New Clinical Realms: Pushing the Envelope of Theory and Technique

by Salman Akhtar professor of psychiatry,

Overview

New Clinical Realms, Dr. Akhtar's latest book, raises intriguing questions about man's subjective experience and his relationship with the world around him. What exactly is mental pain? How does forgiveness occur? What is the proper psychosocial role of a mentor? And, even more provocatively, what is man's inner relationship with animals? How do inanimate objects sustain and facilitate psychic development throughout the life span? Do the physical objects in the clinical setting actually affect the patient's mind? How does simplicity lead to contradiction and at what stage does contradiction yield to paradox?

With the help of illuminating clinical vignettes and a solid anchor in the contemporary diversity of psychoanalytic theorizing, Akhtar's book offers clinicians a rare glimpse into both the dark corners of psychopathology and the fresh arenas of healthy mental functioning. As a result, the readers find their capacity for empathy deepened and their therapeutic skills sharpened.

A Jason Aronson Book

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780765703354
Publisher:	Aronson, Jason Inc.
Publication date:	02/01/2003
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.08(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Salman Akhtar, M.D., is professor of psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College, lecturer on psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and training and supervising analyst at the Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Institute. He is the book review editor of the Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, an associate editor of the Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research, member of the editorial board of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, past member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, and an editorial reader for Psychoanalytic Quarterly. He is the author of Broken Structures: Severe Personality Disorders and Their Treatment (1992) and Quest for Answers: A Primer for Understanding and Treating Severe Personality Disorders (1995). His more than 130 scientific publications also include thirteen edited or co-edited books. Dr. Akhtar is the recipient of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association's Award (1995) and the Margaret Mahler Literature Prize (1996), and was named the 1998 Clinician of the Year by IPTAR, New York. He has also published five volumes of poetry.

Table of Contents

Part 1 PART I: UNEXPLORED PROBLEMS Chapter 2 Mental Pain Chapter 3 Writer's Block Part 4 PART II: UNRECOGNIZED PERSONALITIES Chapter 5 The Shy Narcissist Chapter 6 The Other Woman Part 7 PART III: UNCELEBRATED PARTNERS Chapter 8 Animals Chapter 9 Things Part 10 PART IV: UNFAMILIAR PROCESSES Chapter 11 From Simplicity through Contradiction to Paradox Chapter 12 From Schisms through Synthesis to 'scillation Part 13 PART V: UNTAPPED POTENTIALS Chapter 14 Mentorship Chapter 15 Forgiveness

Editorial Reviews

With the intuition of a poet and with a scintillating writing style, Salman Akhtar guides us through ordinarily unexplored themes while we gain insights in a most delightful way. All through the text we can hear his poetic voice, which lets us share the joy with which his work has been written.

Moises Lemlij

Salman Akhtar is a brilliant scholar, a superb integrator of ideas, and one of the most original minds in modern psychoanalysis. His insights reach deep and his carefully chosen words resonate with the reader for days and weeks. This is a wonderful book, crammed with wisdom and intellectual virtuosity!

Peter Fonagy

In this book Salman Akhtar explores certain aspects of our relation to the world that are highly significant and yet are often ignored. He writes on the nature of mental pain and, like no other, on forgiveness as a necessary path to psychic growth. In helping to decipher the meanings of apparently unusual but nevertheless important clinical phenomena, his book will be extremely valuable to clinicians.

Sverre Varvin

Salman Akhtar is one of the most original and creative voices in psychoanalysis today. Seamlessly weaving scholarship, clinical finesse, and poetry into a fabric of new insights, he discusses a series of neglected but very important phenomena. In each of these areas, Akhtar brings us vivid clinical examples and fresh insights. It doesn't matter whether you read the book from page one to the end, or open it randomly, you will learn from it and enjoy it immensely.

Arnold Cooper

This book guides us into new clinical realms by making evident things we often look at but do not see. The world is scholarly, theoretically rich, and clinically generous. Akhtar's compassionate intelligence provides us with an invaluable opportunity to refine, deepen, expand, and humanize our clinical observation, understanding, and practice.

Charles Hanly

Akhtar takes us along on a fascinating expedition of new and unfamiliar clinical terrain. On this grand tour, we learn about man's problems with himself and others as well as his inner relationship to animals and inanimate objects. Akhtar's rare gift of blending scholarly thinking with poetry, and his original and creative way of explaining the complexities of the human mind, make reading this book a truly worthwhile experience.

Ilany Kogan

New Clinical Realms reflects both the depth of [Akhtar's] psychoanalytic knowledge and the expansiveness of his attention. In this instructive, and at times fascinating, collection of essays, Dr. Akhtar has most generously accomplished his task.

The Psychoanalytic Quarterly

In this instructive, and...fascinating, collection of essays, Dr. Akhtar has most generously accomplished his task.

The Psychoanalytic Quarterly - Robert Alan Glick M.D.

In this instructive, and...fascinating, collection of essays, Dr. Akhtar has most generously accomplished his task.
— Robert Alan Glick M.D.

Psychoanalytic Quarterly

This book guides us into new clinical realms by making evident things we often look at but do not see. The world is scholarly, theoretically rich, and clinically generous. Akhtar's compassionate intelligence provides us with an invaluable opportunity to refine, deepen, expand, and humanize our clinical observation, understanding, and practice.--Charles Hanly, Toronto

In this book Salman Akhtar explores certain aspects of our relation to the world that are highly significant and yet are often ignored. He writes on the nature of mental pain and, like no other, on forgiveness as a necessary path to psychic growth. In helping to decipher the meanings of apparently unusual but nevertheless important clinical phenomena, his book will be extremely valuable to clinicians.--Sverre Varvin, Oslo

Salman Akhtar is a brilliant scholar, a superb integrator of ideas, and one of the most original minds in modern psychoanalysis. His insights reach deep and his carefully chosen words resonate with the reader for days and weeks. This is a wonderful book, crammed with wisdom and intellectual virtuosity!--Peter Fonagy, London

From the Publisher