A Psychoanalysis for Our Time(Hardback) - 1998 Edition

by Jeffrey B. Rubin

"Vitally important .for those interested in psychoanalysis Many have questioned, and rightly so, the relevance of psychoanalysis for the new millenium. It is the richest of the psychological disciplines, and yet has come close to relegating itself to an intellectual and clinical antiquity due to its arrogance, suspicion of new ideas, and tribal social nature. This volume is a necessary and powerful corrective to psychoanalytic blindness. Jeffrey Rubin offers psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts a new vision that preserves the powerful, unique contribution of the discipline while instilling a humane, receptive, and intellectually vital perspective on the field and its endeavors."--Jerry Gold, Ph.D."By examining and confronting both psychoanalysis' strengths and its blind spots, this beautifully written and visionary book points the way toward a posthumanistic psychoanalysis characterized by self-reflectiveness, diversity, and an enormous emancipatory potential. A Psychoanalysis for Our Time is a breath of fresh air for all who are interested in the revitalization of contemporary psychoanalysis."–Robert D. Stolorow, coauthor of Working IntersubjectivelyDoes psychoanalysis have a future?Psychoanalysis is not a relic of a bygone era, argues Jeffrey B. Rubin in A Psychoanalysis for Our Time. Rather, it has profound relevance for our troubled time.Steering a balanced course between Freud's virulent attackers and his loyalist defenders, Rubin discerns both blind spots and hidden strengths in psychoanalysis. He reveals its covert authoritarianism, Byzantine politics, censorship of dissident thinkers, residual sexism, and overly simplistic accounts of self. A Psychoanalysis for Our Time does not only cogently critique psychoanalysis, however; it also offers a visionary approach for its renewal, based on cultivating greater historical, theoretical, and methodological self-awareness within psychoanalysis.Drawing on history, deconstructionism, feminism, anthropology, and Eastern meditative disciplines, Rubin portrays a psychoanalysis that is self-reflective and non-authoritarian, pluralistic and emancipatory. Encyclopedic in scope, integrative in spirit, A Psychoanalysis for Our Time is a brilliant and landmark work.

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Frank Jude · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another wonderful book from Jeffrey Rubin; this one is a thorough investigation into what he calls the "blindness of the seeing I" within the psychoanalytic traditions! He makes a strong point for how the theory and institution of psychoanalysis can become more an obstacle to healing and liberation than a path toward them. This contrasts with the reality of practice -- or perhaps more accurately -- the potential of practice.

He calls for a 'post-humanist' perspective that avoids the traps of idealization and nihilism. I think his point is clear, and one that, if taken up by psychoanalysis can have a truly revitalizing effect on the tradition.