Salman Akhtar

Unlit Corners endeavours to bring light to neglected character traits which many struggle to overcome. Filled with relevant case studies and carefully crafted psychoanalytic theory, the book elucidates the multilayered nature of such psychopathologies and its treatment. Beginning in the public realm, Nina Savelle-Rocklin explores the complex meaning of 'dirtiness,' both literally and figuratively, relating it the body, mind, and language. Ann Smolen's investigation of miserliness follows, where she emphasizes that it is not about money, but instead arises from the poverty of internal good objects, which are the basic source of generosity. Jerome Blackman examines the nuanced potential meanings of shyness using psychopathology and underlying etiology, while Lois Choi-Kain deftly categorizes outrageousness into three types: a guilt-driven masochist, a hope-driven optimist, and a hate-driven sadist, with a subcategory for creative writers and artists.

Dirtiness, Miserliness, Shyness, Outrageousness, Shallowness, Indecisiveness, Restlessness, and Cowardliness

Unlit Corners

Good Stuff is divided into two main parts; Part I addresses Positive Attributes and Part II, Positive Actions. The former contains chapters on Courage, Resilience, and Gratitude. The latter contains chapters on Generosity, Forgiveness, and Sacrifice. Together, the six chapters constitute a harmonious gestalt of the relational scenarios that assure enrichment of human experience. This book offers socio-clinical meditations to temper Freud's view that human beings are essentially 'bad' and whatever goodness they can muster is largely defensive. By elucidating the origins, dynamics, social pleasures, and clinical benefits of courage, resilience, gratitude, generosity, forgiveness, and sacrifice, this book sheds light on a corner of human experience that has remained inadequately understood by psychoanalysts and other mental health professionals.

courage, resilience, gratitude, generosity, forgiveness, and sacrifice

Good stuff

This book integrates psychiatry and psychoanalysis to present deeper and sounder clinical profiles of the personality disorders than have been hitherto available.

Severe Personality Disorders and Their Treatment

Broken Structures

Joseph Breuer's celebrated patient, Anna O, designated psychoanalysis to be a 'talking cure'. She was correct in so far as psychoanalysis does place verbal exchange at the center stage. Psychoanalysis is a listening and talking cure. This book focuses upon analytic listening.

Methods, Limits, and Innovations

Psychoanalytic Listening

Mary Kay O’Neil

Jealousy is a human feeling experienced by everyone in varying intensities, at different times and phases of growth. Frequently confused, jealousy and envy are often intertwined. Even within the psychoanalytic literature confusion persists and much less has been written about jealousy than envy. However, unlike envy, jealousy involves three entities and affects all people involved. It can be painful as other difficult-to-bear feelings (e.g. shame, guilt anger, hatred) underlie jealousy. Yet, total absence of jealousy renders a person less human, less relational. In analytic terms jealousy is a defense against emotional anguish. This book begins with an extensive overview of the nature, developmental origins and poignant cultural (especially poetic) allusions to jealousy, emphasizing that it is through artistic expression that a true understanding of this frequently deeply disturbing feeling is achieved. It closes with a thoughtful summary, synthesis and critique of the chapters by 12 distinguished analysts.

Developmental, Cultural, and Clinical Realms

Jealousy

Selma Kramer

Has there been an actual increase in the occurrence of incest? Or is the seemingly greater frequency due to our increased awareness of incest and more careful listening to our patients? The distinguished psychoanalysts contributing to this sharply focused volume take the latter position. They discuss various aspects of incest, the occurrence of which they agree is always traumatic to its victim. Incest occurs in dysfunctional families and often in the setting of multiple traumatic factors (e.g., emotional deprivation, physical abuse, parental alcoholism). In cases of parent-child incest, one parent is the perpetrator and the other, by silence or absence, unwittingly colludes with the former. While an individual with early sexual trauma may have a certain self-reliance, ambition, perseverance, and tenacious pursuit of self-knowledge, the fact remains that incest is inimical to normal, healthy development. It leads to profoundly deleterious effects, including lifelong guilt, sadomasochistic tendencies, defects of self-esteem, sexual dysfunction, and vulnerability to psychosomatic phenomena, accidents, injuries, depression, and even suicide. It is therefore extremely important to be able to recognize the phenomenological and psycho-dynamic configurations suggesting that incest has occurred in the individual's past. Such knowledge enables therapists to be more alert to the nuances of transference and countertransference, leading to a heightened empathy and to more precise and helpful interpretations. The contributors to this book highlight, with the help of detailed and poignant clinical illustrations, various cues of incest-related psychopathology. They discuss the transferencemanifestations of such patients and, in an extremely helpful manner, clarify the subtleties in treatment technique. By so addressing the phenomenon of incest, this book makes an important inroad into the prevention and amelioration of the profound psychic trauma- the trauma of transgression- caused by the use of a child's body for the sexual gratification of the parent.

Psychotherapy of Incest Victims

The Trauma of Transgression

Mary Kay O'Neil

"The Future of an Illusion" reveals Freud's reflections about religion as well as his hope that in the future science will go beyond religion, and reason will replace faith in God. The discussion with an imaginary critic revealed his internal debate, mirroring the debate about this subject in the outside world. However, it also enlightens his way of thinking: deconstructing and constructing at the same time. This volume considers Freudian ideas and their implications today, while focusing on the contradictions and gaps in Freud's proposals. The question of the coexistence between religion and psychoanalysis, as well as the place of ideals, belief, illusion, and imagination - and, no less important, the benevolent and destructive aspects of religion - also come into play.

On Freud's The Future of an Illusion

"Missed opportunities, unfulfilled dreams, and broken promises are the stuff of everyday life and so is regret, the emotion that accompanies them. Unlike remorse which is consequent upon the realization that one has hurt a loved one, regret revolves around a wistful sense of having let oneself down. Middle aged and elderly individuals are specially prone to regret ; the wish to reverse what one did wrong gets intensified as time left to live becomes shorter. Regret also carries with it the potential of masochistic self-flagellation which conceals the omnipotent belief that things could have been otherwise; the fact that life is what it is thus gets denied and eclipsed.Akhtar and Siassi's edited volume on regret addresses this inoptimally studied emotion from developmental, cultural, and clinical vantage points. It deepens our understanding of regret, enhances our empathy with 'spilled-milk' hand-wringing, and sharpens our technical skills to help persons burdened by chronic regret."--Provided by publisher.

Regret

Henri Parens

'At long last there is a book that brings the issue of religious belief into the consulting room. Deliberately avoiding the one debate about whether or not God exists, the editors have marshaled papers that take seriously the fact that patients are affected by their religious convictions. Experts on Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam refract the clinical process through the prisms of these religions, and commentaries on their papers are offered by distinguished psychoanalysts who provide vigorous challenges and supplementary visions. Therapists will be informed by reading this book and will find their understanding of patients enriched.' --David M. Sachs

Developmental and Clinical Aspects of Religious Belief

Does God Help?

Salman Akhtar is a Professor of Psychiatry, a Training and Supervising Analyst, a member of numerous editorial boards, winner of many awards, including the highly prestigious Sigourney Award, a writer of several hundred articles, a poet, and the author or editor of over one hundred books. A modern-day Renaissance man, his elegant writing is simultaneously scholarly and literary and brings a light touch to profound material. Phoenix Publishing House is proud to present his most inspiring works in a stunning ten-volume hardback set, fit to grace the shelves of collectors and libraries with its high-quality finish.

Selected Papers of Salman Akhtar

This book provides easy to read, concise, and clinically useful explanations of over 1800 terms and concepts from the field of psychoanalysis. A history of each term is included in its definition and so is the name of its originator. The attempt is made to demonstrate how the meanings of the term under consideration might have changed, with new connotations accruing with the passage of time and with growth of knowledge. Where indicated and possible, the glossary includes diverse perspectives on a given idea and highlights how different analysts have used the same term for different purposes and with different theoretical aims in mind.

Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychoanalysis

Practising psychiatry, psychotherapy, and psychoanalysis for over forty years and being an avid reader of books pertaining to the human mind convinced Salman Akhtar that most good books in this realm are difficult to read for lay-persons. Matters are made worse by the fact that books that are readable succumb to oversimplification and glib advice-giving. As a result, the seeker of knowledge about the intricacies of emotional life finds little that is meaningful to read. It is this lack that The Book of Emotions is trying to address here. Written in a simple, easy-to-understand style with everyday examples and anecdotes, the books explains the meaning and characteristics of some of our inherent emotions.

The Book of Emotions

Winner of the 2006 Gradiva Award A collection of new and previously-published essays that sheds light on the intersections between psychoanalysis and Indic Studies. While Indian academics and clinicians have been familiar with psychoanalysis for many decades, they have kept this Western model of the mind separate from the spiritual and philosophical traditions of their own country. Freud Along the Ganges bridges this important lacuna in psychoanalytic and Indic studies by creating a new theoretical field where human motives are approached not only psychoanalytically but also from the perspective of the teachings of Buddha, Tagore, Ghandi, and Salman Rushdie. The authors of this collection show how the insights of these Indian masters give a new force to the Freudian discovery by providing a basis to better understand the social and psychological Indian makeup. The book begins by questioning the applicability of the psychoanalytic method to non-Western cultures. It then traces the history of the psychoanalytic movement in India from its onset while it emphasizes the intricate overlap between Indian existential and mystical traditions and psychoanalysis. Freud Along the Ganges offers a unique study of the ways that Indian thought and psychoanalysis illuminate and enrich each other.

Freud Along the Ganges

Attempting to advance knowledge about Islam and to create the possibility of a dialogue between Islam and psychoanalysis, The Crescent and the Couch brings together a distinguished panel of Muslim and non-Muslim contributors from the fields of history, religion, anthropology, politics, and psychoanalysis. Together these authors highlight the world-changing contributions of prominent Muslim figures, and elucidate the encounter of Islam with Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism. Moving on to matters of family, individual personality formation, human sexuality, and religious identity, they also address clinical issues that arise in the treatment of Muslim patients as well as the technical work of Muslim psychoanalysts.

Cross-currents Between Islam and Psychoanalysis

The Crescent and the Couch

Sibling relationships and rivalry are as old as recorded history. This analysis explores that ambivalence between siblings casts its shadow throughout people's lifetimes and affects their choices of mates, relationships with their own children, and aversions to others.

Developmental, Dynamic, and Technical Aspects of the Sibling Relationship

Brothers and Sisters

In this elegantly written book, eight distinguished psychoanalysts address the ubiquitous phenomenon of guilt. They describe the childhood experiences that form the bedrock of this emotion and delineate various types of guilt, including pre-oedipal guilt, oedipal guilt, survivor guilt, separation guilt, induced guilt, and so on. Noting that guilt, by itself, is neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad,’ these master clinicians highlight the adverse (e.g. self-punishment, masochism, irritability) and potentially positive (e.g. reparation, helpfulness towards others) outcomes of guilt. They critically assess previously published findings, review diverse theories, and offer illustrative material from treatment of children and adults. As a result, Guilt: Origins, Manifestations, and Management is replete with clinical pearls and highly useful tips for the management of patients driven by feelings of guilt and remorse.

Origins, Manifestations, and Management

Guilt

If there ever was one word that could represent the essence of Freud's work, that word would be 'unconscious'. Indeed, Freud himself regarded his 1915 paper 'The Unconscious' as central to clarifying the fundamentals of his metapsychology. The paper delineates the topographic model of the mind and spells out the concepts of primary and secondary process thinking, thing and word presentations, timelessness of the unconscious, condensation and symbolism, unconscious problem solving, and the relationship between the system Ucs and repression. Examining these proposals in the light of contemporary psychoanalytic theory as well as from the perspective of current neurophysiology and ethology, nine distinguished analysts take Freud's ideas further in ways that have implications for both psychoanalytic theory and practice.

On Freud's The Unconscious

Thicker Than Blood addresses in depth the impact of adoption on biological parents, adoptive parents, adopted children, and siblings.

Bonds of Fantasy and Reality in Adoption

Thicker Than Blood

What constitutes a lie? What are the different types of lies? Why do people lie? Is dishonesty ubiquitous in human experience? And what should be done with individuals who seek pschotherapeutic help and yet can not reveal important aspects of their lives and even fabricate histories, associations, and dreams? Such questions form the backbone of this exceptional book. Starting with the emergence of the capacity to lie in childhood and the formative influence of the family in children's moral development, the discourse goes on to include the variety of adulthood lies, including social lies, existential lies, pathological lies, narcissistic lies, and sociopathic lies. Contributions from distinguished psychoanalysts like Salman Akhtar, Harold Blum, Ruth Fischer, Lucy LaFarge, Henri Parens, and Michael Stone, along with others, explore the impact of dishonesty on the internal and external realities of an individual. Malignant forms of lies involving serious character pathology and criminality, as well as their detection, are also discussed. The book's aim is to help therapists enhance their empathy with patients who are compelled to lie and to provide them with better therapeutic strategies to deal with the clinical dilemmas that arise in working with such children and adults.

Salman Akhtar

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