Longing

Longing: Psychoanalytic Musings on Desire is a contemporary, interdisciplinary exploration of one of psychoanalysis's most foundational and fascinating areas of investigation. This anthology explores the vicissitudes and varieties of desire, its public and private, normative and transgressive, its light and dark expressions. It examines desire in its relational, cultural, clinical, physical, sexual and aesthetic forms. Collectively, these essays demonstrate an understanding of the difficulties of identifying and realizing desire, precisely because it is multiple, omnipresent, shape-shifting, ongoing and, perhaps, always ultimately unfulfillable. They question whether desire is by definition something that cannot be satisfied, and contemplate how we relate to our desires? Interpersonal psychoanalytic practice and theory understands desire not merely as an intrapsychic drive but also as a force shaped by and shaping interpersonal relationships. From within this perspective, a number of the contributors examine a broad variety of clinical manifestations of desire as it struggles for expression or suppression.

Jean Petrucelli

Contents: Judith Brisman, "Privacy and passion: shadows in the analytic terrain", Philip M. Bromberg ""It never entered my mind": some reflections on desire, dissociation and disclosure", Polly Young-Eisendrath "Secrets of analytic love and the transformation of desire", Adam Phillips "Desiring by myself", Jean Petrucelli ""Take a walk on the wild side": regulation, compulsion and desire", Richard A. Chefetz ""I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then":longing for a coherent mind. Interpreting implicit processes in the psychoanalytic exploration of mind", Ethel S. Person "S & M: I love your pain, do you like my disdain?", Edgar A. Levenson ""Oh what a blow that phantom gave me!": Observations on the rise of virtual desire", Elizabeth Halsted "A shoe is rarely just a shoe: women's accessories and their psyches", Candace Martin "Fetish: fashion, sex, and power", Rachel Maines "Freud and the steam-powered vibrator", Sue Kolod "Lust and unlust: an interpersonal look at menopause", Seth Aronson "Desire's dark alchemy: turning gold into dross", Jill C. Howard ""Dangerous liasons": the splitting of desire in infidelity", Janet Tintner ""Cabbin'd, cribb'd, confin'd: kleptomania reconsidered", Tova Mirvis "Strange dreams and evil inclinations: the emergence of forbidden desire", Avivah Zornberg "Seduced into Eden: the beginning of desire", Lewis Aron "The tree of knowledge, good and evil: conflicting interpretations"