Delusions of Everyday Life
An analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute at New York University, Shengold here explores a paradox in psychoanalysis: a patient both desiring and resisting change. He traces this paradox to the "delusions" that normal people maintain in their daily lives. These delusions or quasi-delusions, which derive from the early narcissistic period of human development, are not conscious and represent a desire to retain the intense, infantile, need-gratifying and protective relationship one has with a parent. In treatment, these delusions give rise to transference and resistance. Shengold discusses what he calls "everyday, non-psychotic delusions" and the analyst's role in helping the patient to recognize his or her delusions and to "own" them in order to change and achieve a meaningful adult existence. Unfortunately, except for passages from literature and some interesting case histories, Shengold's thesis is obscured by his opaque writing. For larger academic collections.?Bonnie Hoffman, Stony Brook, N.Y.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.