ABSTRACT

Structures of Subjectivity: Explorations in Psychoanalytic Phenomenology and Contextualism, is a revised and expanded second edition of a work first published in 1984, which was the first systematic presentation of the intersubjective viewpoint – what George Atwood and Robert Stolorow called psychoanalytic phenomenology – in psychoanalysis. This edition contains new chapters tracing the further development of their thinking over the ensuing decades and explores the personal origins of their most essential ideas.

In this new edition, Atwood and Stolorow cover the philosophical and theoretical assumptions of psychoanalysis and present a broad approach that they have designated phenomenological contextualism. This approach addresses personal subjective worlds in all their richness and idiosyncrasy and focuses on their relational contexts of origin and therapeutic transformation.

Structures of Subjectivity covers the principles guiding the practice of psychoanalytic therapy from the authors' viewpoints and includes numerous detailed clinical case studies. The book will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, practitioners of psychotherapy, psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, and social workers. It will also be of interest to scholars and students with an interest in psychoanalytic theory and practice, and its philosophical premises.

part |92 pages

Part 1

chapter |18 pages

Intersubjectivity

I. The Therapeutic Situation 1

chapter |15 pages

Intersubjectivity

II. Development and Pathogenesis 1

chapter |24 pages

Pathways of Concretization

chapter |2 pages

Concluding Remarks

part |51 pages

Part 2

chapter |18 pages

Legacies of the Golden Age

A Memoir of a Collaboration

chapter |16 pages

The Demons of Phenomenological Contextualism

A Conversation

chapter |3 pages

Conclusions