The Fragmented Self, Recognition, and the Edge of Desire

Foundations of the Psychoanalysis of Unstable Objects
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-20148-9
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 270 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Psychoanalysis in a New Key Book Series

This book explores the most unstable facets of psychic life and how these can be understood and engaged in the psychoanalytic consulting room.

Psychic life is sustained by its very instabilities—by fragmentation, paradox, and the defenses that make survival possible. In dialogue with both psychoanalytic and philosophical traditions, Anderson shows how analysis becomes an aesthetic practice of presence, one that sustains the paradoxes necessary for psychic vitality. Reframing foundational psychoanalytic concepts such as the false self, regression, and symbolization, the book develops a clinical lens attuned to ambiguity, embodiment, and survival. Drawing from relational and post-structuralist traditions, it weaves vivid clinical vignettes with theoretical inquiry to explore how the psyche organizes itself around absence, symbolic rupture, and ethical refusal.

With a distinctive perspective on subjectivity, this book offers an aesthetic and ethical framework for psychoanalysis—one that sustains engagement with paradox, dissociation, and symbolic survival over premature resolution. It is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and scholars of psychoanalytic thought.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate, Professional Practice & Development, and Professional Reference

Autoren/Hrsg.

Anderson, Todd

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychotherapie / Klinische Psychologie Psychodynamische Psychotherapie
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologie / Allgemeines & Theorie Psychologische Theorie, Psychoanalyse Psychoanalyse (S. Freud)

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword by Nancy McWilliams

Part 1: Hidden Structures and Symbolic Terrain 1. Secret Riverbeds: Secrecy and the Architecture of Subjectivity 2. Defenses Against Aliveness: Safety, Shame, and the Inhibition of Contact 3. Erotic Submission: Aesthetic Stylization, Dissociation, and the Ethics of Presence  Part 2: Recursive Selves and Symbolic Reversal 4. The Original Paradox 5. The Madonna-Whore-Hologram: Erotic Dissociation, Affective Survival, and the Analyst’s Double Position 6. The Dialectic of Coherence and Containment: Ferenczi’s Legacy and the Ethics of Listening 7. The Wise Baby and the Unborn Self 8. Time-Bound Selves: Curation, Collapse, and the Temporality of the False Self 9. The False Self as Curator: Symbolic Life, Containment, and the Paradox of Authenticity  Part 3: Recursive Integration and the Edge of Theory 10. The Original Paradox, Revisited 11. Pathological Accommodation and the Architecture of Invisibility

Über Autor(innen)

Todd Anderson, PhD, PsyD is a psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. His work explores how dissociation and desire shape psychic survival, bringing together insights from object relations, relational psychoanalysis, and contemporary philosophy.