Affect and Emotion

Our emotions and feelings are central to who we are and the quality of our lives. Some people manage by denying or getting rid of their feelings, some cannot control their emotions, and others seem unable to feel very much at all. This book shows how psychoanalysis can illuminate the emotional and affective aspects of our beings. Using everyday examples, Graham Music describes the ways in which p…

Anxiety

Anxiety is a feeling that is familiar to all of us. But what exactly is it, and what function does it have in the development of the human personality? Anxiety serves as a signal that danger in some form is present. However, this danger may be perceived as arising from external or internal sources, and may be the conscious symptom of a variety of powerful fantasies in the unconscious mind. Ricky …

Castration

From fashion to football, in our dreams and epiphanies, through jealous rages and moments of genius, the effects of castration anxiety, so claims Ivan Ward, are ever-present. Freud's famous 'castration complex' is met with continually in analytic experience. Yet it seems an unbelievable idea. Taking his evidence from myth, clinical practice and the sexual theories of children, Freud esta…

Depression

Most of the time most of us feel mostly OK. Yet depression is now recognised as the commonest cause of disability and death of any disease. How can we understand this epidemic of human misery, and in what ways can psychotherapy contribute to our knowledge of its causes and treatment? This essay looks at a range of psychotherapies - cognitive, systemic and psychoanalytic - and their contributions …

Envy

Branded as one of the seven deadly sins and the reason in Christian mythology for Satan's fall from grace, envy is endemic in modern life. Although recognised as a pivotal state of mind centuries before psychoanalysis, in contemporary times it has been fostered relentlessly through advertising and the media. No wonder then, that in the new millennium it has reached crisis proportions. Many psycho…

Eros

Sex can be some of the best and worst of what happens between people - from love affairs to paedophilia. So how are we to understand sexual excitement and its relationship to love and concern? Freud gave the name Eros to his concept of the Life Instinct - the drive to endure and procreate. At best, imaginative activity, sexual desire and love all involve a multitude of connections within and betw…

Exhibitionism

Kahr explores the psychology and psychopathology of exhibitionism, both in its clinical and cultural manifestations. Kahr describes the personality profile of the traditional male genital exhibitionist, then explores the contributions of psychoanalysis to the understanding and treatment of exhibitionism as a clinical phenomenon, surveying Freudian and post-Freudian writings on its causes as rooted…