Salman Akhtar, MD, was born in India and completed his medical and psychiatric education there. Upon arriving in the USA in 1973, he repeated his psychiatric training at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and then obtained psychoanalytic training from the Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Institute. Currently, he is Professor of Psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College and a training and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. He has authored, edited or co-edited more than 300 publications including books on psychiatry and psychoanalysis and several collections of poetry. He is also a Scholar-in-Residence at the Inter-Act Theatre Company in Philadelphia. Salman Akhtar received the Sigourney Award in 2012.
Salman Akhtar presents three rich essays brimming with psychoanalytic theory on personality development and how such knowledge enhances treatment. Essay 1 starts at the earliest infancy and takes the... (more)
Written by experienced practitioners in the fields of addiction and psychoanalysis, and illustrated by a range of moving vignettes, this groundbreaking book examines the psychological foundations of... (more)
One hundred (and one) tales to mark Salman Akhtar’s one hundredth book! Divided into eight informative parts – Dr Akhtar’s journey to psychoanalysis; the lessons he learned from his teachers,... (more)
This book provides easy to read, concise, and clinically useful explanations of over 1800 terms and concepts from the field of psychoanalysis. A history of each term is included in its definition and... (more)
This comprehensive and tightly argued book deals with the process through which a coherent self evolves, the various ways such development fails to occur, and the therapeutic measures to put things... (more)
Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle constitutes a major landmark and a real turning point in the evolution of psychoanalytic theory. Pushing aside the primacy of the tension-discharge-gratification... (more)
If there ever was one word that could represent the essence of Freud’s work, that word would be ‘unconscious’. Indeed, Freud himself regarded his 1915 paper ‘The Unconscious’ as central to clarifying... (more)
Revenge: Narcissistic Injury, Rage, and Retaliation addresses the ubiquitous human wish to take revenge and settle scores. Featuring the contributions of eleven distinguished mental health... (more)
A late-comer to psychoanalytic theorizing, 'shame' results from a disjunction between the ego and the ego-ideal. A complex psychosocial experience, it is comprised of a painful exposure of one’s... (more)
Jealousy is a human feeling experienced by everyone in varying intensities, at different times and phases of growth. Frequently confused, jealousy and envy are often intertwined. Even within the... (more)
With contributions from distinguished scholars and clinicians who view human erotic desire from modern developmental, relational, societal, and cross-cultural perspectives, Eroticism: Developmental,... (more)
Bringing together the experiences of mistrust, jealousy, lack of love, shamelessness, regret, and despair, this far-reaching book elucidates human sorrow in striking sociocultural and clinical... (more)
Silent Virtues addresses six areas of mental functioning, namely, patience, curiosity, privacy, intimacy, humility, and dignity. Each of the areas is elucidated with the help of clinical, literary,... (more)
Intimacy: Clinical, Cultural, Digital and Developmental Perspectives applies a contemporary, psychoanalytic lens to the many facets of intimacy between people, from romantic and sexual relationships,... (more)
Beginning with Freud’s celebrated case of Little Hans, psychoanalysts and psychotherapists have been intrigued with the topic of fear. Eclipsed in theoretical writings by the term ‘anxiety’, fear... (more)
This concise and well-written book deals with six important roots of human anguish. It divides the six areas into those primarily affecting the individual and those primarily affecting others around... (more)
In this elegantly written book, eight distinguished psychoanalysts address the ubiquitous phenomenon of guilt. They describe the childhood experiences that form the bedrock of this emotion and... (more)
Hope is the most reliable sustainer of life. It offers the promise of something good in the future, contributes to resilience, and keeps one going. However, there are circumstances when hope dries... (more)
More and more individuals with ego defects, severe object relations conflicts, affective turbulence, and unassimilated contradictions are seeking help from psychoanalysts and psychotherapists.... (more)
'Putting aside the narcissistic-masochistic aspiration of authoring a text on all the intricacies of in-depth psychotherapy, I have chosen to address five areas of difficulty in this enterprise. This... (more)
'Joseph Breuer’s celebrated patient, Anna O., designated psychoanalysis to be a "talking cure". She was correct insofar as psychoanalysis does place verbal exchange at the center stage. However, the... (more)
This book is a multi-faceted attempt to understand the psychological mysteries of land, space, native cultures, changing eras, and geographical dislocation. It shows us that many remote and seemingly... (more)
Ever since Freud proposed that certain ideas can be permitted to become conscious only in their inverted and negative forms, interest has grown into the entire realm of the presence of absence, so to... (more)
Mourning and the importance of the capacity to bear some helplessness, while still finding pleasure in life, are central to this tightly organized volume. The multi-faceted processes involved in... (more)
This book is about understanding and managing patients with severe personality disorders. It covers biological, psychoanalytic and cognitive-behavioural approaches and provides a pragmatic guide to... (more)
This edited volume addresses the critical psychoanalytic issue of effective listening. This issue has been discussed widely in the literature but most often from the standpoint of technique.... (more)
Why do people migrate from one country to another? What is the difference between an immigrant and an exile? What determines the psychological outcome of immigration? Can one ever mourn the loss of... (more)
Starting from a separation-individuation perspective, this text discusses cultural issues in child rearing and clinical practice. Included are chapters on African-American, Japanese, and South... (more)
Can psychoanalysis lead us toward understanding the roots and nature of religious belief? In this text, five classical psychoanalysts representing five different religious faiths share their... (more)
Focusing on facets of mental functioning and psychopathology that remain largely unrecognized in psychiatric and psychoanalytic literature, this work raises intriguing questions about man's... (more)