Essential Aloneness presents a series of lectures on DW Winnicott delivered by Christopher Bollas in the 1980s to students and staff of the Institute of Child Neuropsychiatry at the University of Rome. Those attending were familiar with Winnicott's works; indeed, many were expert. But a question remained. How do you use Winnicott's concepts in the clinical space? Bollas not only addresses that question but also writes about his own clinical formulations at the time, such as 'the transformational object' or 'the unthought known.' Each chapter contains a unique and distinct talk, as delivered and suffused with the aliveness that is a hallmark of in-person lectures, with Bollas exhibiting a remarkable flexibility of scope and focus in order to meet the attendant group's clinical interests. The book teems with questions of Winnicottian psychoanalytic theory and practice no less relevant today than when the lectures were first delivered. These questions identify the subtle and complex positions taken by Winnicott, as understood by Bollas and other analysts in the United Kingdom and in Italy, who worked with him and knew how to make use of the Winnicott object. One of Winnicott's literary editors, Bollas brings a unique perspective in real time to the challenges Winnicott's thinking posed to the psychoanalytical, literary, and intellectual culture in the United Kingdom and abroad in the decade after Winnicott's death.

Essential Aloneness: Rome Lectures on DW Winnicott

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Bollas, Christopher

Psychology & Counseling

Oxford University Press

Basing his view on the object relations theories of the "British School" of psychoanalysis, Christopher Bollas examines the human subject's memories of its earliest experiences (during infancy and childhood) of the object, whether it be mother, father, or self. He explains in well-written and non-technical language how the object can affect the child, or "cast in shadow," without the child being able to process this relation through mental representations of language. (Journal of the British Association of Psychotherapists )

The Shadow of the Object: Psychoanalysis of the Unthought Known

Columbia Univ. Pr.

Basing his view on the object relations theories of the "British School" of psychoanalysis, Christopher Bollas examines the human subject's memories of its earliest experiences (during infancy and childhood) of the object, whether it be mother, father, or self. He explains in well-written and non-technical language how the object can affect the child, or "cast in shadow," without the child being able to process this relation through mental representations of language.

Mental Health

Columbia University Press

During our formative years, we are continually “impressed” by the object world. Most of this experience will never be consciously thought, but it resides within us as assumed knowledge. In this influential work, Christopher Bollas terms this “the unthought known,” offering radical new visions of the scope of psychoanalysis that expand our understanding of the creativity of the unconscious mind and the aesthetics of human character. The Shadow of the Object integrates aspects of Freud’s theory of unconscious thinking with elements from the British Object Relations School. Aspects of the unthought known―the primary repressed unconscious―emerge during psychoanalysis as a mood, the aesthetic of a dream, or in our relation to the self as other. Within the unique analytic relationship, it becomes possible, at least in part, to think the unthought―an experience that has enormous transformative potential. First published in 1987, The Shadow of the Object remains a classic of the psychoanalytic literature written by an original thinker. The concept of the unthought known has influenced many areas of study, including literature, psychology, and the arts. This anniversary edition includes a new preface by Christopher Bollas.

A leading psychoanalyst shares his experiences working with schizophrenic patients to show how effective talk therapy can be as a treatment Many schizophrenics experience their condition as one of radical incarceration, mind-altering medications, isolation, and dehumanization. At a time when the treatment of choice is anti-psychotic medication, world-renowned psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas asserts that schizophrenics can be helped by much more humane treatments, and that they have a chance to survive and even reverse the process if they have someone to talk to them regularly and for a sustained period, soon after their first breakdown. In this sensitive and evocative narrative, he draws on his personal experiences working with schizophrenics since the 1960’s. He offers his interpretation of how schizophrenia develops, typically in the teens, as an adaptation in the difficult transition to adulthood. With tenderness, Bollas depicts schizophrenia as an understandable way of responding to our precariousness in a highly unpredictable world. He celebrates the courage of the children he has worked with and reminds us that the wisdom inherent in human beings—to turn to conversation with others when in distress—is the fundamental foundation of any cure for human conflict.

When the Sun Bursts: The Enigma of Schizophrenia

Yale University Press

The Freudian Moment

Product Description The author eloquently argues for a return to our understanding of how Freudian psychoanalysis works unconscious to unconscious. Failure to follow Freud's basic assumptions about psychoanalytical listening has resulted in the abandonment of searching for the 'the logic of sequence' which Freud regarded as the primary way we express unconscious thinking. In two extensive interviews and follow-up essays, all occurring in 2006, we follow the author exploring his most recent and radical challenge to contemporary psychoanalysis. The Freudian Moment, the author argues, realizes a phylogenetic preconception that has existed for tens of thousands of years. The invention of psychoanalysis realizes this preconception and institutes a profound step forward in human relations. The author's proposal that we use the image of the symphonic score to better imagine unconscious articulation opens up a new conceptual way for grasping the complexity of unconscious thought. About the Author Christopher Bollas

Routledge

Being a Character: Psychoanalysis and Self Experience

Each person invests many of the objects in his life with his or her own unconscious meaning, each person subsequently voyages through an environment that constantly evokes the self's psychic history. Taking Freud's model of dreamwork as a model for all unconscious thinking, Christopher Bollas argues that we dreamwork ourselves into becoming who we are, and illustrates how the analyst and the patient use such unconscious processes to develop new psychic structures that the patient can use to alter his or her self experience. Building on this foundation, he goes on to describe some very special forms of self experience, including the tragic madness of women cutting themselves, the experience of a cruising homosexual in bars and bathes and the demented ferocity of the facist state of mind. An original interpreter of classical theory and clinical issues, in Being a Character Christopher Bollas takes the reader into the very texture of the psychoanalytic process.

In Being a Character , Christopher Bollas argued that Freud's vision of the dream process is a model for all unconscious mental experience. In Cracking Up he extends his exploration of the inner world of human experience and suggests that the rhythm of that experience is vital to individual creativity. It allows us to develop what the author calls a 'separate sense', which we use to assess the meanings of our own experiences and also to attune ourselves sympathetically to the lives of other people.In this original and thought-provoking book, Bollas examines how people educate one another in the idioms of their unconscious lives and considers the nature and consequences of the traumas that inhibit the freedom to do this. He studies what we mean by the past - is it unchangeable or can history be a creative, open understanding of experience? We come to know who we are by giving form and meaning to our past - yet what do we mean by the self? Bollas' answer suggests yet more ways in which the 'separate sense' expresses each person's unique qualities.

Cracking Up: The Work of Unconscious Experience

The Mystery of Things

In The Mystery of Things, Christopher Bollas takes the reader right to the heart of psychotherapy, examining the mysterious aspects of the self that are revealed by analysis. The method of enquiry at the heart of psychoanalysis, that is, free association, runs contrary to everything that we are taught is the logical, rational, scientific way to acquire data. Yet it is only through using such an apparently illogical and subversive method that the pathological structures in thinking can be penetrated and the self underneath revealed and worked with by the analyst. Christopher Bollas focuses on the nature and effects of the free associative process. Using clinical studies, he highlights how aspects such as mental illness, and creative or artistic acts can reveal much about the self.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bollas, Christopher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Bollas, Christopher

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bollas, Christopher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Essential Aloneness: Rome Lectures on DW Winnicott

The Shadow of the Object: Psychoanalysis of the Unthought Known

The Shadow of the Object: Psychoanalysis of the Unthought Known

The Shadow of the Object: Psychoanalysis of the Unthought Known

When the Sun Bursts: The Enigma of Schizophrenia

When the Sun Bursts: The Enigma of Schizophrenia

The Freudian Moment

Being a Character: Psychoanalysis and Self Experience

Cracking Up: The Work of Unconscious Experience

The Mystery of Things