New Books in Psychoanalysis

Marshall Poe
New Books in Psychoanalysis

Interviews with Scholars of Psychoanalysis about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

  1. 4 NOV

    Anneli Jefferson, "Are Mental Disorders Brain Disorders?" (Routledge, 2024)

    The question of whether mental disorders are disorders of the brain has led to a long-running and controversial dispute within psychiatry, psychology and philosophy of mind and psychology. While recent work in neuroscience frequently tries to identify underlying brain dysfunction in mental disorders, detractors argue that labelling mental disorders as brain disorders is reductive and can result in harmful social effects. Are Mental Disorders Brain Disorders? (Routledge, 2024) brings a much-needed philosophical perspective to bear on this important question. Anneli Jefferson argues that while there is widespread agreement on paradigmatic cases of brain disorder such as brain cancer, Parkinson's or Alzheimer’s dementia, there is far less clarity on what the general, defining characteristics of brain disorders are. She identifies influential notions of brain disorder and shows why these are problematic. On her own, alternative, account, what counts as dysfunctional at the level of the brain frequently depends on what counts as dysfunctional at the psychological level. On this notion of brain disorder, she argues, many of the consequences people often associate with the brain disorder label do not follow. She also explores the important practical question of how to deal with the fact that many people do draw unlicensed inferences about treatment, personal responsibility or etiology from the information that a condition is a brain disorder or involves brain dysfunction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

    1h 29m
  2. 25 OCT

    Derek Hook, “Six Moments in Lacan: Communication and Identification in Psychology and Psychoanalysis” (Routledge, 2018)

    How can Bill Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” shed light on Lacan’s maxim, “The unconscious is structured like a language?” In Six Moments in Lacan: Communication and Identification in Psychology and Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2018), professor Derek Hook thoroughly investigates and explains a number of Lacan’s major concepts from his structuralist period, making them accessible to a wide-ranging audience with reference to entertaining examples from popular culture. Hook argues that, while the fields of psychology and psychoanalysis share certain questions and premises, we must, as Lacan insisted, remain alert to the radical disjunction between the objectifying aims of psychology and psychoanalysis’s unique attention to the subject, conceived as an event in language. In this interview, we hear Derek explain several of his book’s key arguments, explore the clinical dimensions of Lacanian theory, and, alongside Derek’s illuminating commentary, listen to Richard Nixon confess his responsibility for Watergate. Jordan Osserman grew up in South Florida and currently calls London home. He received his PhD in gender studies and psychoanalysis from University College London, his MA in psychosocial studies from Birkbeck College, and his BA in womens and gender studies from Dartmouth College. His published work can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

    1 hr
  3. 16 OCT

    Psychoanalytic Defense Mechanisms in James Baldwin’s "Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone"

    This podcast describes a short history of a man who did something we’ve lost in America. That man was James Baldwin who insisted on telling the truth. He confronted the harsh realities of racism, believing that exposing its ugliness was necessary for progress. He rejected simplistic solutions, arguing that racism was deeply rooted in American consciousness and imagination, beyond just political and economic inequalities. Instead, Baldwin called for a fundamental transformation of American society and identity. He critiqued white America, urging white Americans to confront their own behavior and complicity in racist systems. Controversially, Baldwin advocated for Black Americans to approach white countrymen with love, while still insisting on unconditional freedom, seeing this as necessary for true transformation. He ultimately wanted to build a nation that moved beyond racial categorization, focusing instead on individual humanity. Baldwin viewed racism as stemming from a deeper spiritual problem in America, where individuals and the nation lacked a true sense of identity. While he did not offer simple solutions to racism, Baldwin's penetrating analysis and powerful writing exposed the complexities of racism in our country, challenged both white and Black Americans to confront difficult truths, and provided a framework for understanding racism beyond just political reforms. His work continues to influence discussions on race in America today, aiming not to ameliorate racism in a superficial sense, but to push for a profound reckoning with and transformation of American society and identity in relation to race. Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone is a powerful novel that explores the complexities of race, sexuality, and identity in America through the life of its protagonist, Leo Proud/hammer. As the story begins, Leo, a successful African-American actor, suffers from a heart attack. As he recovers he reflects on his life and relationships. It is also of interest to note how James Baldwin’s novel relates to Dr. Matin Luther King Jr.’s non-fiction book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? Both books are discussed in terms of the major contributions they made to racism in America as well as how they illustrate psychoanalytic mechanism of defense. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

    42 min
  4. 6 OCT

    Sandra Buechler, "Psychoanalytic Approaches to Problems in Living" (Routledge, 2019)

    Sandra Buechler joins hosts Christopher Bandini and Tracy Morgan to discuss her latest book, Psychoanalytic Approaches to Problems in Living: Addressing Life's Challenges in Clinical Practice (Routledge, 2019), which continues her long standing exploration of the role of values in the work of psychoanalysis. The book discusses the many common difficulties that drive patients into treatment, such as loss, a hunger for meaningful work, the wish for revenge, aging, queries over forgiveness, struggles with guilt and shame. Buechler shows us how the analyst’s values inevitably shape their approach to these common topics, tilting treatments in myriad directions. As is her wont, she engages with poetry to deepen her explanations. She tells us that each of her books is generated by questions left unanswered in the previous one. And in each book, including this one, we see her in conversation with her forebears, particularly Sullivan, Fromm and Fromm-Reichman—what she calls her internal chorus.  What makes this interview especially rich is the discussion between Bandini, her former supervisee of 14 years and herself. She is a member of his internal chorus. Their tone with each other has a familiarity and warmth. But they have both had to face the loss of that particular way of relating, supervisor to supervisee. Buechler most recently retired from clinical work, making her a maverick in a profession where “dying in one’s chair” is not exactly a joke. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

    1h 2m
  5. 2 OCT

    Naomi Seidman, "In the Freud Closet: Psychoanalysis and Jewish Languages" (Stanford UP, 2024)

    There is an academic cottage industry on the "Jewish Freud," aiming to detect Jewish influences on Freud, his own feelings about being Jewish, and suppressed traces of Jewishness in his thought.  In Translating the Jewish Freud: Psychoanalysis in Hebrew and Yiddish (Stanford University Press, 2024), Naomi Seidman takes a different approach, turning her gaze not on Freud but rather on those who seek out his concealed Jewishness. What is it that propels the scholarly aim to show Freud in a Jewish light? Naomi Seidman explores attempts to "touch" Freud (and other famous Jews) through Jewish languages, seeking out his Hebrew name or evidence that he knew some Yiddish. Tracing a history of this drive to bring Freud into Jewish range, Seidman also charts Freud's responses to (and jokes about) this desire. More specifically, she reads the reception and translation of Freud in Hebrew and Yiddish as instances of the desire to touch, feel, "rescue," and connect with the famous Professor from Vienna. Interviewee: Naomi Seidman is the Chancellor Jackman Professor of the Arts at the University of Toronto, a National Jewish Book Award winner, and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow. Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

    1h 14m

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Interviews with Scholars of Psychoanalysis about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

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