Landscapes of the Dark

In this important new collection of essays, Jonathan Sklar argues that the founding tension between Freud's commitment to interpretation and Ferenczi's extra parameter of '¬Sbeing in the experience'¬ has a key role to play in contemporary psychoanalytic debate, and that this tension can best be understood by returning to the place of trauma in psychoanalysis. Taking this debate into the heart of the clinical setting, a set of extensive, penetrating and often disturbing case studies examine the evocation of the real as early trauma for many patients and its subsequent mental development'¬ ;a case of schizophrenia, a man with a severe Tic (spasmodic Torticollis), and a neurotic with a somatic resistance to ending a long analysis.

Jonathan Sklar, MBBS FRCPsych, is a training analyst and fellow of the British Psychoanalytic Society. Originally trained in psychiatry at Friern and the Royal Free Hospitals, he worked for four years in psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic in London. For many years he was consultant psychotherapist and head of the psychotherapy department at Addenbrookes and Fulbourn hospital in Cambridge. He now works in full time analytic practice in London. He teaches and supervises at the Institute of Psychoanalysis; teaches an MSc course on 'Ferenczi and Contemporary Psychoanalysis' at University College London; and teaches in Chicago. For the past five years, he has convened a psychoanalytic conference outside Cape Town and, for thirty years, has convened Balint groups working with general practitioners and psychiatrists. He has lectured widely throughout Europe as well as in South America. His psychoanalytic papers have been published in Italian, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. From 2007-2011 he was Vice President of the European Psychoanalytic Federation.