Good Feelings: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Positive Emotions and Attitudes

Editor : Salman Akhtar

Part of IPA - Psychoanalytic Ideas and Applications series - more in this series

Good Feelings: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Positive Emotions and Attitudes

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This tightly edited volume opens a new vista in psychoanalysis by focusing upon positive and life-enhancing emotions and attitudes. The realms it covers include love, friendship, enthusiasm, courage, tact, resilience, and forgiveness, among others. Seminal papers on these topics have existed but remain scattered throughout the psychoanalytic literature. This book brings them together in a harmonious gestalt. It is more than an anthology, however. Each paper is followed by a freshly written commentary that critically evaluates the paper and brings it in consonance with up-to-date, contemporary psychoanalytic knowledge. Issues of development, adaptation, psychopathology, and analytic technique, as these pertain to the positive dimension of affective experience, are elucidated.

The book also deals with the broader and overarching issue of the 'goodness' that accompanies, causes, and is enhanced by the positive emotions in consideration here. Thus the ever-elusive and puzzling issue of psychoanalytic morality finds a place in the discourse, with all its rich and complex theoretical and technical implications. The fact that the contributors to this volume come from all around the globe (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, and the United States) and represent a variety of psychoanalytic cultures adds flux and spice to the optimistic message of the text. Together the voices of these gifted psychoanalysts create an intelligent symphony of wisdom listening to which is not only instructive to the mind but a joy to the senses as well.

Contributors: Salman Akhtar, George Christie, Michael Eigen, Bien Filet, Hector Juan Fiorini, Peter Fonagy, Cesar Garza-Guerrero, Ralph Greenson, Otto Kernberg, Ilany Kogan, Nicholas Kouretas, Rainer Krause, Alessandra Lemma, Sergio Lewkowicz, Mary Kay O'Neil, Henri Parens, Warren Poland, Leo Rangell, Irwin Rosen, Lisa Rosof, Rita Schulman, Beth Seelig, Sverre Varvin, Philip Weissman.

Reviews and Endorsements

'This extraordinary book is devoted to a psychoanalytic exploration of good feelings, that is, positive enotions and attitudes such as love, friendship, courage, enthusiasm, resilience, faith and many more. It is unusual not only in its subject matter, so rarely touched upon in our literature, but also in the breadth of its contributions from close to a dozen countries throughout the analytic world. It provides fascinating reading for those of us who, after those days when we are immersed in the anger, grief and pain of our practice, need to be reminded once again of the goodness that is also part of the human condition.'
- Dr Sheldon Bach, Faculty: IPTAR and NY Freudian Society and author of Getting from Here to There

About the Editor(s)

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 twenty-three solo authored books – 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.

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