Understanding Human Life through Psychoanalysis and Ancient Greek Tragedy

Sotiris Manolopoulos’ work wells from a profound psychoanalytic understanding of the child’s interaction with the early maternal environment containing a tragic dimension from the very beginning. Without the mother’s silent work of mourning, it would possibly result in destructive consequences both at the individual and social level. The author’s linking this constellation to the ancient Greek tragedy in a creative way is a major achievement. Simon Salonen, M.D., Ph.D., Emeritus Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry, University of Turku, Member of Finnish Psychoanalytical Society. Author of “Metapsychological Perspectives on Psychic Survival”. Deeply familiar with Greek mythology, and well versed in philosophy and psychoanalysis, Sotiris Manolopoulos throws a wide net to capture and bring together the individual, the clinical, the social and the political in their intricate connectedness. His thoughtful exploration of tragic theatre illuminates psychic life between passion and order, despair and resolution. A greatly enriching journey through the lands of ancient drama from the vantage point of contemporary psychoanalysis. Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau, Ph.D., Chair of the IPA in Culture Committee In this book Sotiris Manolopoulos takes the reader on a psychoanalytic Odyssey to explore some of the key Greek tragedies. Through a psychoanalytic lens familiar Greek characters are analysed to highlight the depths of the human psyche. It is an impressive endeavour that offers a compelling integration of both theatre and psychoanalysis. Jan Abram, Author of The Surviving Object: psychoanalytic clinical essays on psychic survival of-the-object (2022) New Library of Psychoanalysis, Routledge Sotiris Manolopoulos unpicks with mastery the thread of the souls of the heroes from Ancient tragedy, analysing their words and actions in the light of modern psychoanalysis and his clinical experience, displaying through the function of the chorus the connection between the collective and the individual at the point where the personal psyche, in order to be woven, consistently relies on the social and the sequence of passages through the Other, and the others, to the sufferer and the living subject. Thanassis Hatzopoulos is a child psychiatrist, psychoanalyst (member of the Société de Psychanalyse Freudienne, Paris, of the International Winnicott Association, Sao Paolo, and president of the Hellenic Psychoanalytical Space D. W. W, Athens) and a poet.