Disputing the traditional psychoanalytic emphasis on verbalization, this volume highlights the emotional nature of psychoanalytic understanding and argues that such understanding requires that the analyst find a place inside herself or himself for this particular patient. Because much of emotional understanding is tacit understanding, it requires attention to the kinds of memories that precede and extend beyond words. In her work, Donna M. Orange not only mends the historical rift between philosophy and psychoanalysis but weaves a tapestry that incorporates both. In so doing, she provides a clear explication of the philosophical underpinnings of emotional understanding and the epistemology of the therapeutic enterprise. -- from the publisher Contents: 1. Introduction: Making Sense Together 2. Understanding Understanding 3. Theory-Choice and Fallibilism 4. Towards an Epistemology of Perspectival Realism 5. Cotransference: The Analyst's Perspective 6. Experience: Given and Made 7. Affect and Emotional Life 8. Emotional Memory 9. Emotional Availability 10. Misunderstanding: A Collaborative Pragmatist View 11. How Does Psychoanalytic Understanding Heal? 12. Illustration: Understanding Schreber Reviews: "In this brilliant and beautiful boo k, philosopher-psychoanalyst Donna Orange grounds the clinical psychoanalytic enterprise in the solid epistemological foundation it has long and sorely needed....An invaluable guide for all clinicians who seek to heal emotional wounds and help establish new ways of emotional experiencing." - Robert D. Stolorow, PhD "Donna Orange has written an eloquent and inspiring volume, teaching us to have more respect and regard for our patients than for our theories. She balances this p erspective with an encompassing mastery of philosophy, and interweaves that collective wisdom with the contemporary analytic approaches of self psychology, intersubjectivity theory, and other relational approaches. Mental health professionals will be greatly enriched by reading this book." - Morton Shane, MD, co-president of the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles, CA |