Psychoanalysis in a New Light

A study of psychoanalysis based on phenomenological philosophy, which offers new insights and develops neglected dimensions of the field.

Gunnar Karlsson (Author)

9780521122443, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 3 June 2010

230 pages, 3 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.3 x 1.5 cm, 0.38 kg

'Karlsson's book redefines the significance and purpose of psychoanalysis from a phenomenological perspective that conceives of psychoanalysis as a science (searching for truth) and 'not merely as a method of treatment' … This project is clearly executed with helpful chapter summaries along the way. Overall, it casts a powerful phenomenological searchlight upon the couch, levering the intelligibility of psychoanalytic theory off from dependence on its own empirical moment …' Sara Beardsworth, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

What kind of a science is psychoanalysis? What constitutes its domain? What truth claims does it maintain? In this unique and scholarly work concerning the nature of psychoanalysis, Gunnar Karlsson guides his arguments through phenomenological thinking which, he claims, can be seen as an alternative to the recent attempts to cite neuropsychoanalysis as the answer to the crisis of psychoanalysis. Karlsson criticizes this effort to ground psychoanalysis in biology and neurology and emphasizes instead the importance of defining the psychoanalytic domain from the vantage point of the character of consciousness. His understanding of the unconscious, the libido and the death drive offer new insights into the nature of psychoanalysis, and he also illuminates and develops neglected dimensions such as consciousness and self-consciousness. Karlsson's approach to psychoanalysis is rigorous yet original, and this book fills an intellectual gap with implications for both the theoretical understanding and clinical issues of psychoanalysis.

Preface
1. Phenomenology and psychoanalysis
2. The life-world as the ground for sciences
3. A critical examination of neuropsychoanalysis
4. The conceptualization of the psychical in psychoanalysis
5. The libido as the core of the unconscious
6. The grounding of libido in the life-world experience
7. Beyond the pleasure principle: the affirmation of existence
8. The question of truth claims in psychoanalysis
Concluding remarks.

Subject Areas: Clinical psychology [MMJ], Health psychology [MBNH9], Psychology [JM], Philosophy [HP]