Routledge Toward an Emancipatory Psychoanalysis: Brandchaft's Intersubjective Vision (Psychoanalytic Inquiry Book Series)

Best known for his contributions to the development of contemporary intersubjectivity theory, Bernard Brandchaft has dedicated a career to the advancement of psychoanalytic theory and practice. Continually searching for a theoretical viewpoint that would satisfactorily explain the clinical phenomena he was encountering, his curiosity eventually led him to the work of Heinz Kohut and the then-emerging school of self psychology. However, seemingly always one step ahead of the crowd, Brandchaft constantly reformulated his ideas about and investigations into the intersubjective nature of human experiences. Many of the chapters in this volume have never before been published. Together, they articulate the evolution of Brandchaft's thinking along the road toward an emancipatory psychoanalysis. Moreover, commentary from Shelley Doctors and Dorienne Sorter – in addition to Bernard Brandchaft himself – examines the clinical implications of the theoretical shifts that he advocated and provides a contemporary context for the case material and conclusions each paper presents. These theoretical shifts, both clear and subtle, are thereby elucidated to form the grand narrative of a truly visionary psychoanalytic thinker. Review "For nearly three decades, Bernard Brandchaft has been developing an emancipatory vision in psychoanalysis, evocatively captured in the titles of two earlier chapters reappearing in this volume: 'Bonds That Shackle, Ties That Free' (1987) and 'To Free a Spirit from Its Cell' (1994). This vision reaches a stunning culmination in Toward an Emancipatory Psychoanalysis. Brandchaft finds the shackles that chain us and the cells that imprison us in what he calls systems of pathological accommodation - relational contexts in which one unconsciously sacrifices one's own perceptual-emotional reality and adopts that which is required by an other in order to maintain a needed tie. He deftly illuminates the pervasiveness of such accommodative patterns in a wide range of clinical phenomena and problems, and shows us how these patterns must be carefully investigated in order to facilitate therapeutic change. And in an elegant metalogue, he lays bare the extent to which the evolution of psychoanalysis itself has been stunted by accommodation to authority. In this book, Brandchaft, Doctors, and Sorter gather and synthesize the life's work of a master clinician and clinical theorist, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone seeking to expand the domain of human freedom and emotional authenticity." - Robert D. Stolorow, Ph.D., author, Trauma and Human Existence (Routledge, 2007) "This is a most important book and, in its own way, a triumph. It describes the fruits of a highly creative career trajectory which has traversed in turn the main theories underpinning psychoanalytic practice to emerge with a new view of fundamental therapeutic significance, based on what Brandchaft sees as the primary datum, the 'livid interactive experience of the patient.' His conceptualization of 'systems of pathological accommodation' is an innovation of major importance, offering a paradigm shift in the way traumatic phenomena are to be understood. This book concerns the work of an original and compassionate thinker. It is a 'must read' for those involved in work with the more severely damaged patient." - Russell Meares, M.D., Emeritus Professor, University of Sydney "Bernard Brandchaft defines 'emancipatory' as 'the analyst's capacity to liberate his own vision of what is true or best for his patient.' This fascinating volume recounts his personal and intellectual odyssey in an attempt to achieve that emancipation. Trained in traditional drive and ego psychology, attracted first to British object relations and Kleinian theory, then to Kohut and self psychology, and finally to Stolorow, Atwood and intersubjectivity, he views his personal journey as in many ways parallel to the evolution of the profession of psychoa