Identity Crisis: Modernity, Psychoanalysis and the Self

by Stephen Frosh

Overview

This book examines the psychological responses of people to the excitements and terrors that characterise the modern world. Beginning with a description of modernist and post-modernist accounts of contemporary life, it then moves into detailed discussions of narcissism and psychosis - two states of mind that seem to characterise the 'crises of self' to which the modern world gives rise.


With an interweaving of social theory and psychodynamic explanations, this is a sophisticated and compelling text. Identity Crisis will be of interest to students in a wide range of disciplines including psychology, sociology, psychoanalysis, politics and cultural studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780333511077
Publisher:	Macmillan Education UK
Publication date:	07/28/1991
Edition description:	1991
Pages:	217
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.02(d)

About the Author

Stephen Frosh is Pro-Vice-Master and Professor in the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, UK, and was previously Vice-Dean of the Tavistock Clinic. He is the author of many books and papers on psychosocial studies and on psychoanalysis, including Psychoanalysis Outside the Clinic, Hate and the Jewish Science: Anti-Semitism, Nazism and Psychoanalysis, For and Against Psychoanalysis, After Words, The Politics of Psychoanalysis and Sexual Difference and Identity Crisis. His most recent books are Hauntings: Psychoanalysis and Ghostly Transmissions and A Brief Introduction to Psychoanalytic Theory.

Table of Contents

Introduction.-The Modern Mind .- Modernity, Narcissism and Psychosis.- PART 1: SOCIAL EXPERIENCE.- Modern Times.- Postmodern States of Mind.- PART 2: FREUD'S MONSTER.- The Dam Metaphor.- Nature and Unconscious Passion.- Affirmative Relations.- Bad World, Mad World.- Postmodern Psychosis.- PART 3: NARCISSISM.- The Culture of Narcissism.- Subject and Object.- Narcissistic Pathology.- Lost Illusions.- The Ego Ideal.- The Real Father.- PART 4: NARCISSISTIC PATHOLOGY.- Narcissism and Society.- Selfobjects and Mirrors.- The Raging Self.- Broken Mirrors.- Transference and Change.- PART 5: DREAMING OF MADNESS.- The Habit of Belief.- The Influencing Machine.- Schizoanalysis.- The Madness of Self and Society.- PART 6: PSYCHOTIC STATES OF MIND.- Recuperating Reality.- Signifying Nothing.- Inside and Out.- Annihilatory Pieces.- Postmodernism, Concrete Consumption and Reverie.- Conclusion: The Crisis of Identity.- Identity Crisis.- Reverie and Resistance.- References.- Index