Torment Me, But Don't Abandon Me: Psychoanalysis of the Severe Neuroses in a New Key offers analysts and psychodynamic therapists an innovative way of understanding the theoretical intersection of masochism, perversion, shame, guilt, narcissism substance abuse. This constellation of psychopathology frequently is seen in clinical practice and often proves to be a difficult personality organization to treat. While Dr. Wurmser relies on elements of classical analysis to construct his theoretical framework (including a theoretical and clinical analysis of super ego analysis), he incorporates contemporary relational and intersubjective perspectives understanding that the analyst's involvement of the "self" is critical for the successful treatment of the serious neuroses.
Léon Wurmser, M.D., is clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of West Virginia and training and supervising analyst at the New York Freudian Society. Former professor of psychiatry and director of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program at the University of Maryland, he has also taught extensively throughout Europe. Dr. Wurmser trained as a psychiatrist in his native Switzerland and received his psychoanalytic training in this country. Author of 300 articles and coeditor of the six-volume textbook Psychiatric Foundations in Medicine, he has written several books such as The Hidden Dimension and The Mask of Shame. Dr. Wurmser is a recipient of the 1997 Margrit Egner Foundation Award in recognition of outstanding work in anthropologic psychology and philosophy. He maintains a private practice in psychotherapy in Towson, Maryland.
Table of Contents
1 Prologue Chapter 2 Sleeping Giant or Fossil? Chapter 3 "The Wall of Stone" - Broken Self and Broken Reality Chapter 4 Character Perversion Chapter 5 The Way from Ithaca to Golgatha - The Analysis of a Masochistic Sexual and Character Perversion Chapter 6 Superego as Herald of Resentment Chapter 7 Tragic Character and the Devastating Power of Absoluteness Chapter 8 "The Envy of the All-powerful Goddess" and Womb Envy - Some Basic Equations Chapter 9 The Core Fantasies - "From Abyss to Abyss" Chapter 10 Technique and Relationship in the Treatment of Severe Neuroses 11 Bibliography
What People are Saying About This
Heidrun Jarass
For several decades, Leon Wurmser has engaged in teaching and lecture trips through many European countries, especially in the German-speaking world. His immense clinical experience in the treatment of the severe neuroses, of superego pathology, of masochism, and of shame conflicts, represents a great enrichment for the professional public. His pronounced creativity and his ability to integrate new developments and insights in psychoanalysis within his own thinking allow his readers and hearers to participate in the newest gains in our field. In this, his universal erudition is always impressive.
As a German psychoanalyst I am particularly grateful to him that he so generously offers us his thinking that is so deeply steeped in Jewish tradition and culture. This is the more important since the events of Nazi rule have left in German psychoanalysis a great cultural and intellectual void, a vacuum that only slowly can be filled again with content and life.
Yet also for the American professional world, the opportunity to listen and study his world of thought could be enriching since he belongs to the steadily shrinking group of psychiatrists and psychoanalysts who have retained their ties to the realm of language and the humanities.
