On Being Normal and Other Disorders: A Manual for Clinical Psychodiagnostics

Health, Fitness & Dieting

VERHAEGHE, PAUL

Mental Health

Routledge

In this volume, Paul Verhaeghe's lectures on the development of psychoanalytic theory between Freud and Lacan are reproduced as a written work of astonishing versatility, which stands at the vanguard of Lacanian studies. Beyond Gender examines Freud's discovery of the unconscious, and Lacan's elaboration of this discovery as a gap in the subject between what (s)he knows and the real driving forces in the psyche. The implications of this gap are manifold, and their impact on areas of study and practice from gender theory to obsessional neurosis, trauma, hysteria, and dream interpretation are profound. It is Verhaeghe's contention that, far from being the bedrock of gender differentiation, castration masks another anxiety over another, original lack that is beyond gender. This book elaborates the relationship between body and psyche beyond the classic binary opposition. Beyond Gender postulates that the sexual relationship must be re-examined, as does the troublesome notion of gender identity.

Beyond Gender

Psychology & Counseling

Other Press Professional

Winner of the 2005 Goethe Award in Psychoanalytic Scholarship The central argument of On Being Normal and Other Disorders is that psychic identity is acquired through one's primary intersubjective relationships. Thus, the diagnosis of potential pathologies must also be founded on this relation. Given that the efficacy of all forms of treatment depends upon the therapeutic relation, a diagnostic of this sort has wide-ranging applications. Paul Verhaeghe's critical evaluation of the contemporary DSM-diagnostic shows that the lack of reference to an updated governing metapsychology impinges on the therapeutic value of the DSM categories. In response to this problem, the author sketches out the foundations of such a metapsychology by combining a Freudo-Lacanian approach with contemporary empirical research. Close attention is paid to the processes of identity acquisition to show how the self and the Other are not two separate entities. Rather, subject formation is seen as a process in which both the subject's and the Other's identity, as well as the relationship between them, comes into being. By engaging this new theoretical approach in a constant dialogue with the findings of contemporary research, this book provides a compass for the practical applications of such a differential diagnostic. Post-modern categories of anxiety disorders, personality disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorders are approached both through the well-known neurotic, psychotic, and perverse structures, as well as through the less familiar distinction between an actual pathology and a psychopathology. These two outlooks, which involve the role of language and the subject's relation to the Other, are spelled out to show their implications for treatment at every turn.

Other Press

Freud’s discovery of the Oedipus complex has had a tumultuous fate in the field of psychology in the United States. At first considered the kernel of psychoanalysis it progressively lost its luster because of its patriarchal underpinnings—today Freud is barely studied in psychology departments. His theory of the unconscious born of the notion that the child represses his love for his mother for fear of incurring his father’s wrath is now obsolete and replaced by various theories focused mainly on the mother-child relationship where the burning question of the child’s sexual development is conveniently set aside. In this revolutionary book Paul Verhaeghe, an expert Lacanian psychoanalyst and psychologist and award-winning author, explains why the Oedipus complex is not what it appears to be. Freud's theory can be read as a a defensive myth that patients themselves invent in order to avoid confronting a forbidden enjoyment. Lacan’s theory sheds a new light on this need for a defense. Seen from that angle the whole history of psychoanalysis, its twists and turns, is revisited, revealing connections with recent discoveries in attachment theory. New Studies on Old Villains will be of great interest to psychologists, therapists, and departments of psychology.

New Studies of Old Villains: A Radical Reconsideration of the Oedipus Complex

The central argument of On Being Normal and Other Disorders is that psychic identity is acquired through one's primary intersubjective relationships. Thus, the diagnosis of potential pathologies must also be founded on this relation. Given that the efficacy of all forms of treatment depends upon the therapeutic relation, a diagnostic of this sort has wide-ranging applications.Paul Verhaeghe's critical evaluation of the contemporary DSM-diagnostic shows that the lack of reference to and governing metapsychology impinges on the therapeutic value of the DSM categories. In response to this problem, the author sketches out the foundations of such a metapsychology by combining a Freudo-Lacanian approach with contemporary empirical research. Close attention is paid to the processes of identity acquisition to show how the self and the Other are not two separate entities. Rather, subject formation is seen as a process in which both the subject's and the Other's identity, as well as the relationship between them, comes into being. By engaging this new theoretical approach in a constant dialogue with the findings of contemporary research, this book provides a compass for the practical applications of such a differential diagnostic. Post-modern categories of anxiety disorders, personality disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorders are approached both through the well-known neurotic, psychotic, and perverse structures, as well as through the less familiar distinction between an actual pathology and a psychopathology. These two outlooks, which involve the role of language and the subject's relation to the Other, are spelled out to show their implications for treatment at every turn.

The first essay, "The Impossible Couple", is both a humorous and razor-sharp analysis of the contemporary relationship between man and woman. In the second essay, "Fleeing Fathers", the author demonstrates that today the Freudian Oedipus complex has disappeared, with a resulting shattering of classic gender roles. Post-modern morals are strange compared to previous morality, because they convey an obligation to enjoy. Things become even stranger when one finds that the expected enjoyment fails to come and, instead of that, we are faced with boredom, anxiety, and anger. The author reconsiders the opposition between Eros and Thanatos as an opposition between two forms of sexual pleasure. The fact that this opposition is ever present in heterosexual love demonstrates that gender differentiation goes beyond temporal cultural forms. Accessibly written and provocatively argued, Love in a Time of Loneliness is a polemic whose very informality belies its serious intent. In these three fascinating essays, The author leaves the ordinary paths of thinking and sets out to discover what drives us in sex and love.

Love in a Time of Loneliness: Three Essays on Drive and Desire

This book describes how Freud attempted to chart hysteria, yet came to a standstill at the problem of woman and her desire, and of how Lacan continued along this road by creating new conceptual tools. The difficulties and upsets encountered by both men are examined.This lucid presentation of the dialectical process that carries Lacan through the evolution of Freud’s thought offers profound insights into the place of the “feminine mystique” in our social fabric. Patiently and carefully, Verhaeghe applies the Lacanian grid to Freud’s text and succeeds in explaining Lacan’s formulations without merely recapitulating his theories. The reader is informed, along the way, not only of Lacan’s take on Freudian ideas, but also of the array of interpretations emerging from other trends in post-Freudian literature, including feminist revisionism.

Does the Woman Exist?: From Freud's Hysteric to Lacan's Feminine

Paul Verhaeghe here shows us what it is about sex that both motivates and inhibits us. A humorous and razor-sharp analysis of the relationship between contemporary man and woman, of the disappearance of the Oedipus complex and the shattering of classic gender roles, and of the boredom, anxiety, and anger ever-present in postmodern society, this book is a contemporary polemic whose refreshing informality belies its serious intent.

Love in a Time of Loneliness

Literature & Fiction

Does The Woman Exist?: From Freud's Hysteric to Lacan's Feminine

According to current thinking, anyone who fails to succeed must have something wrong with them. The pressure to achieve and be happy is taking a heavy toll, resulting in a warped view of the self, disorientation, and despair. People are lonelier than ever before. Today’s pay-for-performance mentality is turning institutions such as schools, universities, and hospitals into businesses ― even individuals are being made to think of themselves as one-person enterprises. Love is increasingly hard to find, and we struggle to lead meaningful lives. 
In What about Me?, Paul Verhaeghe’s main concern is how social change has led to this psychic crisis and altered the way we think about ourselves. He investigates the effects of 30 years of neoliberalism, free-market forces, privatisation, and the relationship between our engineered society and individual identity. It turns out that who we are is, as always, determined by the context in which we live. 
From his clinical experience as a psychotherapist, Verhaeghe shows the profound impact that social change is having on mental health, even affecting the nature of the disorders from which we suffer. But his book ends on a note of cautious optimism. Can we once again become masters of our fate?

What about Me?: the struggle for identity in a market-based society

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Books by VERHAEGHE, PAUL

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

On Being Normal and Other Disorders: A Manual for Clinical Psychodiagnostics

Beyond Gender

On Being Normal and Other Disorders: A Manual for Clinical Psychodiagnostics

New Studies of Old Villains: A Radical Reconsideration of the Oedipus Complex

On Being Normal and Other Disorders: A Manual for Clinical Psychodiagnostics

Love in a Time of Loneliness: Three Essays on Drive and Desire

Does the Woman Exist?: From Freud's Hysteric to Lacan's Feminine

Love in a Time of Loneliness

Does The Woman Exist?: From Freud's Hysteric to Lacan's Feminine

What about Me?: the struggle for identity in a market-based society