Quantum Psychoanalysis: Essays on Physics, Mind, and Analysis Today

In Quantum Psychoanalysis: Essays on Physics, Mind, and Analysis Today Gerald J. Gargiulo seeks to align psychoanalytic theory with physic's new probabilistic conception of the physical world and, in so doing, to provide psychoanalytic clinicians with a needed new metapsychology to support current intersubjective perspectives. The post-modern conception of quantum physics has called into question the certainty of classical physics, which sought law-like patterns of physical forces in a physical world of absolute categories that exist independent of subjective interpretation.

It is well known that the new clinical theories that have emerged in psychoanalysis since Freud, as a result of treatment experiences with a wider variety of patients, have not fit well with his original underlying metapsychological categories (e.g., id, ego, superego) and his explanations of competing energic forces (e.g., repression, repetition compulsion), which he created out of the modernist view of Newtonian (classical) physics of his time. Although the post-Freudian theories of object relations, self psychologies and relational psychotherapies have their differences, all share a contemporary focus on the indeterminacy of interactions between two subjectivities--patient and therapist---as they engage in mutual interpretation to create particular realities.

Invoking the new concepts and categories from quantum physics (e.g., non-locality, entanglement), Gargiulo presents a post-modern perspective that provides a new vocabulary for psychoanalysts and psychodynamic therapists to conceptualize how the mind works in interaction with the world and other minds, one that will resonate with their clinical experiences.

Readers of Quantum Psychoanalysis Essays on Physics, Mind, and Analysis Today will find fresh perspectives on the therapeutic processes that define contemporary clinical treatment. As readers engage with Gargiulo's use of metaphors from quantum physics they will discover potentialities for new metapsychological insights, moving psychoanalytic theory closer to 21^st century science.

Bonnie Litowitz, Ph.D.

Endorsements for Quantum Psychoanalysis Gerald J. Gargiulo dares to go where no other psychoanalyst has gone before. In this collection of essays, he introduces a new world, namely, the interface between quantum physics and the unconscious. Offering ahighly nuanced view of psychic reality that has implication for clinical theory, his insighrs are as perspecacious as they are original. His clear and basic presentation of quantum physics models engage both theory and technique. This text, with it other essays on psychoanalytic topics, should be of interest to anyone practicing in the twenty first century. Dr Jon Mills, author of Underworlds In these essays Dr Jerry Gargiulo considers psychoanalysis with a rarely encountered depth and breadth. Grounded in his life-long studies of religion and philosophy, including the philosophy of science, this volume offers an opportunity to grasp the fundamentals of psychoanalytic theory and treatment, from a bird's eye view, through models of understanding as apparently diverse as psychoanalysis and quantum physics. Presented here is the evolving perspective of a contemporary renaissance man that illuminates the trajectory of his quest for a broadly comprehensive psychoanalytic appreciation of human beings. Dr. Alan Barnett, Editor of The Psychoanalytic Review The humane and poetic reflections of a seasoned psychoanalyst - and a person interest in the vicissitudes of human life - Jerry Gargiulo's Quantum Psychoanalysis will stimulate and delight; and, like psychoanalysis at its best, enrich the way you see yourself and relate to the world. Dr. Jeffrey Rubin author of The Art of Flourishing