Overview

Here, for the first time, is a book that submits the psychoanalytic training institute to deep anthropological scrutiny. It expertly uncovers the hidden institutional devices used to transform trainees into professionals. By attending closely to what trainees feel, do, and think as they struggle towards professional status, it exposes the often subtle but deeply penetrating effects psychoanalytic training has upon all who pass through it; effects that profoundly shape not only therapists (professionally and personally), but also the community itself. The author's fascinating and original data is culled from his extensive fieldwork, his case-studies of clinical work, and his interviews with teachers, senior practitioners and trainees. This book is written to be accessible to all those who have an interest in the therapeutic profession from the professional (whether psychotherapist or anthropologist) to the trainee and general reader.

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9780367106249

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Reviews

A wise, thoughtful, careful examination of a world often shrouded in secrecy. Davies is both a trained psychotherapist and a trained anthropological observer. As a result, his observations have a quite different feel than most of the literature in either field. Not only psychotherapists, but their clients (not to mention anthropologists) can look to this book to understand how this profession learns to see and respond to human pain. --Tanya Luhrmann, Professor of Anthropology (and Psychology) A remarkable anthropological study via participant observation of the world of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Davies has produced a tour de force of critical yet compassionate engagement covering all aspects of our institutional life, including the institution of the clinic itself. I found myself fascinated and informed on almost every page - and I thought I was a pretty seasoned and well-informed observer of and actor in the scene. Sometimes I felt mortified at how I have let all kinds of assumpions develop, though Davies does not take an Olympian, hyper-academic stance of 'a plague on all your houses' (he could be forgiven if he had). But he does force us to consider our professional histories and practices much more seriously than is usually the case, with all the splits, ructions, character assassinations and conformist tyrannies performed in the name of high standards and good practice. Anyone involved with training or other work of any kind in psychoanalytic organisations who cares about the degree of self-knowledge and social awareness they bring to their jobs should read this work. --Andrew Samuels, Professor of Analytical Psychology I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the field of psychoanalysism in the culture of institutions, and in how institutions foster change in their constituent members. --PsycCritiques (04/01/2010)

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James Davies

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