ABSTRACT

Cyclical Psychodynamics and the Contextual Self articulates in new ways the essential features and most recent extensions of Paul Wachtel's powerfully integrative theory of cyclical psychodynamics. Wachtel is widely regarded as the leading advocate for integrative thinking in personality theory and the theory and practice of psychotherapy. He is a contributor to cutting edge thought in the realm of relational psychoanalysis and to highlighting the ways in which the relational point of view provides especially fertile ground for integrating psychoanalytic insights with the ideas and methods of other theoretical and therapeutic orientations.

In this book, Wachtel extends his integration of psychoanalytic, cognitive-behavioral, systemic, and experiential viewpoints to examine closely the nature of the inner world of subjectivity, its relation to the transactional world of daily life experiences, and the impact on both the larger social and cultural forces that both shape and are shaped by individual experience. Here, he discusses in a uniquely comprehensive fashiong the subtleties of the clinical interaction, the findings of systematic research, and the role of social, economic, and historical forces in our lives. The chapters in this book help to transcend the tunnel vision that can lead therapists of different orientations to ignore the important discoveries and innovations from competing approaches.

Explicating the pervasive role of vicious circles and self-fulfilling prophecies in our lives, Cyclical Psychodynamics and the Contextual Self shows how deeply intertwined the subjective, the intersubjective, and the cultural realms are, and points to new pathways to therapeutic and social change. Both a theoretical tour de force and an immensely practical guide to clinical practice, this book will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and students of human behavior of all backgrounds and theoretical orientations.

part |152 pages

Psychotherapy, Personality Dynamics, and the World of Intersubjectivity

chapter |28 pages

Cyclical Psychodynamics

An Integrative, Relational Point of View

chapter |17 pages

Attachment in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy

A Two-Person, Cyclical Psychodynamic Approach

chapter |16 pages

The Surface and the Depths

Reexamining the Metaphor of Depth in Psychoanalytic Discourse

chapter |14 pages

Repression, Dissociation, and Self-Acceptance

Reexamining the Idea of Making the Unconscious Conscious 1

chapter |8 pages

Incorporating the Panther

Toward a More Clinically Seamless Integration in Therapeutic Practice

chapter |14 pages

Thinking about Resistance

Affect, Cognition, and Corrective Emotional Experiences

chapter |14 pages

Epistemological Foundations of Psychoanalysis

Science, Hermeneutics, and the Vicious Circles of Adversarial Discourse

part |67 pages

Race, Class, Greed, and the Social Construction of Desire

chapter |13 pages

Psychoanalysis and the World of Cultural Constructions

The Contextual Self and the Realm of Everyday Unhappiness

chapter |16 pages

Full Pockets, Empty Lives

Probing the Contemporary Culture of Greed

chapter |13 pages

The Vicious Circles of Racism

A Cyclical Psychodynamic Perspective on Race and Race Relations