Hope and Dread in Psychoanalysis

By Stephen A. Mitchell

Book Overview

The love affair that psychoanalysis has had with its own founder has obscured just how different the field is today from what it was a century ago, when Freud was writing. Now Stephen A. Mitchell, a central figure in the modernization of psychoanlalysis, shows how the field is moving beyond the confines of Freudian drive theory to encompass the concerns of contemporary life.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465030629
• ISBN13: 9780465030620
• Release Date: May 1995
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Beyond libidinal impulses

The major thrust of this book is exploring the world of psychoanalysis in a new light. In the traditional Freudian view, the psychoanalysis was meant to explore completely objective principles. Certain idic impulses were causing a person problems, and once these regressional idic impulses were destroyed the person was now free to live life in a healthy, though not necessarily happy, manner.Because of this objective thrust, the psychologist was seen as a very remote and impersonal figure. The new turn in psychology that is being explored is that the psychologist now should help the patient explore the subjective world. This includes analyzing dreams, (though popular in Freud's day, has since fallen from grace), thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. All of these things are also subjected to change. The new view that is being supported is that the relationship between two groups must become better known, and this is where the psychoanalytic process takes place, not in replacing libidinal impulses.

The Real Deal

Mitchell was the real deal, a psychoanalyst who could speak to a broad discerning audience about hopes and dreads of being alive.This book is honest about human nature, unflinchingly so, and it offers very specific, well-reasoned arguments about what human relationships can do for people (and for that matter, can't), and how that happens. How sad that he died just as he seemed to be entering a prolific period.

wonderful hopes and dreads

This book is one of the most enlighting, in today's psychoanalytic field. It integrates the modern thoughts in viewing the human mind and the clinical process, to gether with a critical and learned look on the traditional way. Mr. Mitchell is a brilliant representative of a modern psychoanalist who remembers where we came from, but has the courage to go further.