Books

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Minding Emotions: Cultivating Mentalization in Psychotherapy 

Mentalization--the effort to make sense of our own and others' actions, behavior, and internal states--is something we all do. And it is a capacity that all psychotherapies aim to improve: the better we are at mentalizing, the more resilient and flexible we tend to be. This concise, engaging book offers a brief overview of mentalization in psychotherapy, focusing on how to help patients understand and reflect on their emotional experiences. Elliot Jurist integrates cognitive science research and psychoanalytic theory to break down "mentalized affectivity" into discrete processes that therapists can cultivate in session. Clinical vignettes are interspersed with discussions of published memoirs that examine emotions in the context of autobiographical memory. 

Best Theoretical Book, 2019, American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis

Buy at Guilford Press

Winner of the 2003 Gradiva Award and the 2003 Goethe Award for Psychoanalytic Scholarship

Winner of the 2003 Gradiva Award and the 2003 Goethe Award for Psychoanalytic Scholarship

Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self

by Peter Fonagy, Gyorgy Gergely, Elliot Jurist, Mary Target

Arguing for the importance of attachment and emotionality in the developing human consciousness, four prominent analysts explore and refine the concepts of mentalization and affect regulation. Their bold, energetic, and encouraging vision for psychoanalytic treatment combines elements of developmental psychology, attachment theory, and psychoanalytic technique. Drawing extensively on case studies and recent analytic literature to illustrate their ideas, Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, and Target offer models of psychotherapy practice that can enable the gradual development of mentalization and affect regulation even in patients with long histories of violence or neglect.

 

Beyond Hegel and Nietzsche: Philosophy, Culture, and Agency 

Are Hegel and Nietzsche philosophical opposites? Can twentieth-century Continental philosophers be categorized as either Hegelians or Nietzscheans? In this book Elliot Jurist places Hegel and Nietzsche in conversation with each other, reassessing their relationship in a way that affirms its complexity. Jurist examines Hegel's and Nietzsche's claim that philosophy and culture are linked and explicates the various meanings of "culture" in their work--in particular, the contrast both thinkers draw between ancient and modern culture. He evaluates their positions on the failure of modern culture and on the need to develop conceptions of satisfied agency. It is Jurist's original contribution to focus on the psychological sensibility that informs the project of both philosophers. Writing in an admirably clear style, he traces the ongoing legacy of Hegel's and Nietzsche's thought in Adorno, Habermas, Honneth, Jessica Benjamin, Heidegger, Derrida, Lacan, and Butler.

 

Mind to Mind

by Elliot Jurist (Editor), Arietta Slade (Editor) Sharone Berger (Editor)

This volume, based upon a conference held at the City University of New York in September 2005, brings together leading researchers and thinkers such as Peter Fonagy, Mary Target, Otto Kernberg, Glen Gabbard, Sidney Blatt, Donnel Stern, and Philip Bromberg. From diverse contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives, the authors consider the concept of mentalization and its operationalized version, reflective function, which Peter Fonagy and his colleagues have introduced over the past fifteen years. They explore the relation between these concepts and established psychoanalytic terms, such as representation and internalization, as well as the place of mentalization in psychoanalytic theory. The result is a lively and cutting-edge volume that could become instrumental in defining the future of psychoanalysis. This book will be of interest to a much broader audience as well—developmentalists, cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists, and philosophers—who will find it a fascinating springboard for interdisciplinary collaboration.