About the Book
Winnicott was the first to describe how very early in life an individual can, in response to environmental failure, turn away from the body and its needs and establish mental functioning as a thing in itself. Winnicott's elusive term, the mind-psyche, des
About the Author :
Edward G. Corrigan, Ph.D., earned his doctorate. in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts. He is a member of the faculty and a supervisor at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy in New York City. He maintains a private practice in Manhattan.
Pearl-Ellen Gordon, Ph.D., earned her doctorate in clinical psychology from New York University. She is the director of the Child and Adolescent Treatment Services at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy in New York City, where she is a faculty member, supervisor, and a member of the Board of Directors. She maintains a private practice in Manhattan.
Review :
This fine anthology of eleven original papers includes contributions by some of today's most interestingly thoughtful lyricists of the poetic dimensions of psychoanalytic experience (Christopher Bollas, Nina Coltart, Adam Phillips), by other seasoned psychoanalytic clinicians also known for their important contributions to our literature (Harold Boris, Michael Eigen, Peter Shabad, Ira Schaer, Harold Stewart), by psychoanalytic clinicians who are perhaps less known for their writings but whose talent is evident in this volume (Stephen Seligman, Stanley Selinger, Maria St. John, Raymond Vasser), and by its two eminent editors, Edward Corrigan and Pearl-Ellen Gordon. The book presents itself as an extraordinary, coherent, and diverse exploration of some of the clinical subtleties of human reflectivity and self-relationship. Easily accessible to beginning as well as senior therapists, it will provide both with pleasurable reading and provocative insight.
The Mind Object describes patients who have come to value their minds and often superior intellectual abilities above everything else in life. The concept is based on Winnicott's notion of what happens to the infant who substitutes the mind for maternal care. Edward Corrigan and Pearl-Ellen Gordon lay the theoretical groundwork for the case material to follow. Each author shows his or her own creative way of working with patients whose omnipotent narcissistic organization seriously interferes with their ability to relate. Clinicians who work with such patients will be illuminated by this inspiring new book.
This book brings together a distinguished international group of clinicians who have thought deeply and brilliantly about the challenges of treating the devastating consequences of premature and accelerated mental functioning. The authors examine, in thelives of children and adult patients, what happens when the human capacity to turn one's own mind into a powerful object must be distorted in the name of psychic survival. Drawing on earlier work of Ferenczi, Balint, Bion, and, in particular, Winnicott, the authors demonstrate how mental precociousness, a deforming growth spurt inthe intellectual domain, can be made in reaction to deficits in the holding environment. The mind becomes a potent yet finally terrifying container in the absence of a sooting and securing caretaking function. The adaptive brilliance can create a facade of hypercompetence and skill behind which lurks an impoverished feeling life, an absence of body sense, and an inner emptiness. What is so useful here is that these conceptual tools can be applied in such a wide range of clinical situations. Obsessional adults, overly adult children, children in a range of social circumstances with environmental deficits that can be starkly gross of subtly nuanced, body disorders, affective distur
This book brings together a distinguished international group of clinicians who have thought deeply and brilliantly about the challenges of treating the devastating consequences of premature and accelerated mental functioning. The authors examine, in the lives of children and adult patients, what happens when the human capacity to turn one's own mind into a powerful object must be distorted in the name of psychic survival. Drawing on earlier work of Ferenczi, Balint, Bion, and, in particular, Winnicott, the authors demonstrate how mental precociousness, a deforming growth spurt inthe intellectual domain, can be made in reaction to deficits in the holding environment. The mind becomes a potent yet finally terrifying container in the absence of a sooting and securing caretaking function. The adaptive brilliance can create a facade of hypercompetence and skill behind which lurks an impoverished feeling life, an absence of body sense, and an inner emptiness. What is so useful here is that these conceptual tools can be applied in such a wide range of clinical situations. Obsessional adults, overly adult children, children in a range of social circumstances with environmental deficits that can be starkly gross of subtly nuanced, body disorders, affective disturbances—all these disparate symptom patterns and characters can be the outcome of environmental failures that require minds to be used as shields and as weapons.
