In dialogue with the most famous myth for the origin of different languages - The Tower of Babel - A Psychoanalytic Exploration on Sameness and Otherness: Beyond Babel? provides a series of timely reflections on the themes of sameness and otherness from a contemporary psychoanalytic perspective. How are we dealing with communication and its difficulties, the confusion of tongues and loss of common ground within a European context today? Can we move beyond Babel?

Confusion and feared loss of shared values and identity are a major part of the daily work of psychoanalytic psychotherapists. Bringing together an international range psychoanalytic practitioners and researchers, the book is divided into six parts and covers an array of resonant topics, including: language and translation; cultural identity; families and children; the cyber world; the psychotherapeutic process; and migration. Whereas the quest for unity, which underpins the myth of Babel, leads to mystification, simplification, and the exclusion of people or things, multilingual communities necessitate mutual understanding through dialogue. This book examines those factors that further or threaten communication, aiming not to reduce, but to gain complexity. It suggests that diversification enriches communication and that, by relating to others, we can create something new.

As opposed to cultural and linguistic homogeneity, Babel is not only a metaphor for mangled communication, alienation, and distraction, it is also about the acceptance or rejection of differences between self and other. This book will be of great interest to psychoanalytic psychotherapists and researchers from a wide variety of backgrounds.

About the Author

Anne-Marie Schloesser is a psychologist and training and supervising analyst with the IPA, DPG, and DGPT, working in private practice after many years at the Department of Medical Psychology at the University of Goettingen. She is a member of German committees for the development of psychotherapy, an expert for psychoanalytic treatment in the German Health Services, past president of the DGPT and EFPP, and has offered training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy in Shanghai. She is Editor-in-Chief of the EFPP Book Series published by Routledge.

Reviews

"Rarely have I read a collection of such stimulating and suggestive theoretical and clinical essays by a range of scholars and practitioners of contemporary psychoanalytical psychotherapy for various mental illnesses understood in the context of 'dis-eases'. Drawing on the work of several traditional and modern schools of thought, these authors consider the constraints and restraints of body, mind, and society in the context of what group analysts call the 'tripartite matrix', with its emphasis on interpersonal relations, values and norms, and perhaps above all patterns of communication, both verbal and non-verbal. I was profoundly moved to realise the extent of the growth and development of a European federation of organisations, colleagues, languages and ideas, which augurs well for our continuing cooperation in the service of the well-being of our patients and clients, even in adverse political and economic conditions." --Earl Hopper, PhD, Mem.Inst.GA. DFAGPA, psychoanalyst, group analyst and organisational consultant in private practice in London

"The special strength of this innovative book arises exactly from the connection between its topic and its intrinsic creativity: open to an international vision, this text shows a combination of curiosity in exploration and freedom from any official academic attitude, while going to depth into unusual psychoanalytic and widely cultural areas. I recommend A Psychoanalytic Exploration on Sameness and Otherness both as a fascinating read and as a potential educational instrument for psychologists, psychotherapists and psychoanalysts." --Stefano Bolognini, IPA Past President

"Rarely have I read a collection of such stimulating and suggestive theoretical and clinical essays by a range of scholars and practitioners of contemporary psychoanalytical psychotherapy for various mental illnesses understood in the context of 'dis-eases'. Drawing on the work of several traditional and modern schools of thought, these authors consider the constraints and restraints of body, mind, and society in the context of what Group Analysts call the 'tripartite matrix', with its emphasis on interpersonal relations, values and norms, and perhaps above all patterns of communication, both verbal and non-verbal. I was profoundly moved to realise the extent of the growth and development of a European federation of organisations, colleagues, languages and ideas, which augurs well for our continuing cooperation in the service of the well-being of our patients and clients, even in adverse political and economic conditions." --Earl Hopper, PhD, Mem.Inst.GA. DFAGPA, psychoanalyst, group analyst and organisational consultant in private practice in London

"The special strenght of this innovative book arisis exactly from the connection between its topic and its intrinsic creativity: open to an international vision, this text shows a combination of curiosity in exploration and freedom from any official academic attitude, while going to depth into unusual psychoanalytic and widely cultural areas. I recommend A Psychoanalytic Exploration on Sameness and Otherness both as a fascinating read and as a potential educational instrument for psychologists, psychotherapysts and psychoanalysts." --Stefano Bolognini, IPA Past President

Book Information
ISBN 9780367374082
Author Anne-Marie Schloesser
Format Paperback
Page Count 292
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 480g