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All Topic Reviews A Basic Theory of NeuropsychoanalysisA Cursing Brain?A Dream of Undying FameA Map of the MindAfter LacanAgainst AdaptationAgainst FreudAn Anatomy of AddictionAnalytic FreudAndré Green at the Squiggle FoundationAnger, Madness, and the DaimonicAnna FreudAnna Freud: A BiographyApproaching PsychoanalysisAttachment and PsychoanalysisBadiouBecoming a SubjectBefore ForgivingBerlin PsychoanalyticBetween Emotion and CognitionBeyond GenderBeyond SexualityBeyond the Pleasure PrincipleBiology of FreedomBoundaries and Boundary Violations in PsychoanalysisBuilding on BionCare of the PsycheCarl JungCassandra's DaughterCherishmentConfusion of TonguesContemporary Psychoanalysis and the Legacy of the Third ReichCrucial Choices, Crucial ChangesCulture and Conflict in Child and Adolescent Mental HealthDarwin's WormsDesert Islands and Other Texts (1953-1974)Dispatches from the Freud WarsDoes the Woman Exist?Doing Psychoanalysis in TehranDreaming and Other Involuntary MentationDreaming by the BookEnergy Psychology InteractiveEqualsErrant SelvesEthics and the Discovery of the UnconsciousEthics Case Book of the American Psychoanalytic AssociationFairbairn's Object Relations Theory in the Clinical SettingFed with Tears -- Poisoned with MilkFeminism and Its DiscontentsForms of Intersubjectivity in Infant Reasearch and Adult TreatmentFour Lessons of PsychoanalysisFratricide in the Holy LandFreudFreudFreudFreudFreudFreudFreud and the Question of PseudoscienceFreud As PhilosopherFreud at 150Freud's AnswerFreud's WizardFreud, the Reluctant PhilosopherFrom Classical to Contemporary PsychoanalysisFundamentals of Psychoanalytic TechniqueGenes on the CouchGoing SaneHans BellmerHappiness, Death, and the Remainder of LifeHate and Love in Psychoanalytical InstitutionsHatred and ForgivenessHealing the Soul in the Age of the BrainHeinz KohutHeinz KohutHidden MindsHistory of ShitHope and Dread in PsychoanalysisImagination and Its PathologiesImagine There's No WomanIn Freud's TracksIn SessionIn the Floyd ArchivesIntimaciesIntimate RevoltIrrationalityIs Oedipus Online?Jacques LacanJacques Lacan and the Freudian Practice of PsychoanalysisJung and the Making of Modern PsychologyJung Stripped BareKilling FreudLacanLacanLacanLacan and Contemporary FilmLacan at the SceneLacan For BeginnersLacan in AmericaLacan TodayLacan's Seminar on AnxietyLawLearning from Our MistakesLove's ExecutionerMad Men and MedusasMale Female EmailMelanie KleinMemoirs of My Nervous IllnessMental SlaveryMind to MindMixing MindsMoral StealthMourning and ModernityMovies and the MindMurder in ByzantiumNew Studies of Old VillainsNocturnesNoir AnxietyOn Being Normal and Other DisordersOn BeliefOn IncestOn Not Being Able to SleepOn the Freud WatchOn the Way HomeOpen MindedOpera's Second DeathOvercoming Destructive Beliefs, Feelings, and BehaviorsPhenomology & Lacan on Schizophrenia, After the Decade of the BrainPhilosophical Counselling and the UnconsciousPractical Psychoanalysis for Therapists and PatientsPsychiatry, Psychoanalysis, And The New Biology Of MindPsychoanalysisPsychoanalysisPsychoanalysis and Narrative MedicinePsychoanalysis and NeurosciencePsychoanalysis and the Philosophy of SciencePsychoanalysis as Biological SciencePsychoanalysis at the MarginsPsychoanalysis at the MarginsPsychoanalysis in a New LightPsychoanalysis in FocusPsychology, Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis, and the Politics of Human RelationshipsPsychotherapy As PraxisPutnam CampQuestions for FreudRe-Inventing the SymptomReading Seminar XXReinventing the SoulRelational Theory and the Practice of PsychotherapyRelationalityRepressed SpacesRevolt, She SaidSecrets of the SoulSerious ShoppingSex on the CouchSexuationSigmund FreudSoul Murder RevisitedSpectral EvidenceSpirit, Mind, and BrainStrangers to OurselvesSubjective Experience and the Logic of the OtherSubjectivity and OthernessSubstance Abuse As SymptomSurrealist Painters and PoetsTaboo SubjectsTalk is Not EnoughThe Arabic FreudThe Art of the SubjectThe Brain and the Inner WorldThe Brain, the Mind and the SelfThe Cambridge Companion to LacanThe Challenge for Psychoanalysis and PsychotherapyThe Clinical LacanThe Colonization Of Psychic SpaceThe Condition of MadnessThe Couch and the TreeThe Cruelty of DepressionThe Dissociative Mind in PsychoanalysisThe Dreams of InterpretationThe Examined LifeThe Fall Of An IconThe Freud EncyclopediaThe Freud FilesThe Freud WarsThe Fright of Real TearsThe Future of PsychoanalysisThe Gift of TherapyThe Heart & Soul of ChangeThe Knotted SubjectThe Last Good FreudianThe Late Sigmund FreudThe Letters of Sigmund Freud and Otto RankThe Mind According to ShakespeareThe Mystery of PersonalityThe Mythological UnconsciousThe Neuropsychology of the UnconsciousThe New PsychoanalysisThe Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and PsychoanalysisThe Power of FeelingsThe Psychoanalytic MovementThe Psychoanalytic MysticThe Psychoanalytic Study of the ChildThe Psychoanalytic Study of the ChildThe Psychodynamics of Gender and Gender RoleThe Puppet and the DwarfThe Real World Guide to Psychotherapy PracticeThe Revolt of the PrimitiveThe Seminar of Moustafa SafouanThe Sense and Non-Sense of RevoltThe Shortest ShadowThe Social History of the UnconsciousThe Surface EffectThe Symmetry of GodThe Tragedy of the SelfThe Trainings of the PsychoanalystThe UnsayableThe World of PerversionTherapeutic ActionTherapy's DelusionsThis Incredible Need to BelieveThoughts Without A ThinkerTo Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the WorldTrauma and Human ExistenceTraumatizing TheoryUmbr(a)Unconscious knowing and other essays in psycho-philosophical analysisUnderstanding Dissidence and Controversy in the History of PsychoanalysisUnderstanding PsychoanalysisUnfree AssociationsWalking HeadsWay Beyond FreudWhat Does a Woman Want?What Freud Really MeantWhen the Body SpeaksWhere Do We Fall When We Fall in Love?Whose Freud?Why Psychoanalysis?Wilhelm ReichWinnicottWinnicott On the ChildWisdom Won from IllnessWittgenstein on Freud and FrazerWittgenstein Reads FreudWorld, Affectivity, TraumaZizek
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Joseph Newirth's
book puts forward a creative image of the mind where psychoanalysis does not
succumb to conscious and rational thought processes, but instead, shows how
rationality is creatively kept alive through the unconscious. This book
reconstructs the notions of subjectivity, and the relation between reality and
fantasy, by presenting a formalized neo-Kleinian approach that focuses on the
generative unconscious, and integrates both concepts derived from relational
psychoanalysis and the work of Klein, Winnicott, Matte Blanco, and Lacan.
Joseph Newirth's
book can be divided into three parts. The first part (Chapters 1 to 3) sets the
theoretical stage for a change of focus of psychoanalysis from that of conflict
to the creation of meaning. The second part (Chapters 4 to 7) develops Newirth's
clinical approach expanding the Kleinian concept of paranoid position and the
implications of a neo-Kleinian theory of mind for clinical technique. The third
and final part (Chapters 8 to 10) shows how subjectivity is a function of the
development of the generative unconscious and how failures in the development
of subjectivity are a function of pathology of consciousness and inability to
use symbolic processes.
The first chapters
of the book begin by explaining how the epistemological shift undergone in
psychoanalysis allowed showing that creating meaning and the subject's
developing capacity to create meaning is the most significant aspect of
therapeutic experience. Chapter 1 shows how the Kleinian approach allows the
development of a neo-Kleinian psychoanalytic practice where the task of the
analyst is to facilitate the transformation of the concrete experiences of the
paranoid-schizoid mode into the symbolic experience of the depressive mode
where unconscious fantasy enlivens experience and relationships. Then, Chapter
2 shows how the need to understand and treat contemporary patients, the "hollow
men," with their experience of meaningless, demands a revision of the
notion of personhood to one that focuses on the structures of subjectivity, on
how experience and meaning are generated rather than on the structure of ego or
the self. Finally, Chapter 3, deals with the paradox of personal responsibility
and concludes that it is important for the analysis to facilitate the
development of the three dimensions of psychic reality: those of agency and
personal responsibility; the capacity to use multiple modes of organizing and
generating experience; and the development of omnipotence and the capacity for
merger.
The second part,
where the clinical approach is presented, points out what issues need expanding
and reformulation in order to facilitate the development of the three dimension
of psychic reality identified earlier. Accordingly this part covers a wide
range of concepts from psychoanalysis starting with projection, identification
and enactment (Chapter 4), the role of Power in psychoanalysis (Chapter 5), the
capacity to think symbolically and to create meaning (Chapter 6), and Winnicott's
concept of transitional experience and Bion's concept of reverie (Chapter 7).
In the last part
of this book, Newirth argues against the analytic injunction of making the
unconscious conscious and presents an argument for making consciousness
unconscious. First, Newirth shows how the neo-Kleinian model he proposes views
the unconscious as an expanding structure of mind, a set of functions that
generate the powerful forces and modes of thought traditionally associated with
the unconscious and that act both as the center of psychopathology and as a
source of energy, hope and creativity. Then, Newirth illustrates (Chapter 9)
the way in which many patients are imposed in the asymmetrical world of
external reality and have not developed the symmetrical symbolic capacities
necessary for the integration of unconscious experience; they are unable to
make believe, to play, to have pleasure and joy, and to have a creative and
passionate commitment to life. Finally, Newirth is able to conclude that from a
neo-Kleinian perspective, the concepts of subject, subjectivity, and intersubjectivity
are not located in the external world of science, but reside in the generative
unconscious, where meanings are created through symmetrical logic and the
symbolic processes of the depressive position.
Newirth not only
gives a short version of the history of psychoanalysis pointing out how his
neo-Kleinian approach differs from previous psychoanalytic approaches but, in
addition, all his theoretical reflections are given with clinical illustrations
that appear at the end of each chapter, testifying that this book is the result
of years of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis practice.
When one starts to
read the book, its material seems dense, and the flow requires paying careful
attention to the many references of the history of psychoanalysis. However, at
the end of the book one feels a comfortable familiarity with many of the names
of psychoanalysis, and one also feels more comfortable with one's own
unconscious, discovering the bit of therapist and the bit of patient in each
one of us. Thus, Newirth's book makes us capable of dealing with the little bit
of hollowness that touches all of us.
© 2004 Dina Mendonça
Dina Mendonça is a Postdoctoral
Fellow of Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal, at the Instituto
de Filosofia da Linguagem in the Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
Working in a research program on "Pragmatic
Analysis of Emotion." This research, of Deweyan inspiration, aims at
elaborating a critical interpretation of the philosophy of emotions clarifying:
on the one hand, (1) the different methodological approaches to emotions; on
the other hand, (2) the topics that surround reflection upon emotion. Among
other things, the project aims at the production of a commented bibliography
and a research database on philosophy of emotion. |
