Freud and the Ludic Mind: New Ideas in Psychoanalysis From IPBooks

Click Here To Purchase Freud and the Ludic Mind: New Ideas in Psychoanalysis by Francisco Lafaiete Lopes.

Freud and the Ludic Mind: New Ideas in Psychoanalysis

What would happen to psychoanalytic theory if, instead of adopting the death drive──drive toward death and destruction──Freud had chosen to conceptualize the ludic drive, merely mentioned by him in his studies?

Freud and the ludic mind: new ideas in psychoanalysis were initially written for readers with a psychoanalytic background, but other readers may also take advantage of it. The psychoanalyst will see what happens when the author introduces the hypothesis of a ludic drive into the classical Freudian model──an impulse for living an active life, a life in which one is all the time doing, feeling, talking, listening, or imagining something. He hypothesizes that the ludic drive results from an innate intolerance for inactivity. The result is a new theory of the mind that, in a peaceful and nonexclusive way, incorporates many recent developments of psychoanalysis into the classical Freudian construction. It opens a wide range of new possibilities for clinical activity.
This book provides a broad and profound reflection on possible paths of psychoanalysis, with a theoretical framework built on contributions by Freud, Hartmann, Alexander, Hendrick, Mahler, Winnicott, Kohut, Melanie Klein, Bowlby, and others. It merges the core ideas of major psychoanalysis schools Continue reading Freud and the Ludic Mind: New Ideas in Psychoanalysis From IPBooks

THE MULTIPLE FACES OF NARCISSISM CONFERENCE with TFP-NEW YORK

Click Here to Download the Full Brochure

Click Here to Register for the Conference

FEBRUARY 3 – 4, 2024

THE MULTIPLE FACES OF NARCISSISM:
PSYCHODYNAMIC CONCEPTUALIZATIONS AND TREATMENT

A ZOOM CONFERENCE SPONSORED BY:
TFP-NEW YORK
The Home of Transference Focused Psychotherapy in North America

PRESENTATIONS BY:
Otto Kernberg, John Clarkin, Frank Yeomans,
Eve Caligor, Diana Diamond, Barry Stern, Lina Normandin
and others

REGISTRATION OPENS ON NOVEMBER 15, 2023

Sophie Freud, Critic of Her Grandfather’s Gospel, Dies at 97

Click Here to Read: Sophie Freud, Critic of Her Grandfather’s Gospel, Dies at 97: Sigmund Freud’s last surviving grandchild, she fled the Nazis in Vienna, became a professor in America and argued that psychoanalysis was a “narcissistic indulgence.” By Sam Roberts in The New York Times on June 3, 2022

Photograph of the family of Sigmund Freud. Front row: Sophie, Anna and Ernst Freud. Middle row: Oliver and Martha Freud, Minna Bernays. Back row: Martin and Sigmund Freud.  Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The Bully Without and the Bully Within by Dr. Gweneth Erwin

The Bully Without and the Bully Within

I know very few people who have not been bullied in some way, to some degree, at some point in their lives, including myself. Bullying can be physical, emotional, verbal, taking place in person, behind someone’s back, and now on the internet.  Such bullying is intended to intimidate, shame, diminish, and harm, all for the sake of power and control for the bully.  We are taught that if we are young, we should turn to the adults in our lives for help and protection; if we are older, “hold our head high,” and act as though the bullying doesn’t matter; if we meet the bully on their own terms, we might succeed in ending the bullying or further harm could occur.

As we grow, while we unconsciously and consciously develop many psychological defenses, we have three fundamental biological defenses. From birth to about two and a half, our first such defense is “freezing” or “playing dead.” While an infant or young child might protest in some simple form (like crying, or later hitting or biting), their best option is to surrender in hopes the perpetrator will go away.  The next defense comes on board from two and a half years to adolescence when the child has some mobility, the ability to run, and a rudimentary sense of time and space: time to get away (to flee) and find some other place to go (to hide).  That doesn’t mean that a child might not fight back even at a young age, but it won’t do much good – they will be quickly overcome physically. Finally, in adolescence when strength is achieved along with height and weight, confrontation or fighting back can work, especially in domestic abuse when the teen can match a threatening parent. Many schools, churches, temples, and workplaces have zero tolerance policies in place to further protect victims. As much as these various approaches might be effective, we have another source of bullying to Continue reading The Bully Without and the Bully Within by Dr. Gweneth Erwin

What Is Narcissism?

Click Here to Read: What Is Narcissism? Science Confronts a Widely Misunderstood Phenomenon Researchers debate whether grandiosity always masks vulnerability By Diana Kwon 3  Scientific American September 2023 Issue on September 1, 2023

Allegory of Vanity: A girl looking at herself in a mirror, oil on canvas, 51 x 60.5 cm; French school, 17th Image: Dorotheum Public Domain via Wikimedia.com