Gregorio Kohon

This is a collection of the works of the Independent Group of psychoanalysts in Britain includes contributions to the theory of object relations, counter-transference, early environment, regression and female sexuality.

The Independent Tradition

The British School of Psychoanalysis

The Dead Mother brings together original essays in honour of André Green. Written by distinguished psychoanalysts, the collection develops the theme of his most famous paper of the same title, and describes the value of the dead mother to other areas of clinical interest: psychic reality, borderline phenomena, passions and identification. The concept of the 'dead mother' describes a clinical phenomenon, sometimes difficult to identify, but always present in a substantial number of patients. It describes a process by which the image of a living and loving mother is transformed into a distant figure; a toneless, practically inanimate, dead parent. In reality, the mother remains alive, but she has psychically 'died' for the child. This produces a depression in the child, who carries these feelings within him into adult life, as the experience of the loss of the mother's love is followed by the loss of meaning in life. Nothing makes sense any more for the child, but life seems to continue under the appearance of normality. The Dead Mother is a valuable contribution to literature on psychoanalytic and psychotheraputic approaches to grief, loss and depression.

The Work of Andre Green

The Dead Mother

This is an original first novel of an accomplished poet: erotic, humorous, exotic and sensuous. It describes the adventures of two young writers, set in the midst of political repression, anti-Semitism and violence during the Latin American dictatorships of Brazil and Argentina in the 60s. Kohon's text might be deceptively read as personal reminiscences. In fact, this is one of the many achievements of this wonderful piece of fiction.

Red Parrot, Wooden Leg

Interest in the relationship between psychoanalysis and art - and other disciplines - is growing. In his new book Reflections on the Aesthetic: Psychoanalysis and the uncanny, Gregorio Kohon examines and reflects upon psychoanalytic understandings of estrangement, the Freudian notions of the uncanny and Nachträglichkeit, exploring how these are evoked in works of literature and art, and are present in our response to such works. Kohon provides close readings of and insights into the works of Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Louise Bourgeois, Juan Muñoz, Anish Kapoor, Richard Serra, Edvard Munch, Kurt Schwitters, amongst others; the book also includes a chapter on the Warsaw Ghetto Monument and the counter-monument aesthetic movement in post-war Germany. Kohon shows how some works of art and literature represent something that otherwise eludes representation, and how psychoanalysis and the aesthetic share the task of making a representation of the unrepresentable. Reflections on the Aesthetic is not an exercise in "applied" psychoanalysis; psychoanalysis and art are considered by the author in their own terms, allowing a new understanding of the aesthetic to emerge. Kohon’s book makes compelling reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, art therapists, literary and art critics, academics, students and all those interested in the matter of the aesthetic.

Psychoanalysis and the uncanny

Reflections on the Aesthetic Experience

André Green

In Love and its Vicissitudes André Green and Gregorio Kohon draw on their extensive clinical experience to produce an insightful contribution to the psychoanalytic understanding of love. In Part I, 'To Love or Not to Love - Eros and Eris', André Green addresses some important questions: What is essential to love in life? What, in the psychoanalytic method, is related to it? Should we understand love by referring to its earliest and most primitive roots? Or should we take as our starting point the experience of the adult? He argues that while science has made no contribution to our understanding of love, art, literature and especially poetry are the best introduction to it. In Part II, Love in the Time of Madness, Gregorio Kohon provides a detailed clinical study of an individual suffering a psychotic breakdown. He describes how the exclusive as well as the intense lasting dependence to a primary carer create the conditions for a "normal madness" to develop. This is not only at the source of later psychotic states and the perversions but also at the origin of all forms of love, as demonstrated in its re-appearance in the situation of transference. Love and its Vicissitudes moves beyond conventional psychoanalytic discourse to provide a stimulating and revealing reflection on the place of love in psychoanalytic theory and practice.

Love and its Vicissitudes

British Psychoanalysis: New Perspectives in the Independent Tradition is a new and extended edition of The British School of Psychoanalysis: The Independent Tradition, which explored the successes and failures of the early environment; transference and counter-transference in the psychoanalytic encounter; regression in the situation of treatment; and female sexuality. Published in the mid-1980s, it had an important influence on the development of psychoanalysis both in Great Britain and abroad, was translated into several languages and became a central textbook in academic and professional courses. This new, updated book includes not only many of the original papers, but also new chapters written for this volume by Hannah Browne, Josh Cohen, Steven Groarke, Gregorio Kohon, Rosine Perelberg and Megan Virtue. Addressing and reflecting on the four main themes of the first collection, the new papers discuss such subjects as: · a new focus on earliest infancy · new directions in Independent clinical thinking · the question of therapeutic regression . the centrality of sexual difference in Freud. They also highlight the connections between and the mutual influence of British and French psychoanalysis, now a critical subject in contemporary psychoanalytic debates. British Psychoanalysis: New Perspectives in the Independent Tradition will be important not only to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists and the full spectrum of professionals involved in mental health. It will be of great value in psychotherapy and counselling training and an important resource for teaching and academic activities.

Gregorio Kohon

About

Books

Join the club