The Relational Revolution in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy
Author: Steven Kuchuck
Written by a leading teacher and scholar of relational thinking, The Relational Revolution in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy provides a comprehensive overview of relational psychoanalysis in one concise volume. The book investigates clinical theory and technique as well as the challenges of conducting psychotherapy during the extraordinary twinned circumstances of a global pandemic and an equally widespread societal awakening to the consequences of systemic racism.
Grasping this unique opportunity to explore the implications of therapists and patients simultaneously experiencing the same life events and crises, the author examines the impact of the therapist’s subjectivity on the patient and other hallmarks of relational psychoanalysis such as enactments, co-construction, self-disclosure and multiplicity, and relational perspectives on race, gender, and sexuality. Thoroughly referenced to facilitate further research and illustrated with clinical examples throughout, this succinct introduction will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, academics and students alike.
REVIEWS AND ENDORSEMENTS
“Relational psychoanalysis can accommodate the shockwaves in the world and the most intimate encounters between analyst and analysand and show how they are intertwined. This timely and elegant book is an invitation to understand the workings and theory of relational therapy at a time when issues of identity, attachment and the democratizing of psychoanalysis are at the centre of concerns in the field.” – Dr. Susie Orbach, psychoanalyst and author of Fat is a Feminist Issue, The Impossibility of Sex, and Bodies.
“Steven Kuchuck’s highly nuanced account offers as many questions as answers, and so stays true to the revolutionary project of replacing absolutist views of technique with recognition of the complexity that arises when we envision therapy as a meeting of minds, a co-creation in which the analyst is a full participant. [This] much-needed primer, sparkling with insight and wisdom, will be invaluable for readers within and outside the clinical field.” Jessica Benjamin, Ph.D., psychoanalyst and author of Beyond Doer and Done to and The Bonds of Love.
“With clarity and insight, Steven Kuchuck sails the “relational sea change” of ideas and clinical praxis like a master navigator. Most authors concede the relation between psychoanalysis and its historical context, but few have unpacked it in order to demonstrate this interaction for today’s psychoanalytic clinician. Students and educators will want to incorporate this book into their thinking and practice for its directness, candor and scholarship.” – Spyros D. Orfanos, Ph.D., ABPP, Director, New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steven Kuchuck, LCSW is a faculty member, supervisor, Board member, and co-director of curriculum for the adult training program in psychoanalysis at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies and faculty, Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies. He is Editor-in-Chief of Psychoanalytic Perspectives.
CONTENTS
Introduction
1. Setting Sail for the New World
2. The Analyst’s Subjectivity
3. Self-Disclosure
4. Intersubjectivity
5. Dissociation, Multiple Self-States & Trauma
6. Enactment
7. Affect Regulation, Attachment & the Body
8. Race, Gender and Sexuality
9. Concluding Thoughts: A Vision for the Future
Index
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