Psychoanalysis, Trauma, and Community

The essays here expand the boundaries of psychoanalysis, applying its principles to social problems and intelligent activism while aptly demonstrating the profound applicability of our field to the socio-cultural milieu. A broad spectrum of mass trauma-including but not limited to the Holocaust, Hurricane Katrina, and September 11th-is attended to by courageous analysts who understand that their vocation must move them beyond the office walls. In the alternative tradition of Harry Stack Sullivan and Robert J. Lifton, this powerful and highly recommended volume importantly reminds us that psychoanalytic principles and practice can and should reach far outside the usual clinical frame. -Danielle Knafo, Author, Living with Terror, Working with Trauma: A Clinician's Handbook. Psychoanalysis, Trauma and Community is essential reading for all citizen-psychoanalysts, as we meet a critical juncture in history. Confronting the effects of global violence, hatred, poverty, and oppression, we are being called by social justice. How do we apply analytic premises outside the office? The authors in this volume re-frame analytic theory, offering us a compelling guide and source of inspiration and hope. -Sue Grand, NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and psychoanalysis; faculty, National Institute for the Psychotherapies; faculty, the Mitchell Center for Relational Psychoanalysis and visiting scholar, the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. The essays here expand the boundaries of psychoanalysis, applying its principles to social problems and intelligent activism while aptly demonstrating the profound applicability of our field to the socio-cultural milieu. A broad spectrum of mass trauma-including but not limited to the Holocaust, Hurricane Katrina, and September 11th-is attended to by courageous analysts who understand that their vocation must move them beyond the office walls. In the alternative tradition of Harry Stack Sullivan and Robert J. Lifton, this powerful and highly recommended volume importantly reminds us that psychoanalytic principles and practice can and should reach far outside the usual clinical frame. -Danielle Knafo, Author, Living with Terror, Working with Trauma: A Clinician's Handbook. Psychoanalysis, Trauma and Community is essential reading for all citizen-psychoanalysts, as we meet a critical juncture in history. Confronting the effects of global violence, hatred, poverty, and oppression, we are being called by social justice. How do we apply analytic premises outside the office? The authors in this volume re-frame analytic theory, offering us a compelling guide and source of inspiration and hope. -Sue Grand, NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and psychoanalysis; faculty, National Institute for the Psychotherapies; faculty, the Mitchell Center for Relational Psychoanalysis and visiting scholar, the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California.