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Being a Character: Psychoanalysis and Self Experience
Contributor(s): Bollas, Christopher (Author)
ISBN: 0415088151     ISBN-13: 9780415088152
Publisher: Routledge
OUR PRICE:   $37.00  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: April 1993
Qty:
Annotation: i Being a Character /i shows how each person unconsciously invests the ordinary objects of life with particular and private meaning. As each person subsequently voyages through the environment he encounters objects that are already laden with previously invested meaning and in this sense the individual is evoked by encounters with objects. br Taking Freud's theory of the dream work as a model for all unconscious thinking, Bollas argues that we dream work ourselves into becoming who we are, and he illustrates how the analyst and the patient use unconscious processes to develop new psychic structures that the patient can use to alter his or her self experience. br Building on this ground, the latter part of the book describes very special kinds of self experience, including the tragic madness of women cutting themselves, the odd experience of a cruising homosexual in bars and baths, the demented ferocity of the Fascist state of mind, and every person's self experience as a member of his or her historical epoch. He includes a seminal chapter on the Oedipus Complex, arguing that Sophocles and Frued point to an entirely different 'resolution' than heretofore argued in any of the schools of psychoanalytic thought. br The main purpose of i Being a Character /i is to rethink the nature of the individual's creation of a lived environment, and the author draws on his clinical experience as well as the notebooks and the writings of poets, scientists, painters, sculptors and anthropologists to support his view that each person dreams himself into existence and walks about henceforth in his own private dream.
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Psychology | Movements - Psychoanalysis
- Psychology | Mental Health
Dewey: 616.891
Physical Information: 0.89" H x 6.3" W x 9.18" (1.05 lbs) 304 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

Each person invests many of the objects in his life with his or her own unconscious meaning, each person subsequently voyages through an environment that constantly evokes the self's psychic history. Taking Freud's model of dreamwork as a model for all unconscious thinking, Christopher Bollas argues that we dreamwork ourselves into becoming who we are, and illustrates how the analyst and the patient use such unconscious processes to develop new psychic structures that the patient can use to alter his or her self experience. Building on this foundation, he goes on to describe some very special forms of self experience, including the tragic madness of women cutting themselves, the experience of a cruising homosexual in bars and bathes and the demented ferocity of the facist state of mind. An original interpreter of classical theory and clinical issues, in Being a Character Christopher Bollas takes the reader into the very texture of the psychoanalytic process.