Esther Menaker sees the ego as an evolutionary achievement emerging from the relational matrix of mother and child and the product of numerous psychosocial forces. She places particular emphasis on the individual's self-esteem as reflected in both the developing ego-ideal and the sense of identity. The full depth and originality of her thought is clearly illustrated in these papers, which center on three vital issues: masochism, identification and the social process, and creativity. For example, in a unique contribution, she shows how masochism, which she sees as stemming from the child's original dependence on its mother, is a major modality of character formation that precipitates the child's fear of separation and his struggle for individuation. Dr. Menaker delineates a holistic and developmental conception of personality that stresses the individual's integrative capacities to bring forth a new synthesis of the self.

Just as psychoanalytic interest in masochism dates from the earliest days of psychoanalysis, the various approaches to its understanding have reflected the developmental vicissitudes of psychoanalytic theory as it moved from its early focus on instinct to considerations of psychic structure and oedipall dynamics, object relations, separation-individuation, self-organization, and self-esteem regulation, and as it progressed into more systematic investigation of child development. Masochism: Current Psychoanalytic Perspectives offers an updated review of perspectives on masochism influence by current developments in psychoanalytic research and theory. The newer emphasis on and investigations of early preoedipal events have, as Cooper stresses in this volume, provided a significant scientific and clinical yield. The application of these newer perspectives to the issue of masochism holds considerable promise.

Menaker traces the historical and social factors that lead to different psychological problems, and emphasizes growth and the optimal fulfillment of an individual's potentiality, rather than the elimination of symptoms as constituting "cure." Her shift from classical instinct theory as the primary explanation of human behavior to what Kohut termed the empathic stance as a legitimate method of observation is clearly illustrated with clinical material. Organized in sections that reflect Dr. Menaker's major areas of interest, and written from the vantage point of more than sixty years of experience as a psychoanalyst and gifted teacher, this volume focuses on self psychology, masochism, women's issues, and the history of psychoanalysis. The book concludes with an interview with Dr.

The Clinical Problem of Masochism, edited by Deanna Holtzman, PhD, and Nancy Kulish, PhD, is comprised of contributions from prominent experts on psychoanalytic and psychodynamic understandings of masochism. This volume offers therapists of all theoretical persuasions ideas on how to think about and help individuals suffering from masochistic difficulties.

Within the psychoanalytic framework, there is a growing body of research and thinking about female development. In addition, there is ongoing research within other areas of psychology, such as developmental psychology and social psychology, which has important implications for an understanding of women's adult development. Often these research findings are not readily available to the analytic community, nor has much of the research been incorporated into a psychoanalytic framework. Psychoanalysis and Women broadens analytic thinking by integrating contemporary literature from psychoanalysis with that of other areas, both within and outside psychology, which has implications for the undertanding of women's development. This literature is conceptualized within a psychoanalytic framework. A basic premise underlying this book is that psychoanalysis needs continuing review and revision in terms of what women and men are about and a continuing focus on whether and how unfounded biases prevent analysts from understanding patients. The present volume considers how sexism and feminism are affecting psychoanalysis and exemplifies how the emerging field of psychoanalysis of women and the issues its existence raises should be conceptualized. It also exemplifies some of the positive contributions that a feminist outlook gives to the study of human behavior and should esxpand the range of hypotheses that we have about people.

Just over a century has passed since the sexologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing coined the term “masochism” in a revised edition of his Psychopathia Sexualis (1890). Put into circulation as part of the fin-de-siècle process through which sexuality and sexual practices considered deviant became medicalized, this suspicious concept grew in significance and explanatory power in the expanding new context of psychoanalytic discourse. Today the study of masochism shows signs of becoming a discipline in its own right, the political, social, and cultural ramifications of which exceed and, indeed, render problematic, traditional psychoanalytic perspectives on the phenomenon. The essays in this volume demonstrate, however, that the concept of masochism still offers a point of entry into psychoanalytic theory that, while revealing a number of its most vexing insufficiencies and problematic constructions, evokes also a sometimes surprising illuminative potential and capacity to adapt to changing social realities. And as the volume's title is meant to suggest, the authors represented here tend to agree that the continued rich viability of psychoanalytic theory in cultural analysis is best appreciated and ensured through engaging the theory's own social-historical and cultural contexts. The volume includes clinical perspectives on masochism, and articles on medieval romance, Goethe, Sacher-Masoch, Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Multatuli, Fassbinder, and masochism and postmodernism.