Psychoanalysis, Clinic and Context: Subjectivity, History and Autobiography(Bernstein Series in Computational Neuroscience)

Psychoanalysis is a strange and mysterious practice. In his new book, Ian Parker offers insights into his own experiences, first as trainee then as analyst, the common assumptions about psychoanalysis which can be so misleading, as well as a map of the key debates in the field today. Beginning with his own history, at first avoiding psychoanalysis before training as a Lacanian, Parker moves on to explore the wider historical development of clinical practice, making an argument for the importance of language, culture and history in this process. The book offers commentary on the key schools of thought, and how they manifest in the practice of psychoanalysis in different regions around the world. Psychoanalysis, Clinic and Context will be of great value to practitioners and social theorists who want to know how psychoanalytic ideas play out in training and the clinic, for trainees and students of psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and for the general reader who wants to know what psychoanalysis is and how it works.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Psychoanalysis is not what you think 1 Science: Avoiding analysis of the mind 2 Sex: Avoiding analysis of the body 3 Schisms: Avoiding analytic politics 4 Teaching: Avoiding analytic practice 5 Society: Engaging with the British Tradition 6 Conversations: Taking care of health 7 Therapy: Closer encounters 8 Research: Studying and experiencing 9 Training: In Group Analysis 10 Personal: Training analysis 11 Diagnosis: Clinical structures 12 Supervision: Confession and confidentiality 13 Enlightenment: Second nature in Brazil 14 Trauma: Truth and reconciliation 15 Theory: Žižek, culture and the clinic 16 Identification: Laibach and the state 17 Japan: A limit case for analysis 18 Queer: From Russia with love 19 Islam: Faith in Freud 20 Transference: Ethics in action Acknowledgements Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Ian Parker is a psychoanalyst in Manchester, UK, Honorary Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, Secretary of Manchester Psychoanalytic Matrix, and President of the College of Psychoanalysts, UK.

Review :
"Professor Ian Parker, a significant intellectual, has much to teach us. This remarkably frank memoir – captivatingly written – will provide a very helpful insight into so many aspects of psychoanalysis – both its attractions and, even, its occasional repulsions." --Professor Brett Kahr, Senior Fellow at the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology, London "Ian Parker’s wide-ranging discussion of psychoanalysis in international contexts is dazzling in approach, tonality, and themes and presents readers with a history of the problems of response and change. Parker gives us a new approach to the psychoanalytic field through his longstanding development and this is a major contribution." –Professor Deborah Britzman, FRSC, York University, Canada "From his student years, Ian Parker began searching for alternatives to the shortcomings of mainstream psychology, and this book is the riveting story of how he grappled with the complex diversities of psychoanalytic thought, eventually becoming a Lacanian analyst himself. Parker’s erudite and pellucid prose makes this essential reading for anyone pondering the persisting potential and possible pitfalls of deploying psychoanalytic narratives, especially in political contexts, as he takes us on rollicking journeys through Brazil, Korea, Russia and Japan, while debating with queer theory, Judaism and Islam along the way." --Professor Lynne Segal, Birkbeck, author, Radical Happiness: Moments of Collective Joy