Synopses & Reviews
Many schizophrenics experience their condition as one of radical incarceration, mind-altering medications, isolation, and dehumanization. At a time when the treatment of choice is anti-psychotic medication, world-renowned psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas asserts that schizophrenics can be helped by much more humane treatments, and that they have a chance to survive and even reverse the process if they have someone to talk to them regularly and for a sustained period, soon after their first breakdown.
In this sensitive and evocative narrative, he draws on his personal experiences working with schizophrenics since the 1960’s. He offers his interpretation of how schizophrenia develops, typically in the teens, as an adaptation in the difficult transition to adulthood.
With tenderness, Bollas depicts schizophrenia as an understandable way of responding to our precariousness in a highly unpredictable world. He celebrates the courage of the children he has worked with and reminds us that the wisdom inherent in human beings—to turn to conversation with others when in distress—is the fundamental foundation of any cure for human conflict.
Review
"There is much in this book that is wise, clinically perceptive, and thought-provoking. Bollas is clearly exquisitely sensitive to affective nuances as clues to early, preoedipal events and their developmental consequences..." The Psychoanalytic Quarterly
Synopsis
-- Journal of the British Association of Psychotherapists
Synopsis
In The Shadow Of The Object is the exploration of psychoanalysis, of the reliving through language of that which is known but not yet thought.
Synopsis
Basing his view on the object relations theories of the British School of psychoanalysis, Christopher Bollas examines the human subject's memories of its earliest experiences (during infancy and childhood) of the object, whether it be mother, father, or self. He explains in well-written and non-technical language how the object can affect the child, or cast in shadow, without the child being able to process this relation through mental representations of language.
Synopsis
A leading psychoanalyst shares his experiences working with schizophrenic patients to show how effective talk therapy can be as a treatment
About the Author
Christopher Bollas is a psychoanalyst, practicing for over 40 years. He has published many books (non-fiction and fiction) including The Shadow of the Object, Being a Character, and most recently China on the Mind.