Thomas Ogden: A Contemporary Introduction(Routledge Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis)

Thomas Ogden: A Contemporary Introduction is the first book to gather and analyse Ogden’s significant contributions to contemporary psychoanalytic thinking. The book meticulously unpacks Ogden's key concepts including the analytic third, reverie, undreamt dreams, and the music of language, demonstrating how these ideas have fundamentally altered contemporary psychoanalytic practice. Through Ofrit Shapira-Berman’s detailed analysis of his writings and clinical approach, readers gain practical insights into implementing Ogden's methods while understanding the philosophical underpinnings of his work. Paying close attention to his ontological perspective, Shapira-Berman considers Ogden’s unique integration of literary sensibility with clinical wisdom to offer practitioners new ways to engage with patients beyond traditional interpretive frameworks. Part of the Routledge Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis series, this concise and informative book is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and clinical psychologists seeking to deepen their therapeutic practice. Graduate students and researchers in psychoanalytic theory will find it an invaluable resource for understanding one of the field's most influential contemporary thinkers.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: The Evolution of Thomas Ogden's Ontological Psychoanalysis 1. Ogden's Original Contributions and Elaborations of Psychoanalytic Concepts 2. Re-thinking the Psychoanalytic Ancestors - What is There to Be Re-Found? 3. The Relations Between Reading, Writing and Practicing Psychoanalysis 4. Ontological Psychoanalysis - The Re-Creation and Experiencing of Something (a)New Epilogue: Beyond Understanding - The Revolution in Psychoanalytic Experience

About the Author :
Ofrit Shapira-Berman is a psychoanalyst working in private practice in Tel-Aviv, Israel, a Training analyst at the Tel-Aviv Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and professor at the Hebrew University. She is the author of Psychoanalysis and Maternal Absence: From the Traumatic to Faith and Trust (2022).

Review :
‘Thomas Ogden is arguably the foremost original contemporary psychoanalyst. His voluminous writings never fail to disappoint the reader who searches for emotional clarity about the nature of the analysing situation. Since his early work Ogden has creatively evolved and honed his particular clinical paradigm stemming from his scholarly work on, especially, the work of Freud, Winnicott, Klein and Bion integrated alongside his innovative clinical acumen. The more recent identification of an ontological psychoanalysis, takes Ogden’s work to further inspiring peaks that advance psychoanalysis with an authentic depth and without a sacrifice to the foundational authors he follows. On the contrary, their oeuvre is illuminated and enhanced. Reading Ogden is always inspiring and a pleasure. In this volume Ofrit Shapira-Berman has created an impressive Ogdenian psychoanalytic object that is ‘waiting to be found and used’ by the beginner in psychoanalysis through to the most learned and experienced psychoanalyst. With a finely tuned dedication, rarely seen in secondary sources, Shapira-Berman’s dedicated and close reading of Ogden’s work takes the reader on a fascinating odyssey of Ogden’s remarkable oeuvre.’ Jan Abram, Psychoanalyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society, Author of The Surviving Object: Psychoanalytic clinical essays on psychic survival-of-the-object (2022) New Library of Psychoanalysis, Routledge ‘Not to know the fresh and deep thinking of Thomas Ogden as well as the lyrical beauty of his writing, appealing eloquence not common in the academic world. His spirit is Freudian in its breadth of curiosity and depth of sensitivity, while his original thinking refreshes old understandings, all expressed in the beauty of uncommonly poetic writing. This short volume can serve as an introduction, a valuable gateway to the contributions I believe to be the most significant in the current psychoanalytic world. Ogden is a delight as he sweeps away the cobwebs in one’s mind. Do let Ofrit Shapira Berman introduce him, I have no doubt you will want to get to know him firsthand, you will be richly rewarded by the pleasures of his thinking and writing.’ Warren Poland, author of Intimacy and Sensitivity in Psychoanalysis