Positive Psychoanalysis: Meaning, Aesthetics and Subjective Well-Being

189 Pages·2017·7.31 MB·English

by  Mark Leffert

POSITIVE PSYCHOANALYSIS
PsychoanalysisandPsychotherapyhave,inonewayoranother,focusedontheamelioration
of the negative. This has only done half the job; the other half being to actively bring
Positive Experience into patients’ lives. Positive Psychoanalysis moves away from this tradi-
tional focus on negative experience and problems, and instead looks at what makes for a
positive life experience, bringing a new clinical piece to what psychoanalysts do: Positive
Psychoanalysis andtheinterdisciplinary theory andresearch behindit.
TheenvelopeoffunctionsentailedinPositivePsychoanalysisisanareaofBeingdescribed
as Subjective Well-Being. This book identifies three particular areas of function encom-
passed by SWB: Personal Meaning, Aesthetics, and Desire. Mark Leffert looks at the
importance of these factors in our positive experiences in everyday life, and how they are
manifestedinclinicalpsychoanalyticwork.ThesedomainsofBeingformthebasisofchapters,
each comprising an interdisciplinary discussion integrating many strands of research and
argument. Leffert discusses how the areas interact with each other and how they come to
bear on the care, healing, and cure that are the usual subjects of psychoanalytic treatment.
Healsoexploreshowtheycanberepresented incontemporary psychoanalytic theory.
This novel work discusses and integrates research findings, phenomenology, and psycho-
analyticthoughtthathavenotyetbeenconsideredtogether.Itseekstoinformreadersabout
these subjects and demonstrates, with clinical examples, how to incorporate them into their
clinicalworkwiththenegative,helpingpatientsnotjusttohealthenegativebutalsomove
into essential positive aspects of living: a sense of personal meaning, aesthetic competence,
andbecomingadesiringbeingthat experiencesSubjective Well-Being.
Drawing on ideas from across neuroscience, philosophy, and social and culture studies, this
book sets out a new agenda for covering the positive in psychoanalysis. Positive Psychoanalysis
will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, neuroscientists and philosophers, as well as
academicsacrossthesefieldsandinpsychiatry,comparativeliterature,andliteratureandthemind.
MarkLeffert,MD,hasbeenonthefacultyoffivepsychoanalyticinstitutesandaTrainingand
SupervisingAnalystatfourofthem.Hehastaughtandsupervisedpsychoanalysts,psychologists,
and psychiatrists for 40years.Heistheauthorofmany papers and three previousRoutledge
books:ContemporaryPsychoanalyticFoundations,TheTherapeuticSituationinthe21stCentury,and
Phenomenology, Uncertainty, and Care in the Therapeutic Encounter. He has been engaged in an
interdisciplinary reformulation of clinical psychoanalysis drawing on phenomenology,
neuroscience, network studies, and (among others) heuristics and biases. Present and future
workfocusesonphenomenology,care,healing,andtheself.HeisinprivatepracticeinSanta
Barbara,California.
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POSITIVE
PSYCHOANALYSIS
Meaning, Aesthetics and Subjective
Well-Being
Mark Leffert
K ~~o~;J~n~~~up
ORKYOR LONDOLNLOONNDDOONN
Y
LONDONANDNEWYORK
Firstpublished2017
byRoutledge
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©2017MarkLeffert
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PatentsAct1988.
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Names:Leffert,Mark,author.
Title:Positivepsychoanalysis:meaning,aestheticsandsubjectivewell-being/
MarkLeffert.
Description:Abingdon,Oxon;NewYork,NY:Routledge,2017.|Includes
bibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2016032219|ISBN9781138960862(hardback:alk.paper)|
ISBN9781138960879(pbk.:alk.paper)|ISBN9781315660134(e-book)
Subjects:LCSH:Psychoanalysis.|Positivepsychology.|Phenomenological
psychology.|Aesthetics--Psychologicalaspects.|Well-being.
Classification:LCCBF175.L4432017|DDC150.19/5--dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2016032219
ISBN:978-1-138-96086-2(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-138-96087-9(pbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-66013-4(ebk)
TypesetinBembo
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
For Nancy
Weareallresponsibleforeveryoneelse–butIammoreresponsiblethanallofthe
others.
AlyoshaKaramazov
TheBrothers Karamazov
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
1 The phenomenological self, its environs, and its therapist 8
Introduction 8
A [very] short course in phenomenology as it pertains to
psychoanalysis 9
The holistic self and its relations with world 14
The historicity of the self 18
Complexity theory and psychoanalysis 18
The deployment of power in the therapeutic situation 21
The interreferential search for meaning and narrative 25
Care, healing, and cure of the patient 26
To sum up 30
2 In pursuit of personal meaning 37
Introduction 37
The phenomenology of meaning 40
Psychoanalysis and the phenomenology of meaning 46
Meaning over the life cycle and the impact of culture 47
The mid-century existential quest for meaning 50
The neuropsychology of meaning: Dotting the I’s and crossing the
T’s 57
viii Contents
3 The capacity for aesthetic experience: The subjectivity
of beauty 62
Introduction 62
The aesthetic 64
The phenomenology of the aesthetic 69
The aesthetic and the social 72
Developmental considerations 74
Taste 75
The neuropsychology of aesthetic being 77
4 Aesthetics and psychoanalysis 85
Introduction 85
Aesthetics: Classical psychoanalytic practices 86
A specimen: Life of Pi and “Life of Pi and the Moral Wound” 87
Aesthetics in contemporary psychoanalytic practice 96
The fairy tale in aesthetic practice 97
Cases: Bill, Steve, and Terry 98
5 Desire 104
Introduction 104
General considerations and definitions 107
The biology and neuropsychology of desire 109
Desire and its place in social networks 115
Psychoanalysis and the phenomenology of desire 116
The psychopathology of desire and its clinical importance 122
SEEKING and Desire in the therapeutic situation 126
6 Subjective Well-Being 132
Introduction 132
Subjective Well-Being: Discipline and postmodern science 134
Subjective Well-Being and character 142
The biology of Subjective Well-Being 145
Clinical considerations 147
7 Positive psychoanalysis: Putting it all together 156
Index 168
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are just a few people who I want to especially thank for their help and
support in the making of this book. The first is Kate Hawes, my publisher at
Routledge who has encouraged me in the writing of all four (with a fifth in early
gestation) of my books. Kristopher Spring has been invaluable in editing all of my
manuscripts, first with Routledge and now independently. My life-long friend,
MarshallSashkin,PhDhassupportedmethroughoutwhatseemstohavebecomea
self-sustaining writing project. Finally, I must thank my wife, Nancy Leffert, PhD,
the President of Antioch University, Santa Barbara, for her love and support over
the past forty years.
Excerpts in Chapter 4 from Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Copyright © 2001 Yann
Martel.Reprinted bypermissionof Alfred A.Knopf Canada,adivision ofPenguin
Random House Canada Limited for Canadian territory. Reprinted by permission
of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company for US territory and the
Open Market. All rights reserved. Also reprinted by permission of the author,
courtesy of Westwood Creative Artists Ltd.