramer, eminent child analyst and colleague and close friend of the late Margaret Mahler, senior analysts explore the continuing relevance of Mahler's separation-individuation theory to developmental and clinical issues. Editors Salman Akhtar and Henri Parens have grouped the original contributions to Beyond the Symbiotic Orbit into sections that reevaluate Mahler's theory. Section I is a timely reassessment of Mahler's working model from the standpoint of contemporary clinical and research findings. It includes comparisons of Mahler with Winnicott and Kohut, and commentaries on the status of separation-individuation theory in relation to psychosexual theory, early ego development, and observational infancy research. Section II addresses the contribution of separation-individuation theory to our understanding of pathogenesis. Neurosis, severe character pathology, psychosomatic phenomena, eating disorders, and sexual perversions are among the topics of specific chapters. The final section explores the role of separation-individuation theory in the treatment of analysands of different ages and with different kinds of psychopathology; it also considers separation-individuation theory with respect to specific aspects of the treatment process, including reconstruction, transference, and termination. A fresh reappraisal of a major perspective on early development, Beyond the Symbiotic Orbit is a fitting testimonial to Selma Kramer, who has played so important a role in elaborating Mahler's theory. Following from Kramer's own example, the contributors show how separation-individuation theory, in its ability to accomodate ongoing clinical and research findings, is subject to continuing growth and refinement. They not only advance our understanding of Mahler's working model, but pursue the implications of this model in new directions, underscoring the many areas of exploration that separation-individuation theory opens to us.

The development of how twins relate to each other and their single partners is explored through life stories and clinical examples in this telling study of twin interconnections. While the quality of a nurturing family life is crucial, Dr. Klein has found there are often issues with separation anxiety, loneliness, competition with each other, and finding friendships outside of twinship. When twin lives are entwined because of inadequate parenting and estrangement, twin loss is possible and traumatic, creating a crippling fear of expansiveness—an inability to be yourself. Therapists and twins seeking an understanding of twin relationships will find this clinically compelling book a valuable resource.

What is This Thing Called Love? provides a clear how-to guide for carrying out psychotherapy with couples from a psychoanalytic perspective. The book draws on both early and contemporary psychoanalytic knowledge, explaining how each theory described is useful in formulating couple dynamics and in working with them. The result is an extremely practical approach, with detailed step-by-step instructions on technique, illuminated throughout by vivid case studies. The book focuses on several key areas including: An initial discussion about theories of love. Progression of therapy from beginning to termination. Transference and countertransference and their unique manifestations in couples therapy. Comparisons between couples therapy and individual therapy. Step-by-step instruction on technique. What is This Thing Called Love? is enlivened with humour and humanness. It is crucial reading for psychoanalytic therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, couples therapists and students who want to learn about--or augment their skills in--this challenging modality.

The first book specifically for daughters suffering from the emotional abuse of selfish, self-involved mothers,Will I Ever Be Good Enough?provides the expert assistance you need in order to overcome this debilitating history and reclaim your life for yourself. Drawing on over two decades of experience as a therapist specializing in women's psychology and health, psychotherapist Dr. Karyl McBride helpsyou recognize the widespread effects of this maternal emotional abuse and guides you as you create an individualized program for self-protection, resolution, and complete recovery.An estimated 1.5 million American women have narcissistic personality disorder, which makes them so insecure and overbearing, insensitive and domineering that they can psychologically damage their daughters for life. Daughters of narcissistic mothers learn that maternal love is not unconditional, and that it is given only when they behave in accordance with their mothers' often unreasonable expectations and whims. As adults, these daughters consequently have difficulty overcoming their insecurities and feelings of inadequacy, disappointment, sadness, and emotional emptiness. They may also have a terrible fear of abandonment that leads them to form unhealthy love relationships, as well as a tendency to perfectionism and unrelenting self-criticism, or to self-sabotage and frustration.Herself the recovering daughter of a narcissistic mother, Dr. McBride includes her personal struggle, which adds a profound level of authority to her work, along with the perspectives of the hundreds of suffering daughters she's interviewed over the years. Their stories of how maternal abuse has manifested in their lives -- as well as how they have successfully overcome its effects -- show you that you're not alone and that you can take back your life and have the controlyouwant.Dr. McBride's step-by-step program will enable you to:(1) Recognize your own experience with maternal narcissism and its effects on all aspects of your life (2) Discover how you have internalized verbal and nonverbal messages from your mother and how these have translated into a strong desire to overachieve or a tendency to self-sabotage (3) Construct a step-by-step program to reclaim your life and enhance your sense of self, a process that includes creating a psychological separation from your mother and breaking the legacy of abuse. You will also learn how not to repeat your mother's mistakes with your own daughter.Warm and sympathetic, filled with the examples of women who have established healthy boundaries with their hurtful mothers,Will I Ever Be Good Enough?encourages and inspires you as it aids your recovery.

This book is about affect-its origins, development, and uses-and how it is viewed in a clinical setting. The authors track and further develop the recent major changes in the understanding of affect. From its roots in childhood development to its cross-cultural aspects, affect remains clinically relevant in issues such as aggression and forgiveness.