An introduction to psychoanalytic technique from a Lacanian perspective. What does it mean to practice psychoanalysis as Jacques Lacan did? How did Lacan translate his original theoretical insights into moment-to-moment psychoanalytic technique? And what makes a Lacanian approach to treatment different from other approaches? These are among the questions that Bruce Fink, a leading translator and expositor of Lacan's work, addresses in Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique by describing and amply exemplifying the innovative techniques (such as punctuation, scansion, and oracular interpretation) developed by Lacan to uncover unconscious desire, lift repression, and bring about change. Unlike any other writer on Lacan to date, Fink illustrates his Lacanian approach to listening, questioning, punctuating, scanding, and interpreting with dozens of actual clinical examples. He clearly outlines the fundamentals of working with dreams, daydreams, and fantasies, discussing numerous anxiety dreams, nightmares, and fantasies told to him by his own patients. By examining transference and countertransference in detail through the use of clinical vignettes, Fink lays out the major differences (regarding transference interpretation, self-disclosure, projective identification, and the therapeutic frame) between mainstream psychoanalytic practice and Lacanian practice. He critiques the ever more prevalent normalizing attitude in psychoanalysis today and presents crucial facets of Lacan's approach to the treatment of neurosis, as well as of his entirely different approach to the treatment of psychosis. Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique is an introduction to psychoanalytic technique from a Lacanian perspective that is based on Fink's many years of experience working as an analyst and supervising clinicians, including graduate students in clinical psychology, social workers, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and psychoanalysts. Designed for a wide range of practitioners and requiring no previous knowledge of Lacan's work, this primer is accessible to therapists of many different persuasions with diverse degrees of clinical experience, from novices to seasoned analysts. Fink's goal throughout is to present the implications of Lacan's highly novel work for psychoanalytic technique across a broad spectrum of interventions. The techniques covered (all of which are designed to get at the unconscious, repression, and repetition compulsion) can be helpful to a wide variety of practitioners, often transforming their practices radically in a few short months.

Lacan's psychoanalytic take on what makes a pervert perverse is not the fact of habitually engaging in specific "abnormal" or transgressive sexual acts, but of occupying a particular structural position in relation to the Other. Perversion is one of Lacan's three main ontological diagnostic structures, structures that indicate fundamentally different ways of solving the problems of alienation, separation from the primary caregiver, and castration, or having limits set by the law on one's jouissance. The perverse subject has undergone alienation but disavowed castration, suffering from excessive jouissance and a core belief that the law and social norms are fraudulent at worst and weak at best. In Perversion, Stephanie Swales provides a close reading (a qualitative hermeneutic reading) of what Lacan said about perversion and its substructures (i.e., fetishism, voyeurism, exhibitionism, sadism, and masochism). Lacanian theory is carefully explained in accessible language, and perversion is elucidated in terms of its etiology, characteristics, symptoms, and fundamental fantasy. Referring to sex offenders as a sample, she offers clinicians a guide to making differential diagnoses between psychotic, neurotic, and perverse patients, and provides a treatment model for working with perversion versus neurosis. Two detailed qualitative clinical case studies are presented—one of a neurotic sex offender and the other of a perverse sex offender—highlighting crucial differences in the transference relation and subsequent treatment recommendations for both forensic and private practice contexts. Perversion offers a fresh psychoanalytic approach to the subject and will be of great interest to scholars and clinicians in the fields of psychoanalysis, psychology, forensic science, cultural studies, and philosophy.

An astutely argued and elegantly written (and translated) book on the philosophical genealogy and logical implications of the work of Jacques Lacan.--Choice

In Ego Psychology II, Gertrude and Rubin Blanck elaborate upon ego psychological theory, extending and broadening it into a psychoanalytic developmental psychology. They present the unifying proposal, derived from Freud's concept of an overall ego (the Gesamt Ich), that the ego is the organizing process itself. Out of this basic proposition, a holistic conception of psychological development evolves. Within the developmental framework established in Ego Psychology II symptom constellation is shown to be unreliable as a guide to diagnosis. A diagram of development is presented to convey that overall development rather than symptomatology provides guidelines for secure diagnosis and suggests how treatment is to be carried out. Treatment, in the form of ego-building techniques, evolves from recognition that developmental inadequacies cause pathological formations that become malformations in the structure. Ego Psychology II is valuable for psychotherapists, psychologists, psychoanalysts and social workers: the authors' extensive case-study material illustrates the theroy and technique of developmental psychology in vivid form. The authors show also how psychoanalytic developmental psychology updates drive theory, sheds new light on transference, redefines resistance and defense in the poorly structured personalities, clarifies the pathology of the borderline conditions of narcissism, and suggests reconsideration of the manner in which many neurotic formations are attained.

Freud’s central theories explained in the context of modern therapy. Often overlooked because he is so easy to mock, ridicule, or just plain misunderstand, Freud introduced many techniques for clinical practice that are still widely employed today. Yet surprisingly, there has never been a clinical introduction to Freud's work that might be of use to students and professionals in their everyday lives and careers. Until now. Bruce Fink, who is his generation's most respected translator of Lacan's work and a profound interpreter of Freud's, has written the definitive clinical introduction to Freud. This book presents Freud in an eminently usable way, providing readers with a plethora of examples from everyday life and clinical practice illustrating the insightfulness and continued applicability of Freud's ideas. The overriding focus is on techniques Freud developed for going directly toward the unconscious, illustrating how we can employ them today and perhaps even improve on them. Fink also lays out many of Freud's fundamental concepts—such as repression, isolation, displacement, anxiety, affect, free association, repetition, obsession, and wish-fulfillment—and situates them in highly applicable clinical contexts. The emphasis throughout is on the myriad techniques developed by Freud that clinicians of all backgrounds and orientations can draw upon to put in their therapy toolbox, whether or not they identify as "Freudians." With references ranging from Star Trek and the Moody Blues to hard drives and unicorns, Bruce Fink's elegant writing brings Freud into sharp focus for clinicians of all backgrounds. To readers who ask with an open mind "Does this approach allow me to see anything that I had not seen before in my clinical work?" this book will offer many new insights.