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.
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)
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)
'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)
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)
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)
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)
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 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
This book integrates psychiatry and psychoanalysis to present deeper and sounder clinical profiles of the personality disorders than have been hitherto available. (more)
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)
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)
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)
Sibling relationships and rivalry are as old as recorded history. This analysis explores that ambivalence between siblings, which casts its shadow throughout people's lifetimes and affects their... (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)
In this tribute to Selma Kramer, eminent child analyst and colleague and close friend of the late Margaret Mahler, senior analysts explore the continuing relevance of Mahler's... (more)
This text examines severe personality disorders from various angles. It covers: diagnosis and differential diagnosis; structure and dynamics; origins and development; evaluation and triage;... (more)
This work analyses the concept of object constancy in the light of developmental research and clinical practice. The clinical implications of disturbances in object constancy are discussed, with... (more)
This work shows how, in applying Margaret Mahler's developmental framework to the life-cycle, the separation-individuation process continues, even after a degree of self and object constancy has been... (more)