The rise of nationalist, racist and anti-feminist ideologies is one of the most frightening repercussions of the collapse of socialism. Using psychoanalytic theories of fantasy to investigate why such extremist ideologies have taken hold, Renata Salecl argues that the major social and political changes in post-communist Eastern Europe require a radical re-evaluation of notions of liberal theories of democracy. In doing so she offers a new approach to human rights and feminism grounded in her own active partipation in the struggles, first against communism and now against nationalism and anti-feminism.
Table of Contents:
1. A Psychoanalytic Weltanschauung 2. The Birth of Oedipus 3. David and Goliath 4. Rank as a Precursor of Contemporary Psychoanalysis 5. Winnicott, Lacan, and Kohut 6. Winnicott and Freud 7. The Two Analyses of Harry Guntrip 8. The Psychoanalytic Self
About the Author :
Peter L. Rudnytsky, Ph.D., is Professor of English at the University of Florida and Editor of American Imago. He is the author of Freud and Oedipus (1987) and Psychoanalytic Conversations: Interviews with Clinicians, Commentators, and Critics (TAP, 2000) and is a corresponding member of the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles.
Review :
"A fascinating series of highly literate, enthusiastic, and scholarly essays about the interconnections of key figures in the Freudian psychoanalytic field. . . . The author's opinions, comparisons, and contrasts of the work of Rank, Freud, Winnicott, Kohut, Lacan, and Guntrip are filled with gems of information about their characters, minds, and attitudes toward life."
- Rosemary Balsam, Ph.D., Choice
"Rudnytsky's combination of passion and scholarship yields a one-of-a-kind tracing of the evolution of the hermeneutic and object relational threads that constitute a large part of the fabric of contemporary psychoanalysis."
- Charles Spezzano, Ph.D., Author, Affect in Psychoanalysis: A Clinical Synthesis (Analytic Press, 1993)
"I have just finished reading The Psychoanalytic Vocation and feel that I must write to you to tell you how much I appreciate your account of the origin and history of object relations theory and the clarity of your exposition of it."
- Charles Rycroft, from a personal letter to Peter Rudnytsky
