Scansion in Psychoanalysis and Art examines a strain of artists spanning more than a century, beginning at the dawn of photography and culminating in the discussion of contemporary artists, to illustrate various psychoanalytic concepts by examining artists working in a multitude of media. Drawing on the theories of Sigmund Freud, who applied psychoanalytic methods to art and literature to decipher the meaning and intention of the creator, as well as Jacques Lacan’s dissemination of scansion as a powerful disruption of narrative, the book explores examples of the long and rich relationship between psychoanalysis and the fine arts. Whilst guiding readers through the different artists and their artforms – from painting and music to poetry, collage, photography, film, performance art, technology and body modification – Sinclair interrogates scansion as a generative process often inherent of the act of creation itself. This is an intriguing book for psychoanalysts, psychologists and creative arts therapists who wish to explore the generative potential of scansion and the relationship between psychoanalysis and the arts, as well as for artists and art historians interested in a psychoanalytic view of these processes.

This unusual book explores the transformative power of liminal experiences in ancient Greek texts, psychoanalytic theory, and the author’s own life, to demonstrate how a contemporary understanding of ancient thought can illuminate modern psychoanalytic theory and practice especially as it relates to trauma, grief, and the development of psyche. With the understanding that liminal experiencing involves engaging a psychic space outside the boundaries of ego organization, Dobson artfully interweaves autobiography, literary analysis, philosophical ontology, and psychoanalysis, to formulate a new paradigm for how to construct human beings, how to enliven and deepen personal and therapeutic experience, and how poetic language is the gateway to this magical realm of transformation. Alongside richly detailed case analyses, the author uses her dual expertise in psychoanalysis and ancient Greek literature to explore how the maternal and liminal in human life were displaced with the rise of Athens and a new way of being human — the rational citizen — and how this repression has resulted in diminished, constricted experiencing and the suppression of women throughout western history. With a deep understanding of classical literature and psychoanalysis, and extensive clinical insights, this is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, classicists, and historians wishing to understand how ancient thought and modern psychoanalysis can interact.

This book explores the universal human existential trauma of "original loss," a trauma the author describes as arising from our primal, human evolutionary loss of experiencing ourselves as innately belonging to, and instinctively at home within, the larger natural world. In this trauma arose our existential awareness of impermanence and mortality along with the need to mourn that loss in order to create a sense of belonging and identity. The book describes how the invention of art and group ritual became the collective ways we mourn our shared existential loss. It describes as well how it is the art within the psychoanalytic practice that enables both patient and analyst to grieve their individual versions of our shared original loss. Drawing on the work of Winnicott, Loewald and Ogden, as well as art theory and religion, this book offers a new perspective on the intersection of metaphorical artistic thinking and psychoanalysis. This book will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and scholars of poetic, visual and muscial metaphor, creativity, evolution and history of art.

Psychoanalysis has not examined violence as such since it is a sociological and criminological concept; psychoanalysis is concerned with speech. On Psychoanalysis and Violence brings together noted Lacanian psychoanalysts and scholars to fill an important gap in psychoanalytic scholarship that addresses what the contributors term the "angwash" of our current time. Today violence is everywhere. We are inundated with it, exhausted by it, bombarded by images and reports of it on a daily, even hourly basis. This book examines how psychoanalysis can account for the many manifestations of violence in contemporary society. Drawing on a broadly Lacanian perspective, the authors explore violence in war, terrorism, how the media portrays violence, violent video games, questions of identity, difference and the ‘other’; violence narratives and violence and DSM, and explain how to account for how violence arises and the effect it has on us on both an individual and social level. These are just some of the daily social realities of the present day whose aggression are felt by everyone, which horrify us and which we often feel powerless to change. The contributors have therefore coined a term for this cultural malaise: "angwash", arguing that we are awash in angoisse or anxiety, in a constant panic regarding the impossible and contradictory demands of a "civilization" in crisis. On Psychoanalysis and Violence will be of great interest to Lacanian psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists.

Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the Films of Ingmar Bergman presents a contemporary Freudian-Lacanian assessment of this classic director. This collection is the first to bring together this unique psychological perspective on Bergman’s work. While Bergman and his films have been written about throughout the decades, until now there has not been a collection anthologizing Freudian-Lacanian perspectives on his work. Vanessa Sinclair brings together an international community of scholars and practicing psychoanalysts – some of whom are also filmmakers – to reflect on Bergman’s films, life, and work in philosophical, historical, and cultural contexts. They assess individual films in depth, compare multiple films, and focus on Bergman’s life and work in a cultural context. This book includes chapters on seminal films including Persona and The Silence. Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the Films of Ingmar Bergman will be essential reading for academics and students of film studies, psychoanalytic theory, and Lacan, and of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists.

Space in Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalysis in Space explores the immense potential of psychoanalytic thought to questions of spatiality. The international contributors combine the symbolic, the corporeal, the libidinal and the affective aspects of human experience, using psychoanalysis to reveal numerous facets and aspects of spatiality which remain invisible or blurred from other points of view. The focus moves from readings of the very physical space of the analyst’s consulting room and spatiality of the analytic situation through philosophical analyses of spatiality of the body, subjectivity, love and materiality, to specific applications of psychoanalytic insights in a wide variety of fields from architecture to economics. Space in Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalysis in Space will be of interest to psychoanalysts in practice and in training as well as scholars of psychoanalytic theory, cultural theory, literary theory, psychology, urban studies, space studies and philosophy.

Art, Creativity, and Psychoanalysis: Perspectives from Analyst-Artists collects personal reflections by therapists who are also professional artists. It explores the relationship between art and analysis through accounts by practitioners who identify themselves as dual-profession artists and analysts. The book illustrates the numerous areas where analysis and art share common characteristics using first-hand, in-depth accounts. These vivid reports from the frontier of art and psychoanalysis shed light on the day-to-day struggle to succeed at both of these demanding professions. From the beginning of psychoanalysis, many have made comparisons between analysis and art. Recently there has been increasing interest in the relationship between artistic and psychotherapeutic practices. Most important, both professions are viewed as highly creative with spontaneity, improvisation and aesthetic experience seeming to be common to each. However, differences have also been recognized, especially regarding the differing goals of each profession: art leading to the creation of an art work, and psychoanalysis resulting in the increased welfare and happiness of the patient. These issues are addressed head-on in Art, Creativity, and Psychoanalysis: Perspectives from Analyst-Artists. The chapters consist of personal essays by analyst/artists who are currently working in both professions; each has been trained in and is currently practicing psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The goal of the book is to provide the audience with a new understanding of psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic processes from the perspective of art and artistic creativity. Drawing on artistic material from painting, poetry, photography, music and literature, the book casts light on what the creative processes in art can add to the psychoanalytic endeavor, and vice versa. Art, Creativity, and Psychoanalysis: Perspectives from Analyst-Artists will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, theorists of art, academic artists, and anyone interested in the psychology of art.