The Ego and Analysis of Defense

by Paul Gray

Overview

The Ego and Analysis of Defense, by Paul Gray, without a doubt represents a major advance in analytic technique. How therapists listen and what they do with what they hear must be the primary issues that any technical approach addresses. Paul Gray shows how technique has, until now, lagged far behind theory in addressing these and other important questions. This book is essential reading for every practicing clinician.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781568211923
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	09/01/1994
Pages:	254
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

Paul Gray spent his early years in South Dakota, then went on to the University of Chicago where he earned a B.A. and an M.D. At 25 he began analytic training and the practice of Psychiatry in Washington, D.C. For the past quarter of a century his scientific interests and contributions to the major journals have centered on the theory and practice of psychoanalytic technique. As a training and supervising analyst with the Baltimore-Washington Institute for Psycho-analysis he has for many years taught candidates and graduates, as well as social workers and psychiatric residents in the community. Elected twice as Councillor-at Large, his activities with the American Psychoanalytic Association also included serving on several of its Committees, and as Plenary Speaker in 1990. For over thirty years he has been a regular participant in the semi-annual work of the Center for Advanced Psychoanalytic Studies, held at Princeton, N.J.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Foreword to the Second Edition Chapter 2 Foreword Chapter 3 Preface Chapter 4 Acknowledgments Part 5 Part I: Technique Chapter 6 The Capacity for Viewing Intrapsychic Activity Chapter 7 ''Developmental Lag'' in the Evolution of Technique Chapter 8 On Helping Analysands Observe Intrapsychic Activity Chapter 9 The Nature of Therapeutic Action in Psychoanalysis Chapter 10 The Analysis of the Ego's Inhibiting Superego Activities Chapter 11 The Analysis of the Ego's Permissive Superego Chapter 12 Memory as Resistance, and the Telling of a Dream Part 13 Part II: Teaching and Supervisory Guidelines Chapter 14 A Guide to Analysis of the Ego in Conflict Chapter 15 Brief Psychotherapy, Dynamic Psychotherapy, and Psychoanalysis Chapter 16 The Ego's Predictable Response to the Unfamiliar Analytic Situation Chapter 17 A Brief Historical Perspective Regarding Defenses against Instinctual Drive Derivatives Reaching Consciousness Chapter 18 Reflections on Supervision Chapter 19 Elements of Supervision Chapter 20 A Conversation with Paul Gray Chapter 21 Undoing the Lag in the Technique of Conflict and Defense Analysis Chapter 22 Facilitating the Analysis of Conflicted Drive Derivatives of Aggression Chapter 23 Close Process Attention and Termination Chapter 24 References Chapter 25 Credits Chapter 26 Index Chapter 27 About the Author

What People are Saying About This

Dorothy Holmes, Ph.D.

With perfect clarity this book informs the mental health practitioner and scholar on the essential nature of psychoanalysis. It demystifies and defines the ego capacities within the analyst and the patient necessary to do the work of analysis. The technical focus and tools required of the analyst are beautifully explicated, as are multiple sources and contents of resistance inevitably used by patients during the course of treatment. The personal and theoretical difficulties therapists face in doing defense analysis also are brought to light.... The complete anatomy of this method of analysis is drawn...with illuminating clinical examples....This book is equally as useful for supervisors of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy as it is for practitioners, for it offers an exclusive model of the process of supervision that compliments the recommended treatment approach. In its fairness and lucidity, The Ego and Analysis of Defense makes... the technique in defense analysis eminently understandable.

Arnold Richards, M.D.

... The Ego and Analysis of Defense will be read with admiration for Dr. Gray's scholarship and creativity; at the end the reader will find Tray's precision compelling, his argument sound. He's one of the small group of psychoanalysts who have earned the rank of master.

Editorial Reviews

Paul Gray challenges us to get rid of the last vestiges of our hypnotic-authoritarian roots and to refine a technique emphasizing the collaborative analytic effort to comprehend the patient's mind at work. The Ego and Analysis of Defense will be read with admiration for Dr. Gray's scholarship and creativity; at the end the reader will find Gray's position compelling, his argument sound. He is one of a small group of psychoanalysts who have earned the rank of master.

Arnold D. Richards M.D.

Paul Gray shows just what it takes to carry out the analysis of the ego, most of all the analysis of defense. An acknowledged master practitioner and teacher, he practices what he teaches, maximizing the patient's experiencing the flow of moments in the here-and-now clinical setting and relationship. This he does by steadily using and developing the patient's own powers of self-observation. An added benefit is an excellent section on supervision. Combining a firm allegiance to psychoanalytic tradition with expertise on the cutting edge of clinical work, Paul Gray's book meets a basic need that will be felt for as long as psychoanalysis lives; it is the need to maintain a focus 'not on the life,' as he says, but on the psyche that both makes that life and copes with it, often all too blindly.

Roy Schafer

Paul Gray challenges us to get rid of the last vestiges of our hypnotic-authoritarian roots and to refine a technique emphasizing the collaborative analytic effort to comprehend the patient's mind at work. The Ego and Analysis of Defense will be read with admiration for Dr. Gray's scholarship and creativity; at the end the reader will find Gray's position compelling, his argument sound. He is one of a small group of psychoanalysts who have earned the rank of master.

Arnold Richards

This volume reflects Gray's constant emphasis on the centrality of listening in psychoanalytic technique. Gray demystifies and defines the necessary ego capacities within both the analyst and patient and explicates the technical focus and tools required by the analyst and the resistance used by patients.

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