Psychoanalysis at the Margins

by Stepansky, Paul E.

• ISBN13: 9781590513408
• ISBN10: 1590513401
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-11-10
• Publisher: Other Press Professional

Summary

Why has American psychoanalysis been relegated to the margins of American mental health care? In this masterful summing up of three decades of experience as a psychoanalytic editor and publisher, Paul Stepansky tells the story of a once cohesive discipline that has splintered into rivalrous "part-fields" and now struggles to survive in a postanalytic world of cognitive-behavioral interventions, brief therapy, psychopharmacology, and managed care. Simultaneously, it isa cautionary tale of the inevitable marginalization of any profession that resists integration into the scientific mainstream of its time and place. Beyond its self-evident importance to psychoanalysts and other proponents of "talking" therapy,Psychoanalysis at the Marginsprovides an in-depth case study of the role of books, journals, and publishing in the rise and fall of a historically insular profession. For Stepansky, the near-demise of psychoanalytic publishing in America is a microcosm of the crisis of small scholarly and professional publishing in an era that has witnessed the ascendancy of internet chat groups, online seminars, Amazon.com, and electronic journal subscriptions. Positioning present-day psychoanalysis as an alternative healing modality, Stepansky explores the initiatives that have enabled other alternative professions to survive and even thrive in the face of mainstream opposition. Is it possible, he asks, that the lessons of alternative medicine can guide psychoanalysis to an "optimal marginality" that draws the mainstream to it? Pursuing pathways to this goal, Stepansky enjoins analysts to undertake a host of initiatives in the public interest that bring analytic knowledge to bear in those contexts where it can do the most good.

Author Biography

Paul E. Stepansky, Ph.D., was managing director of The Analytic Press from 1984—2006. He has been personal editor to Heinz Kohut, Margaret Mahler, and other psychoanalytic luminaries past and present, and now gives workshops and seminars on clinical writing and writing for publication. A Yale-trained historian of ideas, Stepansky explores topics in the history of psychiatry and psychoanalysis and is especially interested in the interface of psychiatry and medicine in America.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Psychoanalysis and Its Crises, Publishing and Otherwise	p. 1
The Rise and Fall of Psychoanalytic Book Publishing in America	p. 39
Psychoanalytic Journals and the Road to Fractionation: I. The Case of JAPA	p. 76
Psychoanalytic Journals and the Road to Fractionation: II. The Turn to Pluralism	p. 106
Theoretical Pluralism and Its Discontents	p. 133
Whence Progress?	p. 172
Science Matters	p. 217
Varieties of Healing, Conventional and Otherwise	p. 251
Life at the Margins	p. 287
Acknowledgments	p. 315
Journal Abbreviations in Notes	p. 321
Medical Glossary	p. 325
Index	p. 335
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