The Matrix of the Mind: Object Relations and the Psychoanalytic Dialogue

by Thomas H. Ogden

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Author: Thomas H. Ogden

Paperback:
Publisher: Jason Aronson
ISBN 10: 1568210515
ISBN 13: 978-1568210513

Hardcover:
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN 10: 0367328291
ISBN 13: 978-0367328290

This book is exciting, original, and above all accessible–a rare combination for a text which deals in depth with psychoanalytical theory. Non-analysts are frequently both baffled and alienated by the jargon and the complexity of works which extend psychoanalytical thinking, but Ogden is revealed in this book as an outstanding communicator as well as a major theoretician. The book's subtitle is a guide to the main focus of the work, which reinterprets the work of Melanie Klein, with its focus on phantasy, in relation to the biological determinants of perception and the meaning and organization of experience in the interpersonal setting of human growth and development. Ogden re-interprets Klein to illuminate Freudian instinct theory, using the contributions of Bion, Fairbairn, and particularly Winnicott–British object relations theorists–to clarify and extend aspects of their work and to move towards an impressive exposition of the way in which the human mind develops."
–Pamela M. Ashurst, The British Journal of Psychiatry

A Jason Aronson Book

Review

All who are acquainted with Thomas Ogden's papers on psychoanalysis and with his authoritative book Projective Identification and Psychotherapeutic Technique have eagerly awaited the publication of The Matrix of the Mind. Ogden supplies an approach to Kleinian theory that is both eminently appreciative and incisively critical. He comprehensively and brilliantly surveys the development of the concept of internal objects and relationships. The chapters dealing with Winnicott's theoretical and clinical contribution to the history of psychoanalytic thought are particularly profound and original. This eminently readable and thought-provoking book will be read with interest not only by dedicated psychotherapeutic workers in varied fields, but also by all those who take an intelligent interest in the way human beings function psychologically. (Joyce McDougall, D. Ed.)

[Ogden's] ideas will eventually have the importance of transference and countertransference and projection and projective identification in psychoanalytic theory. Ogden's writing is crisp and clear when combining welters of seemingly confusing concepts. It taps the root of yet another American grain. The British came, they saw, and psychologists will never be the same. We are building a new dialectic of the psychology and understanding of deep structures and matrices of the mind. (Harold J. Fine Contemporary Psychology)

The Matrix of the Mind provides us with the most profound understanding to date of both the strengths and the weaknesses of Melanie Klein. In so doing, Ogden establishes himself as one of the most eloquent American spokesmen for the British object relations school. [Ogden] is an independent thinker who appreciates the dialectical nature of the psychoanalytic endeavor. The Freudian thesis requires the Kleinian antithesis in Ogden's view, and neither Freud nor Klein can be fully understood without understanding the other. Ogden does not hesitate to point out the shortcomings of Klein; and he persuasively demonstrates that the contributions of Winnicott, particularly those concerning the potential space, fill the void left by the formulations of Klein.As an experienced psychoanalytic therapist involved in the treatment of severely disturbed patients, Ogden repeatedly anchors his brilliant conceptual thinking to the bedrock of clinical data. The test of any psychoanalytic theory is in its application to the understanding of patients, and it is here that the author's thinking is vindicated. The clinician who reads this volume will be richly rewarded by his expanded understanding of his patients and of the therapeutic process. (Glen O. Gabbard, M.D. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic: A Journal for the Mental Health Professions)

The Matrix of the Mind provides us with the most profound understanding to date of both the strengths and the weaknesses of Melanie Klein. In so doing, Ogden establishes himself as one of the most eloquent American spokesmen for the British object relations school. [Ogden] is an independent thinker who appreciates the dialectical nature of the psychoanalytic endeavor. The Freudian thesis requires the Kleinian antithesis in Ogden's view, and neither Freud nor Klein can be fully understood without understanding the other. Ogden does not hesitate to point out the shortcomings of Klein; and he persuasively demonstrates that the contributions of Winnicott, particularly those concerning the potential space, fill the void left by the formulations of Klein. As an experienced psychoanalytic therapist involved in the treatment of severely disturbed patients, Ogden repeatedly anchors his brilliant conceptual thinking to the bedrock of clinical data. The test of any psychoanalytic theory is in its application to the understanding of patients, and it is here that the author's thinking is vindicated. The clinician who reads this volume will be richly rewarded by his expanded understanding of his patients and of the therapeutic process. (Glen O. Gabbard, M.D. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic: A Journal for the Mental Health Professions)

About the Author

Thomas H. Ogden, M.D., is a graduate of Amherst College, the Yale School of Medicine, and the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute. He has served as an associate psychiatrist at the Tavistock Clinic, London, and is currently co-director of the Center for the Advanced Study of the Psychoses, a member of the faculty of the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute, and a supervising and personal analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. He teaches, supervises, and maintains a private practice of psychoanalysis in San Francisco.

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The Matrix of the Mind: Object Relations and the Psychoanalytic Dialogue