1st Edition

A Mind of One's Own A Psychoanalytic View of Self and Object

By Robert A. Caper Copyright 1999

    This collection of papers, written over the last six years by Robert Caper, focuses on the importance of distinguishing self from object in psychological development.

    Robert Caper demonstrates the importance this psychological disentanglement plays in the therapeutic effect of psychoanalysis.

    In doing so he demonstrates what differentiates the practice of psychoanalysis from psychotherapy; while psychotherapy aims to ease the patient towards "good mental health" through careful suggestion; psychoanalysis allows the patient to discover him/herself, with the self wholly distinguished from other people and other objects.

    Joseph, Foreword.  Introduction. Psychoanalysis and Suggestion: Reflections on James Strachey's 'The Nature of the Therapeutic Action of Psychoanalysis'. Does Psychoanalysis Heal?: A Contribution to the Theory of Psychoanalytic Technique. On the Difficulty of Making a Mutative Interpretation. What is a Clinical Fact? Psychic Reality and the Analysis of Transference. Psychopathology and Primitave Mental States. Play, Creativity and Experimentation. Internal Objects. A Mind of One's Own. On Alpha Function. A Theory of the Container. Bibliography. Index.

    Biography

    Dr Robert Caper is a graduate of Reed College and UCLA School of Medicine. He is a training and supervising psychoanalyst at the Psychoanalytic Centre of California, and the author of Immaterial Facts: Freud’s Discovery of Psychic Reality and Klein’s Development of His Work, as well as numerous papers on psychoanalytic theory and technique, many of which appear in this volume.

    "Caper writes with clarity and lightness of touch synthesising ideas and untangling confusions in a delightfully direct style free from fluff or wordiness" - P. Garvey, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy