Difference: An Avoided Topic in Practice (The LCP Practice in Psychotherapy Series) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 185575973X ISBN 13: 9781855759732

Publisher: Routledge, 2006

Synopsis

Difference is a complex and often disturbing issue. The purpose of this book is to encourage a culture of open enquiry into an emotionally charged subject which, the editors argue, has been largely avoided by the profession. Theoretically psychoanalysis is all about recognition and appreciation of difference, yet the psychoanalytic profession itself does not have a good reputation in this area. This is a courageous collection of papers. All contributors have been prepared to go into print about situations in which difference is a significant element in their work and one around which they have felt uneasy and uncertain as they have found themselves in uncharted territory. Through painstaking analysis of their experience and that of their patients and clients, each contributor provides the reader with some useful insights and guidelines for future reference as well as some clear and stimulating illustrations of effective thinking in strange and disturbing situations. What makes this thinking effective is the demonstrated ability of all contributors to preserve their analytic functioning whatever the circumstances.

About this title

About the Author

Bernardine Bishop has a background in academic English, writing and teaching. She is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice in London.

Angela Foster is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice, an organizational consultant and a teacher of psychoanalytic organizational consultation at the Tavistock Clinic. She has published widely in the field of mental health and is co-editor of and a principal contributor to Managing Mental Health in the Community: Chaos and Containment (1998).

Josephine Klein was an academic for the first twenty years of her professional life and then a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice, now retired. She has written Our Need for Others and its Roots in Infancy (1987) Doubts and Uncertainties in the Practice of Psychotherapy (Karnac 1995) and Jacob’s Ladder: Essays on Experiences of the Ineffable in the Context of Psychotherapy (Karnac 2003).

Adrian Dickinson is a Full Member of the London Centre for Psychotherapy, having qualified in 1990, and has a private practice in London. He taught English Literature at various Independent Schools for twenty-eight years and has given talks and conducted seminars on his particular interest, the English Romantic poets as precursors of psychoanalytic thinking, for the LCP, the C.G. Jung Analytical Psychology Club, the Forum for Independent Psychotherapists, and the London Bi-Logic Group.

Review

'Negotiating difference, in gender and generation, has been a cornerstone of psychoanalytic thinking. This important and courageous new book opens up a timely exploration of other differences that pop up in the consulting room around race, immigration status, criminality, financial status, pregnancy, illness, disability, aging and death etc. without reducing them to the more familiar. It is clinically detailed, which allows a point of entry into specific debates about how to understand and negotiate these differences in the service of the therapeutic task. More general issues facing our profession in an increasingly diverse and changing world are addressed equally boldly. It deserves to be read by student and experienced practitioner alike.' - M. Fakhry Davids, Member, Institute of Psychoanalysis, London

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 185575973X
• ISBN 13: 9781855759732
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176
• Editor: Bishop Bernardine, Dickinson Adrian, Angela Foster, Klein Josephine