Ronald Britton

This second edition of Ronald Britton’s personal reappraisal of psychoanalytic theories is based on further clinical experience, further study of current neuroscience and continued reflection on the relationship of brain and mind, selfhood and self-awareness, belief and knowledge, and certainty and uncertainty. Divided into three parts – "Hysteria," "The ego and superego," and "Narcissism" – this new edition adds content on brain, mind and self, the death instinct and a discussion on the biological, psychological and sociological basis of gender. It suggests that our increasing knowledge necessarily produces a dissolution of our coherent concepts of mind and brain, and that during this phase of creative dissolution we need to reassess what we know and what we don’t know. Fundamental to the book is the notion that human beings have to live with probability but that we long for certainty, and create it for ourselves.This book will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in clinical practice and academia, as well as other mental health professionals and those with an interest in psychoanalytic theory.

This second edition of Ronald Britton’s personal reappraisal of psychoanalytic theories is based on further clinical experience, further study of current neuroscience and continued reflection on the relationship of brain and mind, selfhood and self-awareness, belief and knowledge, and certainty and uncertainty. Divided into three parts – "Hysteria," "The ego and superego," and "Narcissism" – this new edition adds content on brain, mind and self, the death instinct and a discussion on the biological, psychological and sociological basis of gender. It suggests that our increasing knowledge necessarily produces a dissolution of our coherent concepts of mind and brain, and that during this phase of creative dissolution we need to reassess what we know and what we don’t know. Fundamental to the book is the notion that human beings have to live with probability but that we long for certainty, and create it for ourselves.This book will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in clinical practice and academia, as well as other mental health professionals and those with an interest in psychoanalytic theory.

This book begins with an exploration of the relationship between mind and brain. It then examines various psychoanalytic models of the mind and moves to the task of the analyst to discover the unconscious models that shape his or her patients' picture of him/herself and others.The familiar models are mainly drawn from psychoanalytic practice but are supplemented from myths, religion, and literature. Developments in adjacent scientific fields such as quantum biology and new ideas about evolution are discussed that suggest cellular genetic modification can take place as a consequence of interaction with the outside world. This gives hope perhaps to the idea that not only the mind can learn from experience but also the brain.

A collection of papers focusing on the Kleinian conception of the Oedipus complex, how this is now understood, and what effect it has had on clinical practice. The papers by the authors which form the greater part of The Oedipus Complex Today were originally given at the Melanie Klein Conference on the Oedipus Complex in September 1987 at University College, London. The conference, jointly organized by Professor J. Sandler of the Psychoanalysis Unit at University College and Mrs. Ruth Riesenberg-Malcolm on behalf of the Melanie Klein Trust, was considered such a successful statement of modern Kleinian views on the subject that the Trust has decided to present the papers in book form, together with an expanded version of the introduction by Dr Hanna Segal, and also a reprint of Melanie Klein's 1945 paper 'The Oedipus Complex in the Light of Early Anxieties'. The three papers, writes Dr Segal, 'are based on central concepts first put forward by Mrs Klein.

Winner of the 2013 Sigourney Award!Belief and Imagination brings together Ronald Britton's writing on these subjects over the last 15 years, exploring the concepts from a Kleinian perspective. The book covers:The status of phantasies in an individuals mind - are they facts or possibilities?How the notions of objectivity and subjectivity are interrelated and have their origins in the Oedipal triangleHow phantasies which are held to be products of the imagination, can be accounted for in psychoanalytic terms.Britton also examines the relationship between psychic reality and fictional writing, and the ways in which belief, imagination and reality are explored in the works of Wordsworth, Rilke, Milton and Blake.

A collection of papers focusing on the Kleinian conception of the Oedipus complex, how this is now understood, and what effect it has had on clinical practice. The papers by the authors which form the greater part of The Oedipus Complex Today were originally given at the Melanie Klein Conference on the Oedipus Complex in September 1987 at University College, London. The conference, jointly organized by Professor J. Sandler of the Psychoanalysis Unit at University College and Mrs. Ruth Riesenberg-Malcolm on behalf of the Melanie Klein Trust, was considered such a successful statement of modern Kleinian views on the subject that the Trust has decided to present the papers in book form, together with an expanded version of the introduction by Dr Hanna Segal, and also a reprint of Melanie Klein's 1945 paper 'The Oedipus Complex in the Light of Early Anxieties'. The three papers, writes Dr Segal, 'are based on central concepts first put forward by Mrs Klein.