The Inseparable Nature of Love and Aggression: Clinical and Theoretical Perspectives
This didactic volume advances modern thinking about mental disturbances and their treatments, with psychoanalysis envisioned as one of the basic sciences of the mind. Kernberg develops a modern understanding of psychological therapies, contextualized in classic psychodynamic underpinnings. He puts many subtle dimensions of the mental apparatus in perspective without marginalizing alternative approaches to the therapeutic conversation. He encourages an open engagement with a variety of new approaches that integrate how developmental landscapes and traumatic vicissitudes interweave with various therapies to influence mental health outcomes. This is a clear articulation of the synergistic value of classic conceptions, new scientific perspectives and future inquires in clarifying the power of clinical practice. Kernberg s vision of therapeutic dynamics consolidates lasting lessons from the past with modern perspectives to facilitate maximally effective therapeutic practice along with a new scientific understanding of the underlying mind-brain dynamics. --Jaak Panksepp, Ph.D., Baily Endowed Professor of Animal Well-Being Science Washington State UniversityOtto Kernberg is one of the most important thinkers in contemporary psychoanalysis. This, his latest volume, collects his recent work on the treatment of severe personality disorders, on sex and love, on psychoanalytic theory, and on the troubles of the psychoanalytic profession. Throughout the book we are treated to the familiar clarity of his thinking and to his skill in moving from theory to practice, and from the experience of practice back to the reformulation of theory. A must for the shelf of every practicing therapist. --Robert Michels, M.D., Walsh McDermott University Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry Cornell University