A Framework for the Imaginary: Clinical Explorations in Primitive States of Being - Hardcover

Mitrani, Judith L.

9781568214795: A Framework for the Imaginary: Clinical Explorations in Primitive States of Being

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1568214790 ISBN 13: 9781568214795

Publisher: Jason Aronson Inc, 1977

A Framework for the Imaginary is an extraordinary depiction of one analyst's efforts to receive and respond to the vivid impressions of her patients' raw and sometimes even "unmentalized" experiences as they are highlighted in the transference-countertransference connection. Dr. Mitrani attempts to feel, suffer, mentally transform, and, finally, verbally construct - for and with the patient - possible meanings for those immediate versions of life's earliest experiences as they are reenacted in the therapeutic relationship. She uses insights from this therapeutic work to contribute to the metapsychology of British and American object relations as well as to the psychoanalytic theory of technique. In these eleven essays, four of which are printed here for the first time, Dr. Mitrani masterfully integrates the work of Klein, Winnicott, Bion, and Tustin as she leads us on an expedition through primitive emotional territories. She clears the way toward detecting and understanding the survival function of certain pathological maneuvers deployed by patients when confronted by unthinkable anxieties. In her vivid accounts of numerous clinical cases, she provides and demonstrates the tools needed to effect a transformation of unmentalized experiences within the context of the therapeutic relationship. Throughout her writings, she warns of some of the pitfalls we may encounter along the way.

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About the Author:

Judith L. Mitrani is a Training and Supervising Analyst at The Psychoanalytic Center of California and The Newport Psychoanalytic Institute and an active member of the International Psycho-Analytical Association. Her interest in the area of primitive mental states has lead to numerous publications in both international and American journals, and her work has been translated in six languages. She is the author of Ordinary People and Extra-Ordinary Protections: A Post-Kleinian Approach to the Treatment of Primitive Mental States (2001) and is also co-editor--with her analyst/husband Dr. Theodore Mitrani--of the book Encounters with Autistic States: A Memorial Tribute to Frances Tustin (1997). Dr. Mitrani is also the founding and current Chair of the Frances Tustin Memorial Trust. She supervizes and lectures around the world on topics related to the treatment of autistic states in adults and the technique with the infantile transference. Her clinical and theoretical perspectives derive predominantly from the work of Melanie Klein, Wilfred Bion, Donald Winnicott and, most importantly, Frances Tustin's work on autism. She is in private practice with adults in Los Angeles, California.

Review:

”Dr Mitrani’s focus in the current genre of primitive emotional states is cogent, topical, and imaginatively integrative. She seamlessly weaves her clinical and theoretical threads through a vast array of contributions on the subject (Tustin, Bion, Klein, Winnicott, Bick, Anzieu, Ogden, and so many others), but it is Tustin who is her north star, and this book represents an elegant appreciation of her work as well as an imaginatively creative extension of it. The numerous and beautifully detailed clinical illustrations give the book a high degree of credibility.”
(James S. Grotstein)

“Dr Mitrani has that gift. Picking up where Tustin and the other pioneers left off, she provides a vivid and satisfying scholarly vision of the earliest mental experience. Rich with clinical example, her findings are presented lucidly and with flair.”

”A Framework for the Imaginary features richly detailed clinical exposition seamlessly alloyed with exceptional scholarship. Dr Mitrani is a gifted teacher, whose steady aim is to augment the clinician’s capacity to tolerate and integrate diverse theoretical positions.” (Judith K. Welles)

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