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A reassessment of Freud's central concept of the Oedipus complex, using the interlocking perspectives of biography, intellectual history and Greek tragedy. The study establishes how Freud reached his formulation through his own self-analysis and clinical work.
In this stunning addition to what has of late become a distinct genre of psychoanalytic literature, Peter Rudnytsky presents 10 substantive and provocative interviews with leading analysts, with theorists from allied fields, and with influential Freud critics. In conversations that Rudnytsky succeeds in making psychoanalytic both in form and in content, he guides his interlocutors to unforeseen reflections on the events and forces that shaped their lives, and on the personal and intellectual grounds of their beliefs and practices. Rudnytsky, a ranking academic scholar of psychoanalysis and the humanities, approaches his subjects with not only a highly attuned third ear but also a remarkable ...
In his latest groundbreaking book, the author examines the history of psychoanalysis from a resolutely independent perspective. At once spellbinding case histories and meticulously crafted gems of scholarship, Rudnytsky's essays are "re-visions" in that each sheds fresh light on its subject but they are also avowedly "revisionist" in their scepticism towards all forms of psychoanalytic orthodoxy. Beginning with a judicious reappraisal of Freud and ranging in scope from King Lear to contemporary neuroscience, the author treats in depth the lives and work of Ferenczi, Jung, Stekel, Winnicott, Coltart, and Little, each of whom sought to "rescue psychoanalysis" by summoning it to live up to its highest ideals.
Rudnytsky explores the dialectical interplay between literature and psychoanalysis by reading key psychoanalytic texts in a variety of genres.
The psychoanalyst dares to explore the most intimate recesses of the human soul, to throw open long-barred doors, and to confront the forbidden knowledge beneath the surface. In Freud and Forbidden Knowledge, nine exceptional essays use psychoanalysis to uncover the theme of forbidden knowledge in canonical works of the Western tradition, from the Bible to Hamlet. Psychoanalysis is a discipline that seeks to understand and alleviate human suffering. Its practice is therefore an inherently dangerous activity. The psychoanalyst dares to explore the most intimate recesses of the human soul, to throw open long-barred doors, and to confront the monsters that may lie in wait. In facilitating the p...
How did psychoanalysis come to define itself as being different from psychotherapy? How have racism, homophobia, misogyny and anti-Semitism converged in the creation of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis? Is psychoanalysis psychotherapy? Is psychoanalysis a "Jewish science"? Inspired by the progressive and humanistic origins of psychoanalysis, Lewis Aron and Karen Starr pursue Freud's call for psychoanalysis to be a "psychotherapy for the people." They present a cultural history focusing on how psychoanalysis has always defined itself in relation to an "other." At first, that other was hypnosis and suggestion; later it was psychotherapy. The authors trace a series of binary oppositions, each d...
Sándor Ferenczi’s mutual analysis with Elizabeth Severn—the patient known as R.N. in the Clinical Diary—is one of the most controversial and consequential episodes in the history of psychoanalysis. In his latest groundbreaking work, Peter L. Rudnytsky draws on a trove of archival sources to provide a definitive scholarly account of this experiment, which constitutes a paradigm for relational psychoanalysis, as Freud’s self-analysis does for classical psychoanalysis. In Part 1, Rudnytsky tells the story of Severn’s life and traces the unfolding of her ideas, culminating in The Discovery of the Self. He shows how her book contains disguised case histories not only of Ferenczi and Se...
D. W. Winnicott is increasingly recognized as one of the most important psychoanalysts since Freud, but the relevance of his Independent version of object relations theory to psychoanalytic literary criticism has not been sufficiently appreciated. As Peter L. Rudnytsky notes, "There must be ten literary critics conversant with Lacan's ecrits for every one who has read Winnicott's Playing and Reality." Transitional Objects and Potential Spaces begins to redress this imbalance. The title and subtitle of this collection highlight three of Winnicott's key concepts: transitional objects, potential space, and the use of an object. Because Winnicott is unique in respecting the integrity of art as a...
Contributors explore the significance of literature and psychoanalysis for medical education and practice.
In Formulated Experiences, Peter L. Rudnytsky continues his quest for a "re-vision" of psychoanalysis by coupling his revival of the unjustly neglected figure of Erich Fromm with his latest groundbreaking research on Ferenczi and Groddeck. Committed at once to a humanistic and to a literary psychoanalysis, Rudnytsky explores the subjective roots of creativity and critiques the authoritarianism that has been a tragic aspect of Freud’s legacy. Through his clinically informed interpretations he brings out both "hidden realities" and "emergent meanings" of the texts and authors he examines, including Shakespeare’s Othello and Macbeth, as well as Milton’s Paradise Lost. A preeminent scholar of the history and theory of psychoanalysis, Rudnytsky displays an interdisciplinary expertise that makes Formulated Experiences truly sui generis and unlike any existing book. Bridging the artificial divide between the academic and clinical worlds, his eloquent championing of the interpersonal and relational traditions will captivate contemporary psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, while his insightful close readings provide a model for psychoanalytic literary critics.