Psychoanalysing ambivalence with Freud and Lacan : on and off the couch / Stephanie Swales and Carol Owens.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Owens, Carol (Psychoanalyst), author.

Swales, Stephanie S., author.

Contributor:

Rosengarten Family Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ambivalence.

Psychoanalysis.

Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939.

Freud, Sigmund.

Lacan, Jacques, 1901-1981.

Lacan, Jacques.

Physical Description:

xvii, 146 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, 2020.

Summary:

"Taking a deep dive into contemporary Western culture, this book suggests we are all fundamentally ambivalent beings. A great deal has been written about how to love-to be kinder, more empathic, a better person, and so on. But trying to love without dealing with our ambivalence, with our hatred, is often a recipe for failure. Any attempt, therefore, to love our neighbour as ourselves-or even, for that matter, to love ourselves-must recognize that we love where we hate and we hate where we love. Psychoanalysis, beginning with Freud, has claimed that to be in two minds about something or someone is characteristic of human subjectivity. Owens and Swales trace the concept of ambivalence through its various iterations in Freud and Lacan in order to question how the contemporary subject deals with its ambivalence. They argue that experiences of ambivalence are, in present-day cultural life, increasingly excised or foreclosed, and that this foreclosure has symptomatic effects at the individual as well as social levels. Owens and Swales examine ambivalence as it is at work in mourning, in matters of sexuality, in our enjoyment under neo-liberalism and capitalism. Above all, the authors consider how today's ambivalent subject relates to the racially, religiously, culturally, or sexually different neighbour as a result of the current societal dictate of complete tolerance of the other. In this vein, Swales and Owens argue that ambivalence about one's own jouissance is at the very roots of xenophobia. Peppered with relevant and stimulating examples from clinical work, film, television, politics and everyday life, Psychoanalysing Ambivalence breathes new life into an old concept and will appeal to any reader, academic or clinician with an interest in psychoanalytic ideas"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

1 The tensions of ambivalence p. 1

2 Why the zombies ate my neighbours p. 21

3 Raising the dead: Mourning and ambivalence p. 39

4 On letting the right one in: Heisenberg and vampires p. 52

5 Guilty secrets (Walter White, Walter Mitty, and the Manosphere) p. 64

6 Guilt, shame, and jouissance (and by the way, why your superego is not really your amigo ...) p. 83

7 Extimacy, ambivalence, xenophobia p. 102

8 The jouissance of ambivalence: We are not racists, but... p. 122.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rosengarten Family Fund.

ISBN:

9781138328440

1138328448

9781138328457

1138328456

OCLC:

1137747859