The Unconscious: Contemporary Refractions in Psychoanalysis

This book explores the unconscious in psychoanalysisusing cross-disciplinary input from the cultural, social and linguistic perspectives. This book is the first contemporary collection applying the various perspectives from within the psychoanalytic discipline.

It covers the unconscious from three main perspectives: the metaphysical, including links with quantum mechanics and Jung's thought; the socio-relational, drawing on ideas from politics, inter-generational trauma and the interpersonal; and the linguistic, drawing on notions of the social construct of language and hermeneutics. Throughout the history of psychoanalysis, theorists have wrestled with the ubiquitousness and diverse nature of the unconscious. This collection is an account of the contemporary psychoanalytic struggle to understand and work with this quintessential, defining, and foundational object of psychoanalysis.

This book is primarily of interest to practicing clinicians and trainees. It is also of significant interest to any academic professionals and students who adapt psychoanalytic thought in their studies in the humanities, including literature, philosophy, and the social sciences.

Pascal Sauvayre is a member of the faculty and a training and supervising analyst at the William Alanson White Institute. He has a private practice in New York City. He is a co-translator of the upcoming translation of Laplanche’s The Tub: Transcendence of the Transference.

David Braucher is a member of the faculty of the William Alanson White Institute’s Division I Psychoanalytic Program and a lecturer at NYU Steinhart. He is on the editorial board of the journal, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, and author of Life Smarts on PsychologyToday.com. He is in private practice in the Manhattan’s West Village.