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object and desire: psychoanalytic explorations

The editors are pleased to publish Object and Desire, the 2nd annual volume
showcasing scholarship from the faculty of the Postgraduate Programs at Adelphi
University. The papers included here reflect the breadth and diversity of scholarly
interests among faculty and highlight the continuing relevance of psychoanalysis as a
treatment, science, and profound form of human understanding.

In this book our contributors address the many facets of objects of desire,from
sexuality, attachment,and love to wealth, status, and power, such as the desire for
money, greed, and entitlement. Still other subjects of desire are desires in marriage,
intimacy, relationship, and the analyst's presence in mediating these longings. We also
desire to improve upon our theorizing through comparative-integrative thought while
preserving old paradigms in psychoanalytic history, as well as improving our
contemporary theories, practices, and innovations in current times. And lastly, we desire
objects that are often intangible, such as ideals and values important to a wishing
humanity. Here the desire for collective ethical and environmental consciousness and
the role of psychoanalysis in ecological sensibility, social justice, equality, and moral
integrity are the objects of virtue in pursuing a better world.

The Emerging Role of Interdisciplinarity in Psychoanalysis

In the last 20 years, many psychoanalysts made serious efforts to integrate psychoanalysis with and other branches of knowledge such as neuroscience, infant research, and CBT. According to this approach, clinical psychoanalysis can benefit enormously from knowledge gained by other well-established and evidence-based theories. For example, brain research on trauma and memory reveal new insights on the repressed memories of trauma victims, a question that haunted psychoanalysis from its inception.

Engaging the Self: Theory and its Applications in Psychoanalysis

The editors are pleased to publish Engaging the Self: Theory and its Applications in Psychoanalysis, the first of what we hope will be an annual volume showcasing the scholarship of the faculty of the Postgraduate Programs in Psychoanalysis and
Psychotherapy (PPPP) at the Derner School of Psychology at Adelphi University.

This FreeBook is unique in its focus on nurturing authentic dialogue within the analytic setting, offering a depth-psychological perspective on the processes of communication and engagement both clinically and from the perspective of theory.

psychoanalysis among competing schools: identity in difference

The third annual FreeBook from Routledge and ABAPsa presents both the clinical and theoretical work of board certified psychoanalytic psychologists working from a wide array of theoretical orientations. The issues engaged are as diverse as the theoretical orientations of the authors and each chapter has been selected to inspire reflection, critical thought, and scholarly colloquy. 

Psychoanalytic plurality in theory and praxis: clinical horizons

The second annual FreeBook from Routledge and ABAPsa presents clinical work from the practices of board certified psychoanalytic psychologists working from a wide array of theoretical orientations, with patients whose problems in living are equally diverse. 

More than simple case studies, each chapter presents a cogent conceptualization of the psychoanalyst’s thinking and how this thinking eventuates in a particular stance and interventional strategy. The chapters invite one to think about one’s own clinical approach and how it might be enriched and deepened by engaging each author’s work. 

comparative psychoanalysis:  reshaping the psychoanalytic domain

The selection of essays collected in this book is representative of the pluralistic membership of American Board & Academy of Psychoanalysis and presents different schools of thought including classical, relational, philosophical, comparative, Jungian, Kleinian, and Lacanian perspectives examining many diverse subject matters in theory, clinical praxis, and critique. All of the contributors' selections are culled from influential books published by Routledge, with chapters by Lewis Aron and Karen Starr, Morris N. Eagle, Jon Mills, Ronald C. Naso, Stanton Marlan, and Oren Gozlan. 

Taken as a whole, these diverse perspectives on the state and relevance of psychoanalysis today have many faces and valences that approach the politics of theory, human nature, culture, the psychology of the interior, intersubjective relations, and unconscious conceptualizations of psyche and society in multiple contrasting ways. Psychoanalytic pluralism and comparative analysis offers an auspicious sign for the future of our discipline.

progress in psychoanalysis: envisioning the future of the profession

Is psychoanalysis in decline? Has its understanding of the human condition been marginalized? Have its clinical methods been eclipsed by more short-term, problem-oriented approaches? Is psychoanalysis unable (or unwilling) to address key contemporary issues and concerns?

With contributors internationally recognized for their scholarship, Progress in Psychoanalysis: Envisioning the Future of the Profession offers both an analysis of how the culture of psychoanalysis has contributed to the profession’s current dilemmas and a description of the progressive trends taking form within the contemporary scene. Through a broad and rigorous examination of the psychoanalytic landscape, this book highlights the profession’s very real progress and describes a vision for its increased relevance. It shows how psychoanalysis can offer unparalleled value to the public.

Economic, political, and cultural factors have contributed to the marginalization of psychoanalysis over the past 30 years. But the profession’s internal rigidity, divisiveness, and strong adherence to tradition have left it unable to adapt to change and to innovate in the ways needed to remain relevant. The contributors to this book are prominent practitioners, theoreticians, researchers, and educators who offer cogent analysis of the culture of psychoanalysis and show how the profession’s foundation can be strengthened by building on the three pillars of openness, integration, and accountability.

This book is designed to help readers develop a clearer vision of a vital, engaged, contemporary psychoanalysis. The varied contributions to Progress in Psychoanalysis exemplify how the profession can change to better promote and build on the very real progress that is occurring in theory, research, training, and the many applications of psychoanalysis. They offer a roadmap for how the profession can begin to reclaim its leadership in wide-ranging efforts to explore the dynamics of mental life. Readers will come away with more confidence in psychoanalysis as an innovative enterprise and more excitement about how they can contribute to its growth.

reviews

"Books and essays on psychoanalysis seem to alternate between those that focus on its future and those that focus on its decline and marginalization. Is our current state of pluralism a sign of health and vitality or of decay and fragmentation? Progress in Psychoanalysis: Envisioning the Future of the Profession is a serious and rigorous effort to grapple with the tensions of the future of psychoanalysis under pressure to meet our health care system’s demands for access, cost containment, research evidence, and public accountability. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic education."-Lewis Aron, Ph.D., Director, New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis

"This book, with broad reach, addresses a pervasive problem of closed-mindedness within the culture and among the "citizens" of the psychoanalytic community. That closed-mindedness has been shaken in recent decades, but still includes much excessive either/or thinking about theory, technique, training, research, and what psychoanalyst’s can do. And the book addresses this head-on in its theoretical sections, and by concrete illustration in its sections on training, research, and work beyond the one-to-one in-the-office. It is very much a worthwhile read for the already-openminded and a necessary read for all the others. Having discovered in my own Clinical/research/teaching life the value of such open-mindedness. I found it fascinating again and again as I read through it and recommend it highly."-Fred Pine, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York City

"This book is a breath of fresh air. Perhaps a life-saving one. What unites its chapters is a recognition of two closely related facts: (1) that psychoanalysis is not important -- it is about something important -- and (2) that psychoanalysis is not about itself -- it is about the human mind, an object of study that we share with other disciplines."-Mark Solms, Chair of Neuropsychology, University of Cape Town and Research Chair, International Psychoanalytical Association

"The profession of psychoanalysis faces immense challenges to its viability. This stunning text captures both the internal and external challenges and it offers solutions. In three sections, "Perspectives’, "Research and Training", and "Beyond the Consulting Room", the book addresses the need to integrate disparate theoretical perspectives while maintaining clarity about core principles, to realize the relevance of psychoanalytic psychotherapy research, to develop meaningful collaborations with allied disciplines and to get smart about how the profession engages with health care reform. This book offers a path to a fundamental re-orientation of the profession and how it can thrive."-Harriet L. Wolfe, M.D., President, American Psychoanalytic Association; Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, UCSF

ethics of evil:  psychoanalytic investigations

by Ronald C. Naso and Jon Mills (Editors)

In today's world, where every form of transgression enjoys a psychological motive and rational justification, psychoanalysis stands alone in its ability to uncover the hidden motives that inform individual and social collective behavior. Both in theory and practice, it bears witness to the impact of anonymity on the potential for perpetration, especially when others are experienced as faceless, disposable objects whose otherness is, at bottom, but a projection, displacement, and denial of our own interiority?in short, the evil within. 

In keeping with this perspective, the Ethics of Evil rejects facile rationalizations of violence; it also rejects the idea that evil, as a concept, is inscrutable or animated by demonic forces. Instead, it evaluates the moral framework in which evil is situated, providing a descriptive understanding of it as a plurality and a depth psychological perspective on the threat it poses for our well-being and ways of life. In so doing, it also fashions and articulates an ethical stance that recognizes the intrinsic link between human freedom and the potential for evil. The essays collected in theEthics of Evil argue that moralizing evil is one of the most important agendas of our time.

reviews

‘Ronald C. Naso and Jon Mills have edited a fascinating, comprehensive volume on a topic of immense importance that for too long has been neglected by psychoanalytic writers. With a high degree of scholarship, the book’s various contributors address the multiple sources and faces of evil. In so doing, they penetrate deeply into the heart, soul, and justifications that underlie an ethics of evil.’
-- Peter Shabad, PhD, author of Despair and the Return of Hope: Echoes of Mourning in Psychotherapy

'In a book as sobering as its topic, the editors bring together a wide variety of perspectives on evil, all motivated by the conviction that evil is a multi-faceted reality that psychoanalysis has the power to illuminate. Global in its scope, the book convincingly brings theoretical, empirical, and clinical material to bear on its argument that evil remains a powerful way of thinking about human hatred and vulnerability, even - or especially - in the modern world.’
-- C. Fred Alford, Professor of Government and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, University of Maryland, College Park, and author of What Evil Means to Us and Think No Evil

humanizing evil: psychoanalytic, philosophical, and clinical perspectives

Edited by Ronald C Naso and Jon Mills

Psychoanalysis has traditionally had difficulty in accounting for the existence of evil. Freud saw it as a direct expression of unconscious forces, whereas more recent theorists have examined the links between early traumatic experiences and later 'evil' behaviour. Humanizing Evil: Psychoanalytic, Philosophical and Clinical Perspectives explores the controversies surrounding definitions of evil, and examines its various forms, from the destructive forces contained within the normal mind to the most horrific expressions observed in contemporary life. 

Ronald Naso and Jon Mills bring together an international group of experts to explore how more subtle factors can play a part, such as conformity pressures, or the morally destabilizing effects of anonymity, and show how analysts can understand and work with such factors in clinical practice. Each chapter is unified by the view that evil is intrinsically linked to human freedom, regardless of the gap experienced by perpetrators between their intentions and consequences. While some forms of evil follow seamlessly from psychopathology, others call this relationship into question. Rape, murder, serial killing, and psychopathy show very clear links to psychopathology and character whereas the horrors of war, religious fundamentalism, and political extremism resist such reductionism. 

Humanizing Evil is unique in the diversity of perspectives it brings to bear on the problem of evil. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, philosophers, and Jungians. Because it is an integrative depth-psychological effort, it will interest general readers as well as scholars from a variety of disciplines including the humanities, philosophy, religion, mental health, criminal justice, political science, sociology, and interdisciplinary studies. 

reviews

"In a rapidly changing world incredible technological advances constantly expose us to news of man’s inhumanity to man and make us witnesses to the most unpleasant events. It is very important that the causality of such disturbing human behavior is explained by those who study the human mind. With references to various psychoanalytic perspectives and by examining frightening individual and societal cases this book provides significant insights for seemingly unexplainable human stories."-Vamik D. Volkan, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and the author of Enemies on the Couch: A Psychopolitical Journey Through War and Peace

"Ultimately, I felt that the most important insight from this edited collection is that evil is inevitably contrasted to the good; one cannot conceive of evil, without the good. Indeed, confronting evil is surely what makes us truly human." - Henry Abramovitch, Israel Institute of Jungian Psychology for the Journal of Analytical Psychology

hypocrisy unmasked: dissociation, shame, and the ethics of inauthenticity

New York: Jason Aronson, 2010. 

Ronald C. Naso, Ph.D., ABPP
Stamford, CT

Hypocrisy Unmasked explores the motives, meanings, and mechanisms of hypocrisy. It argues that hypocrisy represents above all else a compromise among intrapsychic, interpersonal, situational, and cultural/linguistic forces and is observable in virtually all situations in which conflicts of interest must be solved noncoercively. In his treatment of this subject, Dr. Naso accords a healthy respect to the hypocrite's existentiality as well as to the impact of opportunity and chance on moral decision-making. Ultimately, hypocrisy exposes the ineradicable moral ambiguity of the human condition and the irreconcilability of desires and obligations. .

reviews

"Dr. Ron Naso presents us with an intriguing and highly original exploration of the phenomenon of hypocrisy. A psychoanalytically oriented psychologist, Naso asks us to consider hypocrisy without 'collapsing' it into psychopathology. He draws on psychoanalytic and philosophical texts to explore the sources of hypocrisy in dissociative mechanisms which function to avoid shame at the expense of morality."—Ellen Nasper, PhD, Yale School of Medicine

"Through striking clinical examples and painstaking analysis, Naso documents hypocrisy's emergence as a form of compromise against the backdrop of ambiguity and moral dissonance that virtually defines postmodern sensibility. Masterfully exposing the vital pull of the field without negating individual agency, he nests hypocrisy in a search for attunement that goes far in explaining its ubiquity in human affairs and its enactment in the consulting room by client and therapist alike. Hypocrisy Unmasked illuminates the intersection of two-person psychology and contemporary ethics in ways that will enhance our capacity to negotiate moral uncertainty, both in our patients and ourselves."—Abby Stein, PhD, John Jay College of Criminal Justice; author of Prologue to Violence: Child Abuse, Dissociation, and Crime 

"Rather than succumb to the accepted yet simplistically negative definition of hypocrisy, Dr. Naso has unmasked the intricacies of purpose and context, then reformulated this designation in the best postmodern tradition. The result of his efforts is a stunning book demonstrating originality, creativity, nuance, and keen scholarship. This book makes a significant and welcome contribution to the discussion of shame and dissociation for both clinicians and academics."—Richard Raubolt, PhD, author of Power Games Influence, Persuasion, and Indoctrination in Psychotherapy Training