Regret: Developmental, Cultural, and Clinical Realms

259 Pages·2017·1.682 MB·English

by  Salman Akhtar

REGRET

REGRET
Developmental, Cultural,
and Clinical Realms
Edited by
Salman Akhtar and Shahrzad Siassi
First published in 2017 by
Karnac Books Ltd
118 Finchley Road
London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 2017 to Salman Akhtar and Shahrzad Siassi for the edited collection,
and to the individual authors for their contributions.
The rights of the contributors to be identified as the authors of this work have
been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-13: 978-1-78220-589-0
Typeset by Medlar Publishing Solutions Pvt Ltd, India
Printed in Great Britain
www.karnacbooks.com
To
Our children,
Kabir and Nishat
—SA
Guilan and Dara
—SS
with ordinary parental regrets but with much more pride and love

CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS xi
INTRODUCTION xvii
PART I
DeveLoPMeNTAL ReALMS
CHAPTER ONE
The capacity for regret in children and adolescents 3
Susan L. Donner
CHAPTER TWO
Regret, resolution, and reparation in marital relationships 25
Joan Lachkar
CHAPTER THREE
The trajectory of remorse to regret in old age 45
Shahrzad Siassi
vii
viii ConTEnTs
PART II
CULTURAL ReALMS
CHAPTER FOUR
The poetics of regret in repetition, mourning, and reparation 69
Ingrid M. Geerken
CHAPTER FIVE
of regret and Plato’s ghost 89
Nilofer Kaul
CHAPTER SIX
Regret on the screen and regret as a screen 109
Apurva Shah
PART III
CLINICAL ReALMS
CHAPTER SEVEN
Regret, nostalgia, and masochism 137
Salman Akhtar
CHAPTER EIGHT
Developmental perspectives in the treatment of regret 153
Theodore Fallon
CHAPTER NINE
Clinical transformation of intolerable regret into tolerable regret 167
Susan Kavaler-Adler
CHAPTER TEN
Longing for a second chance 193
Richard Tuch
REFERENCES 217
INDEX 231
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are deeply grateful to the distinguished colleagues who contributed
to this volume. We appreciate their effort, their sacrifice of time, and
their patience with our requirements, reminders, and requests for revi-
sions. We are also thankful to Jan Wright for her skillful help in prepar-
ing the manuscript of this book. oliver Rathbone and Kate Pearce of
Karnac Books gave unerring support to this project and shepherded
it through various phases of publication. To both of them, our sincere
thanks.
Salman Akhtar and Shahrzad Siassi
ix