Systems and Psychoanalysis: Contemporary Integrations in Family Therapy

Synopsis:

'This intellectually rigorous and generative collection of papers, positioned at the intersection of systemic and psychoanalytic therapy, captures the potential synergy of bringing these two honoured traditions back into dialogue, on new terms. The editors do partisans of both fields a great service in this effort, since their long-standing mutual isolation has kept each dismissive of the other, and ignorant of developments in the other's field - to their mutual detriment. The book tracks the ways in which innovative systemic practitioners are creatively reassembling the clinical and intellectual lineaments of psychodynamic and systems thinking in their work. While the strategies are many and varied, the collection as a whole reflects some of the deepest ideals and practices of both traditions at their best: holding complexity, tolerating contradiction, seeking common ground, seeing past limiting and ideologically driven binaries, thinking and working outside the box, and honouring history and tradition, even while digging it up.' - Virginia Goldner, Ph.D. Faculty Emeritus, Ackerman Institute for the Family; Faculty, New York University Post-doctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy

Description:

Contents
PART 1. THE UNCONSCIOUS IN THE SYSTEM
Carmel Flaskas, Julia Bland, Sebastian Kraemer, Deborah A. Luepnitz
PART 2. EMOTION AND DEVELOPMENT
Paolo Bertrando, Teresa Arcelloni, David Pocock, Rolf Sundet, Vigdis Wie Torsteinsson, Jeremy Woodcock
PART 3. DIALOGUE AND OTHERNESS
Mary Donovan, Inga-Britt Krause, Stephen Frosh, Glenn Larner

About the Editors
Carmel Flaskas is a social worker and family therapist, and Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences and International Studies, University of New South Wales, Sydney, where she convenes the Master of Couple and Family Therapy program. She has published a number of books and articles on the therapeutic relationship, on psychoanalytic ideas in the systemic context, and on knowledge in family therapy. In 2006, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Tavistock Clinic in conjunction with the University of East London for her contributions to systemic psychotherapy, and in 2005 she received the ANZJFT award for Distinguished Contributions to Australian Family Therapy.

David Pocock is Head of Family Therapy at the Child and Family Consultation Service in Swindon, UK, and a visiting lecturer to the Bristol University Diploma /M.Sc. Family Therapy training. He is a current assessor for the Journal of Family Therapy and past member of the Editorial Board and previous moderator for the AFT/JFT internet discussion forum. He is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in independent practice and a member of the Severnside Institute for Psychotherapy where he currently chairs the Study Day Group. His published work ranges across systems theory, psychoanalysis, and the philosophical underpinnings of psychotherapy.