The Adaptive Design of the Human Psyche: Psychoanalysis, Evolutionary Biology, and the Therapeutic Process

by Malcolm Owen Slavin, Daniel Kriegman

Addressing one of the most fundamental issues in any examination of human experience, this important new work connects evolutionary biological concepts to modern psychoanalytic theory and the clinical encounter. Synthesizing their years of experience in the practice of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, the authors provide a comparative psychoanalytic map of current theoretical controversies and a new way of deconstructing the hidden assumptions that underlie Freudian, Ego Psychological, Kleinian, Object Relational, Self Psychological, and Interpersonal theories. In so doing, they provide a new vantage point from which to integrate competing models into a larger picture that more fully embraces the many facets of human nature. Moreover, they offer clinicians a new framework with which to understand and respond to the inevitable paradoxes and conflicts that arise in the therapeutic relationship.

Genres: Psychology

336 pages, Hardcover

First published September 25, 1992

Reviews

[Daniel Rickenbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

I rate this book as a must read. This seems to me like another primary resource for self-understanding. I will mark this as one of the more influential books that I've read in 2015.