The Adaptive Design of the Human Psyche: Psychoanalysis Evolutionary Biology and the Therapeutic Process

About this book

Addressing one of the most fundamental issues in any examination of human experience this important new work connects evolutionary biological concepts to modern psychoanalytic theory and the clinical encounter. Synthesizing their years of experience in the practice of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis the authors provide a comparative psychoanalytic map of current theoretical controversies and a new way of deconstructing the hidden assumptions that underlie Freudian Ego Psychological Kleinian Object Relational Self Psychological and Interpersonal theories. In so doing they provide a new vantage point from which to integrate competing models into a larger picture that more fully embraces the many facets of human nature. Moreover they offer clinicians a new framework with which to understand and respond to the inevitable paradoxes and conflicts that arise in the therapeutic relationship.