Inner Torment: Living Between Conflict and Fragmentation
At a scientific level, Akhtar explains the complexities underlying the human emotions of love, hate, hope, nostalgia, envy, and arrogance. At a poetic level, he relates these emotions to our day-to-day life in a clear and stimulating manner. (Henk-Jan Dalewijk)Salman Akhtar is not only a scholarly scientist but also a poet who listens with a fresh ear and talks with a fresh tongue. In the Winnicott tradition, he avoids jargon and finds a new use for a familiar word. The poet analyst comes close to his patients. The scientist analyst asks vital questions and searches for their answers.Inner Tormentis a good book by a good man! (Saide Gillespie)This book takes on a grand tour of major themes that have preoccupied psychoanalysis over the last few decades. The qualities we have come to expect from this author are amply evident: great erudition, the ability to combine psychiatric and psychoanalytic viewpoints, and a developed ear for the complexities of the human psyche.Akhtar integrates controversial psychoanalytic conceptualizations with his own scholarly thinking and expert outlook on technique. Moving between old and new, Freud and post-Freudians, separation-individuation experiences and oedipal conflicts, an intrapsychic and interpersonal dimensions, his powerful book becomes a landmark in the understanding and treatment of difficult patients. (Jacquline Amati-Mehler)