Salman Akhtar
Salman Akhtar, MD, is professor of psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College and a training and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. He has served on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. His more than 450 publications include 120 books, of which the following twenty-three are solo-authored – Broken Structures (1992), Quest for Answers (1995), Inner Torment (1999), Immigration and Identity (1999), New Clinical Realms (2003), Objects of Our Desire (2005), Regarding Others (2007), Turning Points in Dynamic Psychotherapy (2009), The Damaged Core (2009), Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (2009), Immigration and Acculturation (2011), Matters of Life and Death (2011), Psychoanalytic Listening (2013), Good Stuff (2013), Sources of Suffering (2014), No Holds Barred (2016), A Web of Sorrow (2017), Mind, Culture, and Global Unrest (2018), Silent Virtues (2019), Tales of Transformation (2022), In Leaps and Bounds (2022), and In Short (2024) – as well as sixty-nine edited or coedited volumes in psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Dr. Akhtar has delivered many prestigious addresses and lectures including, most significantly, the inaugural address at the first IPA-Asia Congress in Beijing, China (2010). Dr. Akhtar is the recipient of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Best Paper of the Year Award (1995), the Margaret Mahler Literature Prize (1996), the American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians’ Sigmund Freud Award (2000), the American College of Psychoanalysts’ Laughlin Award (2003), the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Edith Sabshin Award (2000), Columbia University’s Robert Liebert Award for Distinguished Contributions to Applied Psychoanalysis (2004), the American Psychiatric Association’s Kun Po Soo Award (2004), the Irma Bland Award for being the Outstanding Teacher of Psychiatric Residents in the country (2005), and the Nancy Roeske Award (2012). He received the Sigourney Award (2013), which is the most prestigious honor in the field of psychoanalysis. Dr. Akhtar is an internationally sought speaker and teacher, and his books have been translated in many languages, including German, Turkish, and Romanian. His interests are wide and he has served as the film review editor for the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, and is currently serving as the book review editor for the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies. He has published eighteen collections of poetry and serves as a scholar-in-residence at the Inter-Act Theatre Company in Philadelphia. His Selected Papers (Vols I–X) were recently published and released at a festive event held at the Freud House & Museum in London.
Privacy: Developmental, Cultural, and Clinical Realms
In this, the latest in a series of books examining emotional states and psychological life, Salman Akhtar and Aisha Abbasi critically discuss a concept that remains, appropriately perhaps, elusive... (more)
Eroticism: Developmental, Cultural, and Clinical Realms
With contributions from distinguished scholars and clinicians who view human erotic desire from modern developmental, relational, societal, and cross-cultural perspectives, Eroticism: Developmental,... (more)
Loss: Developmental, Cultural, and Clinical Realms
The experience of loss is ubiquitous in human life, but its nature and impact have great variations. When loss is phase-specific, expected, and accompanied by compensatory supplies, it can lead to... (more)
A Web of Sorrow: Mistrust, Jealousy, Lovelessness, Shamelessness, Regret, Hopelessness
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)
Regret: Developmental, Cultural, and Clinical Realms
Missed opportunities, unfulfilled dreams, and broken promises are the stuff of everyday life and so is regret, the emotion that accompanies them. Unlike remorse which is consequent upon the... (more)
Jealousy: Developmental, Cultural, and Clinical Realms
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)
The Language of Emotions: Developmental, Psychopathology, and Technique
This book is about affect-its origins, development and uses-and how it is viewed in a clinical setting. The authors track and further develop the recent major changes in the understanding of affect.... (more)
Real and Imaginary Fathers: Development, Transference, and Healing
In this work, Salman Akhtar looks at how many fathers unconsciously, and sometimes quite consciously, attempt to revise their own traumatized childhood by providing their children with possibilities... (more)
Mind, Culture, and Global Unrest: Psychoanalytic Reflections
In this compact and pithy book, the distinguished and prolific psychoanalyst Salman Akhtar steps out of his consulting room to address certain matters of urgent global concern. These include... (more)
The African American Experience: Psychoanalytic Perspectives
Brings together the contributions of distinguished mental health professionals and scholars of humanities to offer a multifaceted perspective on the transgenerational trauma of slavery, the hardship... (more)
Betrayal: Developmental, Literary, and Clinical Realms
Betrayal underlies all psychic trauma, whether sexual abuse or profound neglect, violence or treachery, extramarital affair or embezzlement. When we betray others, we violate their confidence in us.... (more)
Unusual Interventions: Alterations of the Frame, Method, and Relationship in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis
Radical departures from the set and familiar rules of technique often become necessary in the course of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. These can include conducting a session outside the office,... (more)
On Freud's "Negation"
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)
The Seed of Madness: Constitution, Environment, and Fantasy in the Organization of the Psychotic Core
More and more individuals with ego defects, severe object relations conflicts, affective turbulence, and unassimilated contradictions are seeking help from psychoanalysts and psychotherapists.... (more)
Human Goodness: Origins, Manifestations, and Clinical Implications
Human Goodness: Origins, Manifestations, and Clinical Implications focuses on the positive attributes that exist in each human heart. In this volume eight distinguished clinicians elucidate the... (more)
Guilt: Origins, Manifestations, and Management
Guilt: Origins, Manifestations, and Management is replete with clinical pearls and highly useful tips for the management of patients driven by feelings of guilt and remorse. Eight distinguished... (more)
The American Latino: Psychodynamic Perspectives on Culture and Mental Health Issues
The American Latino: Psychodynamic Perspectives on Culture and Mental Health Issues focuses on the culture of the Hispanic population in the United States and replaces stereotypes with portrayals... (more)
Immigration and Acculturation: Mourning, Adaptation, and the Next Generation
This book provides clinical strategies for working with immigrant and ethnically diverse patients and their offspring while drawing observations from the humanities to reveal truths about the... (more)
The New Motherhoods: Patterns of Early Child Care in Contemporary Culture
The New Motherhoods: Patterns of Early Child Care in Contemporary Culture offers innovative perspectives in psychotherapy that accommodate emerging pathways to parenthood, changing roles of mothers,... (more)
Mistrust: Developmental, Cultural, and Clinical Realms
Humans are weak. Lacking the claws and thick skins of other animals, we are forced to rely on members of our own species to survive and flourish in the world. The fact that the human infant is born... (more)
Bereavement: Personal Experiences and Clinical Reflections
This is a book about death, loss, grief and mourning, but with an unusual twist. It is different in that it explores specific kinds of deaths encountered within families and households, rather than... (more)
The Electrified Mind: Development, Psychopathology, and Treatment in the Era of Cell Phones and the Internet
The Electrified Mind explores the positive and negative aspects of the internet and other communication technologies on the people who use them in order to help mental health care professionals... (more)
Freud and the Far East: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the People and Culture of China, Japan, and Korea
This book is a lexical ambassador with the dual responsibility of bridging the West and East and enhancing psychoanalytic conceptualization in the course of such an encounter. By juxtaposing the... (more)
Immigration and Acculturation: Mourning, Adaptation, and the Next Generation
Moving from one country to another causes a radical alteration of one's cultural and geophysical surround. Separation from friends and family, loss of valued possessions, and encountering new ways of... (more)
The Mother and Her Child: Clinical Aspects of Attachment, Separation and Loss
This edited volume focuses upon the formation of an individual's self in the crucible of the early mother-child relationship. Bringing together contributions from distinguished psychoanalysts and... (more)
Lying, Cheating, and Carrying on: Developmental, Clinical, and Sociocultural Aspects of Dishonesty and Deceit
What constitutes a lie? What are the different types of lies? Why do people lie? Is dishonesty ubiquitous in human experience? And what should be done with individuals who seek psychotherapeutic help... (more)
The Damaged Core: Origins, Dynamics, Manifestations, and Treatment
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 and the Far East: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the People and Culture of China, Japan, and Korea
This book is a lexical ambassador with the dual responsibility of bridging the West and East and enhancing psychoanalytic conceptualization in the course of such an encounter. By juxtaposing the... (more)
The Wound of Mortality: Fear, Denial, and Acceptance of Death
Death is a much avoided topic. Literature on mourning exists, but it focuses chiefly upon the death of others. The inevitable psychic impact of one's own mortality is not optimally covered either in... (more)
Guilt: Origins, Manifestations, and Management
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)