Psychotherapy Books       

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Why Psychoanalysis?
By Elizabeth Roudinesco
Far from contesting the efficacy of new medications like Prozac, Zoloft and Viagra in alleviating the symptom of any number of mental or nervous conditions, Roudinesco argues that the use of such drugs fails to solve patients' real problems. From the man who takes Viagra without ever wondering why he is suffering from impotence, to the woman who is given anti-depressants to deal with the loss of a loved one, to the adolescent experiencing a variety of mental disorders, who is simply prescribed Ritalin, Roudinesco sees a society that is obsessed with efficiency and desperate for the quick fix. In contrast, psychoanalysis testifies to human freedom and the power of language.

Wool-Gathering or How I Ended Analysis
By Dan Gunn
This is a personal and humorous account of the last month of personal psychoanalysis, principally Lacanian in orientation, taking place in frenetic and strikebound Paris. A diary account, interspersed with a commentary on the analysis, Wool Gathering is not only a highly entertaining memoir, but also an academic account of a process, opening up a world normally kept private in a new and engaging way. I cannot recall enjoying a new book as much as this for a long time. It is beautifully written, immensely engaging, very funny, very informative and, by the end, moving. Professor Steven Frosh, Birkbeck College, London.

Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self
By Peter Fonagy et. al.
In a brilliant examination of the frontiers of human emotion and cognition, four prominent psychoanalysts combine the perspectives of developmental psychology, attachment theory, and psychoanalytic technique. The result of this marriage of the disciplines is a bold, energetic, and ultimately encouraging vision for psychoanalytic treatment. Historically, human emotion has been marginalized within the philosophy of the mind. Fonagy, Gengely, Jurist and Target argue instead for the importance of attachment and emotionality in the developing of consciousness, employing an extensive body of recent literature to support their claims.

Equals
By Adam Phillips
We would all like to think of ourselves as freedom-loving, egalitarian and democratic. Yet Freud has taught us that everything we do and say is rich in ambiguity and ambivalence: we are driven by conflict and antagonism, within and without. But if it is true that our inner lives are one unflagging drama of desire and dependence, of greed, rivalry and abjection, then how can we ever assume to know what might be good for someone else? In these essays, Adam Phillips examines such topics as fantasies of freedom, the nature of inhibition, and the social role of mockery. Throughout, he demonstrates how psychoanalysis allows people to speak and be heard.

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