Bøker utgitt av Karnac Books

What is the place of suffering in human experience and how can we learn to be with it? This book answers the question by acknowledging that discontent and unhappiness are inevitable parts of our human experience. By becoming present, accepting and kind, we may enfold what hurts us in a more expansive and meaningful way.

Autonomy, Relatedness and Oedipus is an innovative and inspiring work from Thijs de Wolf that takes a critical look at the field of psychoanalysis. He takes the view that psychoanalysis is about both the inner and outer world and presents a compelling case. Using the works of Freud and other leading writers, such as Ferenczi, Faimberg, Laplanche, Lacan, Fonagy, Target, and Blatt, de Wolf investigates the central concepts of psychoanalysis and its place in the world. The wide-ranging chapters include a detailed examination of Freud's book on Leonardo da Vinci; discussions of the personality, the unconscious, and sexuality; the development of the psychoanalytic frame, not just in terms of the individual but also the object relational, group, and systemic aspects; the issue of descriptive and structural diagnostics and how to find a balance between the two; the analysis of dreams; the concept of change; the difficulties surrounding termination of treatment; and end with a novel explication of the oedipal constellation that brings many new insights to a key foundation stone of psychoanalytic theory. This book is written for trainees and professionals looking to find their own "e;path"e; in psychoanalysis; those open to findings from other scientific areas, such as developmental psychopathology, the neurosciences, attachment theories, and human infant research. De Wolf's theoretical pluralism and breadth of scholarship bestows a stimulating range of ideas to take psychoanalysis back to its place as a leader in the field.

For many years, debate has raged as to whether children are capable of embarking on a true mourning process. In When a Child Grieves, Corinne Masur provides an excellent overview of the myriad psychoanalytic theories on the subject and demonstrates conclusively that children can and do mourn. She describes how children and adolescents experience grief and how the mourning process can go awry. Dr Masur provides ample guidelines for the evaluation and treatment of children and adolescents struggling with their grief, alongside a multitude of clinical examples to illustrate her salient points. One detailed and poignant case history is returned to throughout the book, that of a three-year-old who lost his father to suicide. This sensitive and important work fills a void in the literature and will become a key text for trainees and qualified psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, clinicians, and other professionals working with bereaved children.

Psychoanalytic encounters are filled with the unknowability of two unconscious minds meeting. Here one may forge a link that enables the process of meaning-making, or else it can become the space for destruction, perversion, evacuation, regression, and stasis. The area that lies between the mind of the analyst and that of the analysand is thus the liminal area of psychoanalysis - of growth, change, turbulence, as well as that of impasse, bastion, and failure. This latter could be what Bion meant by minus links. It seems that the primitive part of the mind is always looking for ways to evade psychic pain and emotional truth is always in peril. Analytic links are always fraught with danger. Minus links share with each other the quality of evading truth and therefore inhibiting emotional growth and the capacity to give meaning to experiences. Blind spots may be enabled by analytic allegiance to our particular schools, our inability to forge a technique in the face of the protomental apparatus which can breed arrogance, the complacencies of language, gaps between our theoretical allegiance and our technique, and, finally, all too often, our unwillingness and inability to get in touch with our true experience. Would it help to chronicle our quotidian failures? In these liminal moments, the links between analyst and analysand slide away from the emotional truth, rather than towards it. Nilofer Kaul presents these moments and explores the complex reasons behind them in a stunning debut work that questions the heart of analytic practice.

'Any Psychoanalyst must find his own way and come upon well-known and well-established theories through experiences of his own realisations.' So says W. R. Bion in his Commentary in Second Thoughts. In First Thoughts, Jayne Hankinson does just this. She presents a personal account of her own 'realisations' and discoveries during an attempt to give thought to 'beginnings'. She explores the meaning and relevance of creation myths, leading to a deep realisation of how they unconsciously represent and shape much of our lives, even today. This exploration meanders through the Garden of Eden, leaving with a realisation that there is an 'Adam' and 'Eve' aspect in dynamic tension within each of our minds. This serpentine journey becomes a 'hermeneutic loop' in which dissatisfaction with parts of psychoanalytic theory leads to an engagement in the phenomena of beginnings and a consequent reappraisal and reinterpretation, via a closer look at Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott, and Wilfred Bion to formulate an understanding of what their 'first thoughts' may be. The book ends with the author's own creation myth reshaped and a deeper awareness of how important 'beginnings' are.

Vamik D. Volkan recounts the story of Judy, a woman attempting to solve her early life deprivations through non-chemical addiction. He provides an understanding of the psychology behind such an addiction and also illustrates pertinent therapeutic concepts and issues which arose in Judy's case. These include built-in transference, twinning, interpretation, dreams, hoarding, acting out, and therapeutic play. By paying attention to such things, it is possible to gain a greater understanding of the internal worlds of patients with preoedipal deprivations, conflicts, and fixations. For this case, Dr Volkan undertook the role of supervisor to an analyst in training. The topics of the psychoanalytic supervisor-supervisee relationship and the supervisor's emotional reactions toward the patient, whom the supervisor never meets, are rather ignored in the psychoanalytic literature. This book gives an open and frank overview of the relationship, reporting not only what was said but also what lay behind the words. Written in Dr Volkan's characteristically accessible style, this book will be enjoyed equally by those under supervision as those providing it, and provides an excellent overview of work with addiction.

The Body in the Group has been structured around the formation of a group analytic concept of sexuality, using the archaeology of Michel Foucault to move away from psychoanalytic theory, with its association to heteronormativity and pathology, on which group analysis has historically relied. The failure of group analysis to have its own theory of sexuality is, in fact, its greatest potential. It is a psychosocial theory that is able to contain failure in language and gaps in discourse, and, furthermore, can mobilise its creative potential in relation to the discourse of sexuality. Furthermore, using queer theory enables the failure of the term 'homosexual' by disrupting its association to heteronormativity and psychopathology that traditional psychoanalysis has emphasised. The potential of the group analytic matrix to disrupt and change discourse by conceiving of it using figurations and their associated political radicalism within language and discourse permits a radical conception of space and time. Bi-logic removes the potentially unhelpful competitive splits in power associated with the politics of sexuality and gender and, by doing so, enables multiple and contradictory positions of sexuality and gender to be held simultaneously. In addition, group analysis radically alters typical notions of ethics by being able to conceive of a psychosocial form of ethics. Likewise, queer theory raises an awareness for group analysis of the potential violence of its textual representation. Finally, analytic groups are 'figurations in action' when terms such as group polyphony, embodiment, discursive gaps, and norms (or no-norms) are mobilised alongside spatio-temporality and bi-logic. The group analytic literature so far has delimited sexuality and gender by over-reliance on psychoanalysis. Daniel Anderson, by utilising group analytic theory alongside the archaeology of Foucault and feminist, queer and education theory, has created an exciting and innovative way of working with sexuality in a group analysis setting.

The contents of the three volumes are grouped not chronologically but under the headings of 'Personality and Family Structure', 'Philosophy and History of Psychoanalysis', and 'The Psychoanalytic Process and the Analyst'. Together they present his interpretation of the 'Kleinian development' from Freud, through Abraham and Klein, to Bion and the post-Kleinian model; and within this evolution, his view of the natural history of the psychoanalytic process, the aesthetics of the method, and his insights into the operation of the transference and countertransference. Meltzer saw the psychoanalytic process as a new method that contributes alongside more traditional art-forms to our scientific knowledge of the mind. Working with both adults and children, he viewed psychoanalysis in developmental rather than narrowly therapeutic terms, with potential for both analyst and analysand. All his theories derived from clinical work, above all from dream-reading and children's phantasy play; and owing to his extensive international teaching experience, his own material was enriched by that of many supervisees. This collection of papers, read as a whole, invites new readers to follow and partake in what he called 'the most interesting conversation in the world'.

The contents of the three volumes are grouped not chronologically but under the headings of 'Personality and Family Structure', 'Philosophy and History of Psychoanalysis', and 'The Psychoanalytic Process and the Analyst'. Together they present his interpretation of the 'Kleinian development' from Freud, through Abraham and Klein, to Bion and the post-Kleinian model; and within this evolution, his view of the natural history of the psychoanalytic process, the aesthetics of the method, and his insights into the operation of the transference and countertransference. Meltzer saw the psychoanalytic process as a new method that contributes alongside more traditional art-forms to our scientific knowledge of the mind. Working with both adults and children, he viewed psychoanalysis in developmental rather than narrowly therapeutic terms, with potential for both analyst and analysand. All his theories derived from clinical work, above all from dream-reading and children's phantasy play; and owing to his extensive international teaching experience, his own material was enriched by that of many supervisees. This collection of papers, read as a whole, invites new readers to follow and partake in what he called 'the most interesting conversation in the world'.

The contents of the three volumes are grouped not chronologically but under the headings of 'Personality and Family Structure', 'Philosophy and History of Psychoanalysis', and 'The Psychoanalytic Process and the Analyst'. Together they present his interpretation of the 'Kleinian development' from Freud, through Abraham and Klein, to Bion and the post-Kleinian model; and within this evolution, his view of the natural history of the psychoanalytic process, the aesthetics of the method, and his insights into the operation of the transference and countertransference. Meltzer saw the psychoanalytic process as a new method that contributes alongside more traditional art-forms to our scientific knowledge of the mind. Working with both adults and children, he viewed psychoanalysis in developmental rather than narrowly therapeutic terms, with potential for both analyst and analysand. All his theories derived from clinical work, above all from dream-reading and children's phantasy play; and owing to his extensive international teaching experience, his own material was enriched by that of many supervisees. This collection of papers, read as a whole, invites new readers to follow and partake in what he called 'the most interesting conversation in the world'.

The first publication to document in depth the lived experiences of the partners of individuals who have attempted to take their own lives.

The Unanswered Self reviews the legacy of J.F. Masterson, cites his integration of neurobiology, attachment theory and considers concepts such as self-state theory. Clinical examples illustrate this dynamic approach to a therapeutic challenge at the forefront of today's caseloads.

This book presents a day long symposium with Adam Phillips and includes two brilliant essays that reveal what is at the heart of psychoanalysis.

Through the stories of individual children, this book illuminates the process of creative, play-based child psychotherapy. Each chapter focuses on a specific issue that brings a child or a young person to the therapy room and explores the use and meaning of particular objects and `object games¿. These insightful and dynamic stories offer readers a profound understanding of the healing power of play in the context of child psychotherapy.

Designed to give both students and practitioners access to the experience of engaging with a dynamic unconscious, this volume investigates some of the key tenets and principles of psychoanalytic theory and demonstrates ways in which educational psychologists have used both theory and practice in their roles.

Resilience stands at the limits of what it means to be human. The opposite of vulnerability, it defines qualities that are both relational and innately enforced. Mucci explores contemporary therapeutic approaches to intergenerational trauma, focusing on the key principles that foster resilience and healing.

Emotion is an integral aspect of musical experience. Evidence from neuroscience indicates that music acts on a number of different brain sites, and that the brain is likely to be hard-wired for musical perception and appreciation. This offers some kind of neurological substrate for musical experiences, or a parallel mode of explanation for music's multiple effects on individuals and groups. No one discipline can do justice to music's complexity if one is to have a sense of the whole musical experience. After various excursions into early mother/baby experiences, evolutionary speculations, and neuroscientific findings, Roger Kennedy asserts that it is the intensity of the artistic vision which is responsible for music's power. That intense vision invites the viewer or the listener into the orbit of the work, engaging us to respond. Music can be described as having soul when it hits the emotional core of the listener. And, of course, there is 'soul music', whose basic rhythms reach deep into the body to create a powerful feeling of aliveness. One can truly say that music, of all the arts, is most able to give shape to the elusive human soul.

This book documents research and therapeutic work carried out with children and adolescents living in social care or disturbed family circumstances in Bogota, Colombia. The children, aged from two onwards, were seen by clinical psychologists from Javeriana University in a programme developed by Cecilia Munoz Vila in conjunction with the Colombian Institute of Social Welfare.The research model used is based on ';The child-in-the-family-in-the-community' by Donald Meltzer and Martha Harris, and the methods used by the therapists include play, drama, drawing, singing, and other modes of inviting the children's own creative cultural responses to help express and work through their difficult situations.Many of the children and young people had experienced not only familial disruption but violence ranging from murder of a parent to recruitment into guerrilla bands. However their psychic struggles have a universal relevance and were treated, or explored, in an intensely empathic and mutually educative way by their young therapists, resulting in moving stories of the individual's capacity to grasp developmental opportunities.

"These four discussions held by Wilfred Bion with a small group of psychiatrists and psychotherapists in Los Angeles in 1976 were first published in 1978, edited by Francesca Bion. Despite its brevity the book covers in a very accessible way the main features of Bion's model of the mind and his view of the psychoanalyst at work. It therefore provides a useful introduction to his thinking, whilst the vitality of the exchanges demonstrates the creation and operation of a genuine 'work group' .This new 2019 edition also includes an introduction to Bion's model of the mind and glossary by Meg Harris Williams."

A new 2019 edition, edited and introduced by Meg Harris Williams.These two talks given in 1977 and 1978 in New York and Sao Paulo respectively are an edited version of discussions and spontaneous contributions made by Bion, in the main without notes.

The Kleinian Development derives from lectures delivered at the Institute of Psychanalysis, London, and the Tavistock Clinic (1965-78). It is divided into three volumes that examine, in turn, the writings of Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, and Wilfred Bion.

Explorations in Autism is a turning-point in both the understanding of and the clinical approach to autism. The clinical material gradually unveils the geography of the internal mother (which proved crucial for the development of Meltzer's 'claustrum' theory) and allowed him to draft, for the first time in psychoanalysis, a theory of the dimensionality of mental life

This volume contains a representative selection of talks and writings by Martha Harris and Donald Meltzer on the key developmental phase of adolescence, from their teachings both separately and together over many years. Similar books on this topic by these authors have existed for some time in Italian and in Spanish but not until now in English.

Sets forth an integrated concept of the 'natural history' of the psychoanalytical process, viewed in the light of experience gained in the child-analytical playroom, and applied to the more complicated phenomena of adult patients.