Short description:

Ricardo Rubinstein explores contemporary culture and its discontents ? including subjectivity, fanaticism, panic attacks, technology, and pandemics ? through a psychoanalytic lens.

Long description:

Ricardo Rubinstein explores the contemporary culture and its discontents ? including subjectivity, fanaticism, panic attacks, technology, and pandemics ? through a psychoanalytic lens.

Each chapter considers an aspect of modern society and attempts to unpick these complex facets of the world we live in. Psychoanalytic understandings of the triggers and socio-environmental factors of panic attacks, the inner worlds of people attracted to fanatical beliefs and risky behaviors, and our dependence on technology for our most vital activities are explored in an accessible way. Rubinstein also considers the restrictions put in place on the lives of millions of people as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and examines human adaptation to restrictive conditions. Psychoanalysis, Culture and Contemporary Discontents is illustrated throughout with clinical vignettes from the author?s practice.

This psychoanalytic exploration of a diverse range of topical issues will be of interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists in practice and in training. It will also be relevant for academics and students of sociology and cultural studies and to readers interested in understanding cultural concerns in more depth.

'Psychoanalysis will grow by working at the interfaces with the other cultural realms in which we practice it. Going beyond its limits or boundaries especially challenges the prejudices surrounding moving away from "caricatures" and the "typical cure", and allows us to explore uncharted territories... Starting from the clinical work in its different modalities, the topics examined here are fanaticism, prejudice, violence, discrimination (especially racism), education, politics in the world, among others. I personally know the author and am well aware of his wide-ranging interests. To be presented in English and in a prestigious collection will bring him closer to readers in many countries.'

Dr Abel Mario Fainstein, Former President of Argentine Psychoanalytic Association (APA) and Former President of Latin American Psychoanalytic Federation (FEPAL)

Table of Contents:

Introduction  1. Panic Attack  2. Danger erotization, adventure, and addiction to adrenaline  3. Fanaticism  4. New technologies, subjectivity, and addictive tendencies  5. Pandemics  Conclusion