This book takes psychoanalysis into the 21st century, examining issues of existentialism, postphenomenology, social media, and death and death anxiety that have gone largely ignored in the psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic literature.Using an interdisciplinary perspective, Leffert explains that it is impossible to close the door of the consulting room. The therapeutic relationship is invaded by the outside world and its relationships for both patient and therapist and cannot be ...

The Psychoanalysis of the Absurd offers an interdisciplinary study of Existentialism and Phenomenology and their importance to the clinical work of Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. The concept of Absurdity, developed by Camus, has never been applied to the therapeutic situation or directly contrasted with its antithesis; the search for personal meaning.The book begins with narrative accounts of the historical development of Psychoanalysis, Existentialism and ...

This book draws psychoanalysis out of unsubstantiated, hermeneutic speculation and into the science and philosophy of the Self. Mark Leffert offers a survey of where we as human beings come from, going back into prehistory and our development as individuals. Psychoanalysis and the Birth of the Self is written to provide psychoanalysts with interdisciplinary information drawn from fields that they may have had little access to.Leffert undertakes a novel integration of topic...

Phenomenology, Uncertainty and Care in the Therapeutic Encounter is the latest in a series of books where Mark Leffert explores the therapeutic encounter as both process and situation; looking for evidence of therapeutic effectiveness rather than accepting existing psychoanalytic concepts of theory or cure without question.Mark Leffert focuses on the uncomfortable fact that analysts and therapists can and do make many mistaken assumptions and false moves w...

Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy have, in one way or another, focused on the amelioration of the negative. This has only done half the job; the other half being to actively bring Positive Experience into patients’ lives. Positive Psychoanalysis moves away from this traditional focus on negative experience and problems, and instead looks at what makes for a positive life experience, bringing a new clinical piece to what psychoanalysts do: Positive Psychoanalysis and the interdiscip...

Past scholars have tried to classify psychoanalysis as an intrinsically positivist science, with varying degrees of success. Their critics have fared little better with narrow applications of postmodern thought, which focus on smaller areas within psychoanalysis and, as a result, neglect the evolution of the discipline as a whole.In an effort to provide a ground for current psychoanalytic thought, Mark Leffert creates an interreferential schema which balances the influences of post...

Extending the themes of Contemporary Psychoanalytic Foundations, The Therapeutic Situation in the 21st Century is a systematic reformulation of fundamental psychoanalytic concepts, such as transference, therapeutic action, and the uses of psychotropic drugs, in the light of recent developments in postmodernism, complexity theory, and neuroscience. Leffert offers formulations of areas not previously considered in any depth by psychoanalysts, such as power relations in the ...

Whether we grow up with one, two, or several languages during our early years of life, many of us will learn a second, foreign, or heritage language in later years. The field of Second language acquisition (SLA, for short) investigates the human capacity to learn additional languages in late childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, after the first language --in the case of monolinguals-- or languages --in the case of bilinguals-- have already been acquired. Understanding Second Language A...

Psychology has always defined itself as a science and yet it has lacked the theoretical and methodological unity regarded as characteristic of the natural sciences. Nicolò Gaj explores the topical question of unification in psychology, setting out a conceptual framework for considerations of unity and disunity, and exploring the evidence of its fragmentation. He takes a critical look at the history of the most prominent attempts at unification, and at the desirability and feasibility of th...

An original interdisciplinary study positioned at the intersection of literary theory and neuroscience."Literature matters," says Paul B. Armstrong, "for what it reveals about human experience, and the very different perspective of neuroscience on how the brain works is part of that story." In How Literature Plays with the Brain, Armstrong examines the parallels between certain features of literary experience and functions of the brain. His central argumen...

Lev Vygotsky has acquired the status of one of the grand masters in psychology. Following the English translation and publication of his Collected Works there has been a new wave of interest in Vygotsky, accompanied by a burgeoning of secondary literature. Ronald Miller argues that Vygotsky is increasingly being 'read' and understood through secondary sources and that scholars have claimed Vygotsky as the foundational figure for their own theories, eliminating his most distinctive contribu...

This book represents a major statement of the current research being conducted on the learning of second languages from a sociocultural perspective. The book is divided into a theoretical and an empirical part. Specific topics covered include: learning and teaching languages in the zone of proximal development; L1 mediation in the acquisition of L2 grammar; sociocultural theory as a theory of second language learning; gestural mediation in a second language; and constructing a self through...