Lost To Desire

This book covers the work of psychoanalysts in post WWII France with patients beset by somatic problems with little manifest fantasy life, and how their concept of opératoire continues to inform the theory and practice of working with patients in crisis. The author explores what the new concept has elicited in a community of practitioners – close to the École Psychosomatique de Paris – over a period of some sixty years. As a 'skin for thought' it facilitated change while preserving coherence, gradually beginning to attract further considerations. Important themes have included: the early groundwork necessary for the configuration of fantasy, the importance of a shared imaginary, the role of denial and obliterated memories as a bond between people, emergency measures of a Me cut off from revitalisation, the effects of the rhythms and atmosphere at the workplace on family life, and the consequences of a crisis suppressed for lack of a holding frame. As psychoanalytic discourse adapted to the challenges, the original perspective changed aspect, moving from a systematic evaluation of what the patients did not produce to what the analyst had to fill in to make sense of the situation. Clashing with the terrain, French psychoanalysts raised important problems about psychic anaemia that are stimulating and deserve cross-cultural discussion. This book will appeal to psychoanalysts in practice and training who wish to learn more about this ground-breaking work on memory and trauma, and how to apply it to their own practice.

I'm so busy and tired, how can I find time for sex? How can I go from mommy one minute to passionate lover the next? What medicines or natural herbs can I take to improve my libido? At some point in their lives, most women experience a decline in their sexual desire. Yet despite the vast number of books devoted to sex, surprisingly few focus on the problem of low libido. Fewer still offer any practical advice to the woman who has lost her sex drive and longs to find it again. Reclaiming Desire presents the holistic approach that gynecologist Andrew Goldstein and clinical psychologist Marianne Brandon—co-founders of the Sexual Wellness Center in Annapolis, Maryland—use to successfully treat women with low libido. Capitalizing on their combined medical and psychological expertise, they reveal how a complex set of physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual factors—as well as specific life-changing events such as marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, divorce, and menopause—can affect female sex drive. Reading this book, women will come to understand that low libido isn't "all in their heads"—or all in their bodies, for that matter. The problem is real and it's diverse—but it's curable.

This first book-length critical study of Jeremy Irons concentrates on his key performances and acting style. Through the analysis of some of the major screen roles in Irons's career, such as Brideshead Revisited, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Reversal of Fortune, Swann in Love, Dead Ringers and Lolita, Mark Nicholls identifies a new masculine identity that unites them: an emblematic figure of the 1980s and 1990s presented as an alternative to the action hero or the common man. Using clear explanations of complex theoretical ideas, this book investigates Jeremy Irons's performances through the lens of sexual inversion and social rebellion, to uncover an entirely original but recognizable screen type.

This book covers the work of psychoanalysts in post WWII France with patients beset by somatic problems with little manifest fantasy life, and how their concept of opératoire continues to inform the theory and practice of working with patients in crisis. The author explores what the new concept has elicited in a community of practitioners - close to the École Psychosomatique de Paris - over a period of some sixty years. As a "skin for thought" it facilitated change while preserving coherence, gradually beginning to attract further considerations. Important themes have included: the early groundwork necessary for the configuration of fantasy, the importance of a shared imaginary, the role of denial and obliterated memories as a bond between people, emergency measures of a Me cut off from revitalisation, the effects of the rhythms and atmosphere at the workplace on family life, and the consequences of a crisis suppressed for lack of a holding frame. As psychoanalytic discourse adapted to the challenges, the original perspective changed aspect, moving from a systematic evaluation of what the patients did not produce to what the analyst had to fill in to make sense of the situation. Clashing with the terrain, French psychoanalysts raised important problems about psychic anaemia that are stimulating and deserve cross-cultural discussion. This book will appeal to psychoanalysts in practice and training who wish to learn more about this ground-breaking work on memory and trauma, and how to apply it to their own practice.

Despite creating vast inequalities and propping up reactionary world regimes, capitalism has many passionate defenders—but not because of what it withholds from some and gives to others. Capitalism dominates, Todd McGowan argues, because it mimics the structure of our desire while hiding the trauma that the system inflicts upon it. People from all backgrounds enjoy what capitalism provides, but at the same time are told more and better is yet to come. Capitalism traps us through an incomplete satisfaction that compels us after the new, the better, and the more. Capitalism's parasitic relationship to our desires gives it the illusion of corresponding to our natural impulses, which is how capitalism's defenders characterize it. By understanding this psychic strategy, McGowan hopes to divest us of our addiction to capitalist enrichment and help us rediscover enjoyment as we actually experienced it. By locating it in the present, McGowan frees us from our attachment to a better future and the belief that capitalism is an essential outgrowth of human nature. From this perspective, our economic, social, and political worlds open up to real political change. Eloquent and enlivened by examples from film, television, consumer culture, and everyday life, Capitalism and Desire brings a new, psychoanalytically grounded approach to political and social theory.

In Read My Desire, Joan Copjec stages a confrontation between the theories of Jacques Lacan and those of Michel Foucault, protagonists of two powerful modern disciplines—psychoanalysis and historicism. Ordinarily, these modes of thinking only cross paths long enough for historicists to charge psychoanalysis with an indifference to history, but here psychoanalysis, via Lacan, goes on the offensive. Refusing to cede history to the historicists, Copjec makes a case for the superiority of Lacan’s explanation of historical processes and generative principles. Her goal is to inspire a new kind of cultural critique, one that is “literate in desire,” and capable of interpreting what is unsaid in the manifold operations of culture.

“A debut story collection of the rarest kind ... you wish that every single entry could be an entire novel." —Entertainment Weekly Fresh, intimate stories of women’s lives from an extraordinary new literary voice, laying bare the unexpected beauty and irony in contemporary life A college freshman, traveling home, strikesup an odd, ephemeral friendship with the couple next to her on the plane. A mother prepares for her son’s wedding, her own life unraveling as his comes together. A long-lost stepbrother’s visit to New York prompts a family’s reckoning with its old taboos. A wife considers the secrets her marriage once contained. An office worker, exhausted by the ambitions of the men around her, emerges into a gridlocked city one afternoon to make a decision. In these eleven powerful stories, thrilling desire and melancholic yearning animate women’s lives, from the brink of adulthood to the labyrinthine path between twenty and thirty, to middle age, when certain possibilities quietly elapse. Tender, lucid, and piercingly funny, Objects of Desire is a collection pulsing with subtle drama, rich with unforgettable scenes, and alive with moments of recognition each more startling than the last—a spellbinding debut that announces a major talent.

René Girard shows that all desires are contagious—and the desire to be thin is no exception. In this compelling new book, Girard ties the anorexia epidemic to what he calls mimetic desire: a desire imitated from a model. Girard has long argued that, far from being spontaneous, our most intimate desires are copied from what we see around us. In a culture obsessed with thinness, the rise of eating disorders should be no surprise. When everyone is trying to slim down, Girard asks, how can we convince anorexic patients to have a healthy outlook on eating? Mixing theoretical sophistication with irreverent common sense, Girard denounces a “culture of anorexia” and takes apart the competitive impulse that fuels the game of conspicuous non-consumption. He shows that showing off a slim physique is not enough—the real aim is to be skinnier than one’s rivals. In the race to lose the most weight, the winners are bound to be thinner and thinner. Taken to extremes, this tendency to escalation can only lead to tragic results. Featuring a foreword by neuropsychiatrist Jean-Michel Oughourlian and an introductory essay by anthropologist Mark R. Anspach, the volume concludes with an illuminating conversation between René Girard, Mark R. Anspach, and Laurence Tacou.

A new generation continues the saga of Steve and Ginny.

"This book covers the work of psychoanalysts in post WWII France with patients beset by somatic problems with little manifest fantasy life, and how their concept of opâeratoire continues to inform the theory and practice of working with patients in crisis. The author explores what the new concept has elicited in a community of practitioners - close to the âEcole Psychosomatique de Paris - over a period of some sixty years. As a "skin for thought" it facilitated change while preserving coherence, gradually beginning to attract further considerations. Important themes have included: the early groundwork necessary for the configuration of fantasy, the importance of a shared imaginary, the role of denial and obliterated memories as a bond between people, emergency measures of a Me cut off from revitalisation, the effects of the rhythms and atmosphere at the workplace on family life, and the consequences of a crisis suppressed for lack of a holding frame. As psychoanalytic discourse adapted to the challenges, the original perspective changed aspect, moving from a systematic evaluation of what the patients did not produce to what the analyst had to fill in to make sense of the situation. Clashing with the terrain, French psychoanalysts raised important problems about psychic anaemia that are stimulating and deserve cross-cultural discussion. This book will appeal to psychoanalysts in practice and training who wish to learn more about this ground-breaking work on memory and trauma, and how to apply it to their own practice"--