On Psychoanalysis and Violence

by Manya Steinkoler

$45.95

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Author: Manya Steinkoler

Publisher: Routledge

Paperback:
ISBN 10: 1138346330
ISBN 13: 978-1138346338

Hardcover:
ISBN 10: 1138346306
ISBN 13: 978-1138346307

Psychoanalysis has not examined violence as such since it is a sociological and criminological concept; psychoanalysis is concerned with speech. On Psychoanalysis and Violence brings together noted Lacanian psychoanalysts and scholars to fill an important gap in psychoanalytic scholarship that addresses what the contributors term the "angwash" of our current time.

Today violence is everywhere. We are inundated with it, exhausted by it, bombarded by images and reports of it on a daily, even hourly basis. This book examines how psychoanalysis can account for the many manifestations of violence in contemporary society. Drawing on a broadly Lacanian perspective, the authors explore violence in war, terrorism, how the media portrays violence, violent video games, questions of identity, difference and the ‘other’; violence narratives and violence and DSM, and explain how to account for how violence arises and the effect it has on us on both an individual and social level. These are just some of the daily social realities of the present day whose aggression are felt by everyone, which horrify us and which we often feel powerless to change. The contributors have therefore coined a term for this cultural malaise: "angwash", arguing that we are awash in angoisse or anxiety, in a constant panic regarding the impossible and contradictory demands of a "civilization" in crisis.

On Psychoanalysis and Violence will be of great interest to Lacanian psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists.

Review

"In this superb collection of essays, the editors have brought together a stellar cast of international scholars for the purpose of testing psychoanalytic theory and practice against the seemingly unstoppable instances of violence that have come to define and dominate the still young 21^stCentury. Probing into the motives behind ostensibly gratuitous acts of aggression and considering how violence itself has been transformed by the current age of connectivity, this book offers a fresh perspective on the traumatic disruptions of our contemporary social fabric, whilst unlocking fascinating new dimensions of Freud’s brainchild. As such, it will leave a lasting imprint on the minds of its readers."-Dany Nobus, Professor of Psychoanalytic Psychology, Brunel University London

"This fascinating collection of essays presents a much needed psychoanalytic explanation for old and new forms of violence we are experiencing today. People, however, are not only aggressive towards others, but more and more towards themselves. And, sadly, in times of constant surveillance, violence is on the increase in the way governments and corporations treat people. Anyone who is puzzled by the question of what violence means today and how the forms of aggression changed in the last decade will greatly benefit from this highly original book."-Renata Salecl, Professor, School of Law, Birkbeck College, London, author of Tyranny of Choice

About the Author

Vanessa Sinclair, Psy.D. is a psychoanalyst based in New York City, USA and Stockholm, Sweden, author of Switching Mirrors (Trapart, 2016) and the upcoming Scansion in Psychoanalysis and Art: The Cut in Creation (Routledge, 2019) and editor of Rendering Unconscious (Trapart, 2018).

Manya Steinkoler, Ph.D. is an English Professor at Borough of Manhattan College CUNY and a psychoanalyst in New York City, USA. She is co-editor with Patricia Gherovici of Lacan on Madness: Madness Yes You Can’t (Routledge, 2015), Lacan, Psychoanalysis and Comedy (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and forthcoming Psychoanalysis and Sexuality: From Feminism to Trans (Cambridge University Press, 2019).

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On Psychoanalysis and Violence