How does culture affect child-rearing practices? How do factors such as poverty, ethnic difference, racial minority status, and having immigrant parents alter the experience of a growing child? Are there culturally distinct sub-groups within the African-American population? How ubiquitous are psychoanalytically derived schedules of personality development? In what form and to what extent are transference and countertransference affected by such racial, ethnic, and economic issues? In this volume, eight distinguished psychoanalysts (including some belonging to ethnic and racial minorities) attempt to answer these questions. They provide illuminating details of child-rearing practices in African-American, Indian, and Japanese families. They interweave mythological legacies, historical background, ethnographic data, and clinical observations into a rich tapestry of knowledge, empathy, and understanding. They try to tease out the variables of socioeconomic class from the issue of race and the ambiguities consequent upon raising children in a new and unfamiliar land from the ordinary and inevitable conflicts between generations.

The Colors of Childhood: Separation-Individuation across Cultural, Racial, and Ethnic Diversity (Margaret S. Mahler)

Kramer, Selma

Akhtar professor of psychiatry, Salman

Parenting & Relationships

Jason Aronson, Inc.

Sibling relationships and rivalry are as old as recorded history. This analysis explores that ambivalence between siblings casts its shadow throughout people's lifetimes and affects their choices of mates, relationships with their own children, and aversions to others.

Brothers and Sisters: Developmental, Dynamic, and Technical Aspects of the Sibling Relationship (Margaret S. Mahler)

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Mental Health

Thicker Than Blood addresses in depth the impact of adoption on biological parents, adoptive parents, adopted children, and siblings.

Thicker Than Blood: Bonds of Fantasy and Reality in Adoption (Margaret S. Mahler)

When the Body Speaks: Psychological Meanings in Kinetic Clues

Psychology & Counseling

Has there been an actual increase in the occurrence of incest? Or is the seemingly greater frequency due to our increased awareness of incest and more careful listening to our patients? The distinguished psychoanalysts contributing to this sharply focused volume take the latter position. They discuss various aspects of incest, the occurrence of which they agree is always traumatic to its victim. Incest occurs in dysfunctional families and often in the setting of multiple traumatic factors (e.g., emotional deprivation, physical abuse, parental alcoholism). In cases of parent-child incest, one parent is the perpetrator and the other, by silence or absence, unwittingly colludes with the former. While an individual with early sexual trauma may have a certain self-reliance, ambition, perseverance, and tenacious pursuit of self-knowledge, the fact remains that incest is inimical to normal, healthy development. It leads to profoundly deleterious effects, including lifelong guilt, sadomasochistic tendencies, defects of self-esteem, sexual dysfunction, and vulnerability to psychosomatic phenomena, accidents, injuries, depression, and even suicide. It is therefore extremely important to be able to recognize the phenomenological and psycho-dynamic configurations suggesting that incest has occurred in the individual's past. Such knowledge enables therapists to be more alert to the nuances of transference and countertransference, leading to a heightened empathy and to more precise and helpful interpretations. The contributors to this book highlight, with the help of detailed and poignant clinical illustrations, various cues of incest-related psychopathology. They discuss the transference manifestations of such patients and, in an extremely helpful manner, clarify the subtleties in treatment technique. By so addressing the phenomenon of incest, this book makes an important inroad into the prevention and amelioration of the profound psychic trauma- the trauma of transgression- caused by the use of a child's body for the sexual gratification of the parent.

The Trauma of Transgression: Psychotherapy of Incest Victims

This is the first book to compare, contrast, and integrate the work of two of the most influential figures in modern psychoanalysis: Margaret Mahler and Heinz Kohut. While Kohut (1980) acknowledged that he and Mahler were "digging tunnels from different directions into the same area of the mountain," the complex task of integration was made difficult by their often divergent clinical perspectives. Yet for both, the issues of self and identity were primary. Mahler mapped out the steps through which a growing child must pass in order to achieve a solid sense of identity. Kohut placed the self in the center of his theory of both personality development and psychopathology. Mahler delineated, in borderline individuals, the lasting effects of failure to establish a stable inner representation of the mother. Kohut traced his narcissistic patients' archaic longings to early failures of parental empathy. Both were concerned with the importance of real object relationships in normal development and the devastating impact of early environmental failure. Both saw the significance of mirroring, empathy, and resilience in development and treatment, and both understood the psychoanalytic situation as embodying a developmental process. There are also significant differences between the two theorists. Mahler drew her conclusions from infant and child observations, Kohut from analytic reconstructions. Mahler maintained allegiance to the classical drive theory, which Kohut repudiated. Mahler's ideas influence technique in heightening sensitivity to nonverbal communications, countertransference, and optimal distance. Kohut's notions influence technique by emphasizing empathic understanding, undoing of therapeutic disruptions, and reconstruction of traumatizing disappointments in parents. A cross-fertilization between the ideas of Mahler and Kohut was long overdue. This book fills that gap and opens new vistas for understanding and treating individuals with severe character problems.

Mahler and Kohut: Perspectives on Development, Psychopathology, and Technique

This is the first book to compare, contrast, and integrate the work of two of the most influential figures in modern psychoanalysis: Margaret Mahler and Heinz Kohut. While Kohut (1980) acknowledged that he and Mahler were "digging tunnels from different directions into the same area of the mountain, " the complex task of integration was made difficult by their often divergent clinical perspectives. Yet for both, the issues of self and identity were primary. Mahler mapped out the steps through which a growing child must pass in order to achieve a solid sense of identity. Kohut placed the self in the center of his theory of both personality development and psychopathology. Mahler delineated, in borderline individuals, the lasting effects of failure to establish a stable inner representation of the mother. Kohut traced his narcissistic patients' archaic longings to early failures of parental empathy. Both were concerned with the importance of real object relationships in normal development and the devastating impact of early environmental failure. Both saw the significance of mirroring, empathy, and resilience in development and treatment, and both understood the psychoanalytic situation as embodying a developmental process. There are also significant differences between the two theorists. Mahler drew her conclusions from infant and child observations, Kohut from analytic reconstructions. Mahler maintained allegiance to the classical drive theory, which Kohut repudiated. Mahler's ideas influence technique in heightening sensitivity to nonverbal communications, countertransference, and optimal distance. Kohut's notions influence technique by emphasizing empathic understanding, undoing oftherapeutic disruptions, and reconstruction of traumatizing disappointments in parents. A cross-fertilization between the ideas of Mahler and Kohut was long overdue. This book fills that gap and opens new vistas for understanding and treating individuals with severe character proble

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

Books by Kramer, Selma

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

The Colors of Childhood: Separation-Individuation across Cultural, Racial, and Ethnic Diversity (Margaret S. Mahler)

Brothers and Sisters: Developmental, Dynamic, and Technical Aspects of the Sibling Relationship (Margaret S. Mahler)

Thicker Than Blood: Bonds of Fantasy and Reality in Adoption (Margaret S. Mahler)

When the Body Speaks: Psychological Meanings in Kinetic Clues

The Trauma of Transgression: Psychotherapy of Incest Victims

Mahler and Kohut: Perspectives on Development, Psychopathology, and Technique

Mahler and Kohut: Perspectives on Development, Psychopathology, and Technique