Reading Psychoanalysis - (Cornell Studies in the History of Psychiatry) by Peter L Rudnytsky (Hardcover)

About the Book

Rudnytsky explores the dialectical interplay between literature and psychoanalysis by reading key psychoanalytic texts in a variety of genres.

Book Synopsis

In a stunning fusion of literary criticism and intellectual history, Peter L. Rudnytsky explores the dialectical interplay between literature and psychoanalysis by reading key psychoanalytic texts in a variety of genres. He maps the origins of the contemporary relational tradition in the lives and work of three of Freud's most brilliant and original disciples--Otto Rank, Sándor Ferenczi, and Georg Groddeck. Rudnytsky, a scholar with an unsurpassed knowledge of the world of clinical psychoanalysis, espouses the "relational turn" as an alternative to both ego psychology and postmodernism.Rudnytsky seeks to alter the received view of the psychoanalytic landscape, in which the towering figure of Freud has continued to obscure the achievements of his followers who individually resisted and collectively went beyond him. Reading Psychoanalysis offers the most detailed and comprehensive treatments available in English of such classic texts as Freud's case of Little Hans, Rank's The Incest Theme in Literature and Legend, and Groddeck's The Book of the It. Rudnytsky's argument for object relations theory concludes by boldly affirming the possibility of a "consilience" between scientific and hermeneutic modes of knowledge.

Review Quotes

It is a labor of love.... This volume is leisurely, informative, and often entertaining reading for reflective students of psychoanalytic history.

Rudnytsky concludes the story of the division of psychoanalysis with a 'dream of consilience, ' devoutly to be wished perhaps, yet one that the reader can only reach by walking over the hot coals of creative envy and murderous jealousy to be cooled in the holy waters where science and art run together.

Rudnytsky deserves respect for his overall ability to remain neutral when assessing the merits and limitations of each analyst without showing dogmatic loyalties.

Thoughtful, compelling, engagingly written... Reading Psychoanalysis is a groundbreaking text that has much to teach us of our past and present.

About the Author

Peter L. Rudnytsky is Professor of English at the University of Florida and the Editor of American Imago. He is a 2001 recipient of an award for Outstanding Contributions to Psychoanalysis from the International Federation for Psychoanalytic Education.