Overview

All around us, the world is splintering into ""us"" versus ""them"": Brexit, Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton, the Syrian Civil War, the return of totalitarian parties in Europe to electoral success, and the rise of the alt-right and white supremacists in the US. Neofascism is on the rise worldwide with worrying echoes of the past whilst politicians scrap amongst themselves over conflicting ideologies. Dr Jonathan Sklar brings his razor-sharp analytic skills out of the consulting room and into society. His searing insights into why our world is fragmenting around us need to be read and need to be heard. It is time for psychoanalysis to shine a light on the wider world and go against the current desire for quick soundbites and easy answers and, instead, engage our consciousness to truly understand, challenge, and engage with the political landscape. Jonathan tells us, ""Each generation must pick up the political thought and action of confronting fascism."" This book is his rallying cry to our generation and is a deeply relevant, thoughtful, and important book for our times. Today sees the rise of nationalism, the return of totalitarian parties in Europe to electoral success, and the rise of the alt-right and white supremacists in the US. Thus, there is urgency for psychoanalysts, with their understanding of cruelty, sadomasochism, perversion, and other mental mechanisms, to speak out. Jonathan Sklar has risen to the challenge with this timely, thought-provoking, and, at times, upsetting work. Dark Times starts with a look at European history in terms of monuments and mourning, before moving into storytelling and the elision of thought and history at this current time, including harrowing detail of the brutalities inflicted by ISIS on the Yazidi, and concludes with a meditation on the relationship between cruelty in the early environment and hatred of the other within society, with particular focus on racism in the US. Sklar goes against the grain of brief sound bites, which are an aid to quickly pass over painful knowledge. Instead, he goes into detail to give extremely dark, horrid occurrences, and the human beings on the receiving end, respect and understanding, which enables the reader greater access to allowing unconscious things to be made more conscious, highlighting the quality of humanity in human beings. Also, listening to these stories enables us to become more aware, not only of what is going on over there, but also what is happening here, because in our increasingly joined-up world, here is always implicated and affected too. By ridding ourselves of the illusions of our political times, we can find greater freedom to think, develop, challenge, and create hope, for the future of our children and our grandchildren, as well as for ourselves. Dark Times is a timely, thought-provoking, and, at times, upsetting work that is a must- read for all those looking for a deeper understanding of today's world. AUTHOR: Dr Jonathan Sklar, MBBS, FRCPsych is a training and supervising psychoanalyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society. Originally trained in psychiatry at Friern and the Royal Free Hospitals, he later trained in adult psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic, London. For many years, he was consultant psychotherapist and head of the psychotherapy department at Addenbrooke's and Fulbourne hospitals in Cambridge. He now works in full-time analytic practice in London. As well as lecturing widely across the world, he has taught psychoanalysis annually in South Africa for over ten years, termly in Chicago for ten years until 2018, as well as regularly across Eastern Europe. From 2007 to 2011, he was vice president of the European Psychoanalytic Federation, with special responsibility for seminars for recently qualified analysts as well as new analytic groups in East Europe. He is presently a board member of the International Psychoanalytical Association. He is the author of two previous books: Landscapes of the Dark: History, Trauma, Psychoanalysis (Karnac, 2011) and Balint Matters: Psychosomatics and the Art of Assessment (Karnac, 2017).

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9781912691005

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Reviews

Normalising Nazis is one example of a populist attack on thinking that psychoanalyst Jonathan Sklar highlights in his vital new book... Acknowledging human cruelty is hard but, like this book, should not be avoided. An important read. -- Rachael Mckeown, Psychodynamic Counsellor * Sussex Counselling & Psychotherapy News, Spring 2019 * Lucid, powerful, intelligent, and deeply relevant for the days of our times: a vastly thoughtful and important book. -- Philippe Sands, Professor of Law at University College London, author of 'East West Street' Ranging contrapuntally over such themes as alterity, memory, trauma, and racism, Dark Times is a vitally important volume that illuminates the increasingly menacing horizons of our shared social and political life. In an age in which psychological quick-fixes such as cognitive behavioural therapy and psychopharmacology proliferate, Jonathan Sklar reminds us of the irreducibility of psychoanalysis in helping to secure the internal conditions for freedom and emancipation, and therefore in resisting tendencies towards what Hannah Arendt called 'total domination'. -- Samir Gandesha, Associate Professor of Humanities and Director of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada

Normalising Nazis is one example of a populist attack on thinking that psychoanalyst Jonathan Sklar highlights in his vital new book… Acknowledging human cruelty is hard but, like this book, should not be avoided. An important read. -- Rachael Mckeown, Psychodynamic Counsellor * Sussex Counselling & Psychotherapy News, Spring 2019 * Lucid, powerful, intelligent, and deeply relevant for the days of our times: a vastly thoughtful and important book. -- Philippe Sands, Professor of Law at University College London, author of ‘East West Street’ Ranging contrapuntally over such themes as alterity, memory, trauma, and racism, Dark Times is a vitally important volume that illuminates the increasingly menacing horizons of our shared social and political life. In an age in which psychological quick-fixes such as cognitive behavioural therapy and psychopharmacology proliferate, Jonathan Sklar reminds us of the irreducibility of psychoanalysis in helping to secure the internal conditions for freedom and emancipation, and therefore in resisting tendencies towards what Hannah Arendt called 'total domination'. -- Samir Gandesha, Associate Professor of Humanities and Director of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada 'emotionally and intellectually engaging […] a remarkable experience of a book, committed not only to a visceral practice of psychoanalysis, but also a deeply practical one. In these dark times, more works like Sklar’s are urgently needed.' -- Eddy Carrillo – The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 90:3 ‘Stir[s] up the fitfully applied, but urgently needed, subdiscipline of political psychoanalysis […] To work free of revenge is an ongoing work and, essentially, I think the essays in Dark Times are a reflection on this imaginative task.’ -- Steven Groarke, 'The International Journal of Psychoanalysis', 101:3, 2020

Normalising Nazis is one example of a populist attack on thinking that psychoanalyst Jonathan Sklar highlights in his vital new book... Acknowledging human cruelty is hard but, like this book, should not be avoided. An important read. -- Rachael Mckeown, Psychodynamic Counsellor * Sussex Counselling & Psychotherapy News, Spring 2019 * Lucid, powerful, intelligent, and deeply relevant for the days of our times: a vastly thoughtful and important book. -- Philippe Sands, Professor of Law at University College London, author of 'East West Street' Ranging contrapuntally over such themes as alterity, memory, trauma, and racism, Dark Times is a vitally important volume that illuminates the increasingly menacing horizons of our shared social and political life. In an age in which psychological quick-fixes such as cognitive behavioural therapy and psychopharmacology proliferate, Jonathan Sklar reminds us of the irreducibility of psychoanalysis in helping to secure the internal conditions for freedom and emancipation, and therefore in resisting tendencies towards what Hannah Arendt called 'total domination'. -- Samir Gandesha, Associate Professor of Humanities and Director of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada 'emotionally and intellectually engaging [...] a remarkable experience of a book, committed not only to a visceral practice of psychoanalysis, but also a deeply practical one. In these dark times, more works like Sklar's are urgently needed.' -- Eddy Carrillo - The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 90:3

Lucid, powerful, intelligent, and deeply relevant for the days of our times: a vastly thoughtful and important book.-Philippe Sands, Professor of Law at University College London, author of 'East West Street'Ranging contrapuntally over such themes as alterity, memory, trauma, and racism, 'Dark Times' is a vitally important volume that illuminates the increasingly menacing horizons of our shared social and political life. In an age in which psychological quick-fixes such as cognitive behavioural therapy and psychopharmacology proliferate, Jonathan Sklar reminds us of the irreducibility of psychoanalysis in helping to secure the internal conditions for freedom and emancipation, and therefore in resisting tendencies towards what Hannah Arendt called total domination.-Samir Gandesha, Associate Professor of Humanities and Director of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada

Normalising Nazis is one example of a populist attack on thinking that psychoanalyst Jonathan Sklar highlights in his vital new book… Acknowledging human cruelty is hard but, like this book, should not be avoided. An important read. -- Rachael Mckeown, Psychodynamic Counsellor * Sussex Counselling & Psychotherapy News, Spring 2019 * Lucid, powerful, intelligent, and deeply relevant for the days of our times: a vastly thoughtful and important book. -- Philippe Sands, Professor of Law at University College London, author of ‘East West Street’ Ranging contrapuntally over such themes as alterity, memory, trauma, and racism, Dark Times is a vitally important volume that illuminates the increasingly menacing horizons of our shared social and political life. In an age in which psychological quick-fixes such as cognitive behavioural therapy and psychopharmacology proliferate, Jonathan Sklar reminds us of the irreducibility of psychoanalysis in helping to secure the internal conditions for freedom and emancipation, and therefore in resisting tendencies towards what Hannah Arendt called 'total domination'. -- Samir Gandesha, Associate Professor of Humanities and Director of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada 'emotionally and intellectually engaging […] a remarkable experience of a book, committed not only to a visceral practice of psychoanalysis, but also a deeply practical one. In these dark times, more works like Sklar’s are urgently needed.' -- Eddy Carrillo – The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 90:3 ‘Stir[s] up the fitfully applied, but urgently needed, subdiscipline of political psychoanalysis […] To work free of revenge is an ongoing work and, essentially, I think the essays in 'Dark Times' are a reflection on this imaginative task.’ -- Steven Groarke, 'The International Journal of Psychoanalysis', 101:3, 2020

Author Information

Dr Jonathan Sklar, MBBS, FRCPsych is a training and supervising psychoanalyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society. Originally trained in psychiatry at Friern and the Royal Free Hospitals, he later trained in adult psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic, London. For many years, he was consultant psychotherapist and head of the psychotherapy department at Addenbrooke’s and Fulbourne hospitals in Cambridge. He now works in full-time analytic practice in London. As well as lecturing widely across the world, he has taught psychoanalysis annually in South Africa for over ten years, termly in Chicago for ten years until 2018, as well as regularly across Eastern Europe. From 2007 to 2011, he was vice president of the European Psychoanalytic Federation, with special responsibility for seminars for recently qualified analysts as well as new analytic groups in East Europe. He is presently a board member of the International Psychoanalytical Association. He is the author of two previous books: Landscapes of the Dark: History, Trauma, Psychoanalysis (Karnac, 2011) and Balint Matters: Psychosomatics and the Art of Assessment (Karnac, 2017).

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