The Biology of Clinical Encounters: Psychoanalysis as a Science of Mind - Softcover

Gedo, John E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1138881570 ISBN 13: 9781138881570

Publisher: Routledge, 2019

Synopsis

In The Biology of Clinical Encounters, Gedo utilizes recent findings in neuroscience and cognitive psychology to elaborate his conception of psychobiology and to consider its implications in clinical analysis.  He pursues this challenging undertaking in several directions.  He illuminates the way in which psychobiology enters into his hierarchical model of mental functioning, and goes on to examine three clinical syndromes - phobias, obsessions, and affective disturbances - in which biological considerations are particularly important.  Of special note are chapters examining the implications of a biological approach for clinical psychoanalysis.  Gedo explores the notion of transference that grows out of attentiveness to psychobiological factors, elaborates the concept of therapeutics that follows from looking beyond mental contents, and discusses the problem of assessing clinical evidence produced by analyses informed by a psychobiological orientation.  Drawing on his own analytic work of over three decades, he compares analyses conducted with a psychobiological orientation with the outcome of analyses conducted earlier in his career with a more traditional psychological approach.

A stimulating introduction to the interpenetration of the biological and the psychological in clinical work, The Biology of Clinical Encounters is quintessential Gedo: scholarly in conception, elegant in tone, provocative in import, and illuminating, always, of fundamental issues about the status of psychoanalysis as a science of mind.  

About this title

About the Author:

John E. Gedo, M.D., retired in 1990 as Training and Supervising Analyst, Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis.  His books include Conceptual Issues in Psychoanalysis (1986); The Mind in Disorder (1988); and Portraits of the Artist (1989), all published by Analytic Press

Review:

"The Gedo spirit is open, questioning, probing, flexible, and eminently willing to adapt the analytic process to the needs of the patient. His reflections embrace clinical examples that are consistently illuminating and to the point."

- W. W. Meissner, M.D. 

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1138881570
• ISBN 13: 9781138881570
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 212