The Psychoanalytic Model of the Mind

by Elizabeth L. Auchincloss

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Author: Elizabeth L. Auchincloss

Publisher: Amer Psychiatric Pub

Paperback:
ISBN 10: 1585624713
ISBN 13: 978-1585624713

Despite the widespread influence of psychoanalysis in the field of mental health, until now no single book has been published that explains the psychoanalytic model of the mind to the many students and practitioners who want to understand it. The Psychoanalytic Model of the Mind represents an important breakthrough: in simple language, it presents complicated ideas and concepts in an accessible manner, demystifies psychoanalysis, debunks some of the myths that have plagued it, and defuses the controversies that have too long attended it. The author effectively demonstrates that the psychoanalytic model of the mind is consistent with a brain-based approach. Even in patients whose mental illness has a predominantly biological basis, psychological factors contribute to the onset, expression, and course of the illness. For this reason, treatments that focus exclusively on symptoms are not effective in sustaining change. The psychoanalytic model provides clinicians with the framework to understand each patient as a unique psychological being. The book is rich in descriptive detail yet pragmatic in its approach, offering many features and benefits: * In addition to providing the theoretical scaffolding for psychodynamic psychotherapy, the book emphasizes the critical importance of forging a strong treatment alliance, which requires understanding the transference and countertransference reactions that either disrupt or strengthen the clinician-patient bond.* The book is respectful of Freud without being reverential; it considers his contribution as founder of psychoanalysis in the context of the historical and conceptual evolution of the field.* The final section is devoted to learning to use the psychoanalytic model and exploring how it can be integrated with existing models of the mind.* In addition to being a valuable reference for mental health clinicians, the text can serve as a resource for undergraduate and graduate students of philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, literature, and all academic disciplines outside of the mental health professions who may want to learn more about what psychoanalysts have to say about the mind.* Important features include an extensive glossary of terms, a series of illustrative tables, and appendixes addressing libido theory and defenses. Drawing upon a broad range of sources to make her case, the author persuasively argues that the basic tenets of the psychoanalytic model of the mind are supported by empirical evidence as well as clinical efficacy. The Psychoanalytic Model of the Mind is a fascinating exploration of this complex model of mental functioning, and both clinicians and students of the mind will find it comprehensive and riveting.

Review

Elizabeth Auchincloss is a psychoanalyst, a teacher and an educator, but most of all, a skilled clinician. Like all skilled therapists, she knows how to use psychoanalytic theory, which is to learn it thoroughly, understand it, and then employ it with patients as it is useful. Auchincloss does a masterful job of introducing the theory, telling its story (one imagines much as she constructs a patient s story) and then tracking its development through Freud s earliest models and the subsequent elaborations of his followers up to contemporary psychoanalytic thinkers. She outlines four basic models topography, structural, object relations, and self-psychology, provides illustrative clinical vignettes, and discusses how she integrates them, or selects among them, when working with patients. The book is a delight to read, comprehensive but clear and straightforward. For the student or practitioner who wants one book on psychoanalytic theory, this is it! --Robert Michels, M.D., Walsh McDermott University Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry, Cornell University

Elizabeth Auchincloss has done a great service to all of us in the mental health field. She has provided a systematic examination of the current thinking about the various psychoanalytic paradigms in use today. In so doing, she provides students, as well as experienced clinicians, an up-to-the-minute account of the term "psychoanalytic" as used in our contemporary era of psychoanalytic pluralism. Her prose style is scholarly and precise but easy to follow. I highly recommend this superb new volume to all mental health professionals. --Glen O. Gabbard, M.D., Author, Psychodynamic Psychiatry in Clinical Practice

From the Inside Flap

Written for students at every level of training, including psychiatry residents, psychology graduate students, social work students, and medical students, The Psychoanalytic Model of the Mind explains how the psychoanalytic model works and how it contributes to the care of people with mental illness. The book is founded on the psychoanalytic thinking that evolved over the last 120 years and surveys how the psychoanalytic model has become the basis for almost all psychological treatments, or "talking cures," for emotional suffering.

In plain and accessible language, the author outlines the history of psychoanalysis, answers basic questions, defines the core dimensions of psychodynamic models, and illustrates their clinical utility. The Psychoanalytic Model of the Mind explores the most complex model of mental functioning ever formulated for clinical purposes and demonstrates that this model is useful in treating all patients, all of the time.

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The Psychoanalytic Model of the Mind