Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: A Handbook

by Matthias Elzer (Editor), Alf Gerlach (Editor)

Overview

This book provides a complete and fundamental overview, from a psychoanalytical point of view, on theoretical and clinical aspects of psychodynamic or psychoanalytic psychotherapy. It includes the theory of the human mind, psychic development, psychic conflicts, trauma, and dreams.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780491196
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/17/2014
Series:	The EFPP Monograph Series
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 9.60(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Alf Gerlach is an academically qualified sociologist. He is a member of the German and International Psychoanalytic Association and of the German Psychoanalytic Society. He has published work on clinical psychoanalysis and ethnopsychoanalysis and researched in the field of mass hysteria in South-China since 1983.

Table of Contents

Series Editor’s Preface — Preface — Psychoanalytic Theory of the Human Mind — Psychoanalytic Theory of Psychic Development through the Life Span — Conflict, Trauma, Defence Mechanisms, and Symptom Formation — Dreams — The Therapeutic Relationship — The Setting in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy — Diagnosis and Treatment in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy — Psychopathology and Psychodynamics of Neurosis — Psychopathology and Psychodynamics of Psychosomatic Disorders — Psychotic Disorders, Addiction, and Suicide

Editorial Reviews

"An excellent and well-presented overview of the complex field of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, this book starts with a clear and general exposé of the psychoanalytic theory of the human mind and of psychic development from birth to old age. This is developed and enlarged in further chapters through the careful description of the conflicts that are caused by the demands of reality, to which every individual has to adapt. The authors clarify and deepen the meaning and role of trauma, defence mechanisms, symptom-formation, as well as dreams in this crucial process. The central body of the volume describes with examples and real accuracy the complexity of the therapeutic encounter. It invites the reader to consider the clinical understanding of psychoanalytic psychotherapy by examining the role of the relationship between patients and therapists, the expectation and aims of treatment, and the importance of the psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic setting. In the chapter on diagnosis and treatment, some ideas shed particularly interesting light, very much from the German perspective, onto the role of first interviews and the idea of considering the non-verbal aspect of communication in the interview as scenic information. The book ends with two chapters, the first dedicated to psychopathology and psychodynamics of neuroses and the other with psychopathology and psychodynamics of psychosomatic disorders, which give this volume both a welcome quality of scholarship and practical down-to-earth appeal. This lucid, detailed and well-written book is the result of years of teaching and will appeal to all the workers in the therapeutic field and many others interested in psychoanalytic therapy."

Anne-Marie Sandler

"An excellent and well-presented overview of the complex field of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, this book starts with a clear and general exposé of the psychoanalytic theory of the human mind and of psychic development from birth to old age. This is developed and enlarged in further chapters through the careful description of the conflicts that are caused by the demands of reality, to which every individual has to adapt. The authors clarify and deepen the meaning and role of trauma, defence mechanisms, symptom-formation, as well as dreams in this crucial process. The central body of the volume describes with examples and real accuracy the complexity of the therapeutic encounter. It invites the reader to consider the clinical understanding of psychoanalytic psychotherapy by examining the role of the relationship between patients and therapists, the expectation and aims of treatment, and the importance of the psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic setting. In the chapter on diagnosis and treatment, some ideas shed particularly interesting light, very much from the German perspective, onto the role of first interviews and the idea of considering the non-verbal aspect of communication in the interview as scenic information. The book ends with two chapters, the first dedicated to psychopathology and psychodynamics of neuroses and the other with psychopathology and psychodynamics of psychosomatic disorders, which give this volume both a welcome quality of scholarship and practical down-to-earth appeal. This lucid, detailed and well-written book is the result of years of teaching and will appeal to all the workers in the therapeutic field and many others interested in psychoanalytic therapy."

From the Publisher