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Revenge: Narcissistic Injury, Rage, and Retaliation

by Salman Akhtar, Henri Parens, April E. Fallon, Frederick Fisher, Daniel Freeman, Rama Rao Gogineni, Eve Holwell, Otto Kernberg, Kerry Kelly Novick, Barbara Shapiro, Melvin Singer (2013)

Guilt: Origins, Manifestations, and Management (Margaret S. Mahler) [Hardcover]

edited by Salman Akhtar (2013)

The Mother and Her Child: Clinical Aspects of Attachment, Separation, and Loss (Margaret S. Mahler) [Hardcover]

Salman Akhtar (Editor) (2012)

The Mother and Her Child: Clinical Aspects of Attachment, Separation, and Loss, edited by Salman Akhtar, focuses upon the formation of an individual's self in the crucible of the early mother-child relationship. Bringing together contributions from distinguished psychoanalysts and child observational researchers, it elucidates the nuances of mothering, the child's tie to the mother, the mysteries of secure attachment, and the hazards of insecure attachment. These experts also discuss issues of separation, loss, and alternate sources of love when the mother is absent or emotionally unavailable, while highlighting the relevance of such ideas to the treatment of children and adults.

The Electrified Mind: Development, Psychopathology, and Treatment in the Era of Cell Phones and the Internet

by Salman Akhtar, Monisha C. Akhtar, Jerome Blackman and Joanne Cantor (Feb 16, 2011)

The Electrified Mind helps therapists understand and empathize with patients who rely heavily upon cell phones and the internet for the purposes of self-expression as well as for defensive avoidance of actual interpersonal contact. The chapters by distinguished mental health professionals delineate therapeutic strategies for dealing with the dilemmas that arise in working with children, adolescents, and adults excessively involved with cyberspace at the cost of meaningful human relationships.

The Wound of Mortality: Fear, Denial, and Acceptance of Death (Margaret S. Mahler)

by Salman Akhtar, Ira Brenner, Stanley J. Coen and Calvin A. Colarusso (Jan 22, 2010)

Death is a much avoided topic. Literature on mourning exists, but it focuses chiefly upon the death of others. The inevitable psychic impact of one's own mortality is not optimally covered either in this literature on mourning or elsewhere in psychiatry and psychoanalysis. The Wound of Mortality brings together contributions from distinguished psychoanalysts to fill this gap by addressing the issue of death in a comprehensive manner. Among questions the contributors raise and seek to answer are: Do children understand the idea of death? How is adolescent bravado related to deeper anxieties about death? Is it normal and even psychologically healthy to think about one's own death during middle age? Does culture-at-large play a role in how individuals conceptualize the role of death in human life? Is death "apart" from or "a part" of life? Enhanced understanding of such matters will help mental health clinicians treat patients struggling with death-related concerns with greater empathy.

Lying, Cheating, and Carrying On: Developmental, Clinical, and Sociocultural Aspects of Dishonesty and Deceit

by Salman Akhtar, Henri Parens, Harold Blum and Gail Edelsohn (Feb 12, 2009)

What constitutes a lie? What are the different types of lies? Why do people lie? Is dishonesty ubiquitous in human experience? And what should be done with individuals who seek pschotherapeutic help and yet can not reveal important aspects of their lives and even fabricate histories, associations, and dreams? Such questions form the backbone of this exceptional book. Starting with the emergence of the capacity to lie in childhood and the formative influence of the family in children's moral development, the discourse goes on to include the variety of adulthood lies, including social lies, existential lies, pathological lies, narcissistic lies, and sociopathic lies. Contributions from distinguished psychoanalysts like Salman Akhtar, Harold Blum, Ruth Fischer, Lucy LaFarge, Henri Parens, and Michael Stone, along with others, explore the impact of dishonesty on the internal and external realities of an individual. Malignant forms of lies involving serious character pathology and criminality, as well as their detection, are also discussed. The book's aim is to help therapists enhance their empathy with patients who are compelled to lie and to provide them with better therapeutic strategies to deal with the clinical dilemmas that arise in working with such children and adults.

The Unbroken Soul: Tragedy, Trauma, and Human Resilience (Margaret S. Mahler)

by Henri Parens, Harold P. Blum, and Salman Akhtar (Feb 28, 2008)

How do individuals cope constructively with significant trauma? How do they recover from it? What factors seem most codetermining of coping with and recovering from trauma? Can these be not only identified but also influenced by our interventions? Addressing these questions- questions about human beings' capacity for resilience-is the prime challenge taken up in this book by an assortment of international psychoanalytic, attachment, and biological mental health theorists and clinicians. While mental health professionals are well trained to identify and treat psychopathology, little is taught about how to look for strengths in patients that assist them in their coping and that, on their own and with our nurturance, can foster their recovery. Some of the contributors to this volume, having themselves been subjected to severe trauma, speak of resilience both from within their own experience, from those around them, and from their work with traumatized patients.

Listening to Others: Developmental and Clinical Aspects of Empathy and Attunement (Margaret S. Mahler)

by Salman Akhtar, Evelyne Schwaber, Sydney Pulver and Jessica Benjamin (2007)

This volume addresses the critical psychoanalytic issue of effective listening. While this issue has been discussed widely in the literature, most often the discussions are from the standpoint of technique. Listening to Others is among the first texts to consider the listening process from the so-called 'two-person' perspective--i.e., that which is aligned with intersubjective, interpersonal, and relational theories. The contributors to this volume all are well-known experts in contemporary psychoanalytic theory.

Interpersonal Boundaries: Variations and Violations (Margaret S. Mahler)

by Salman Akhtar, Jennifer Bonovitz PhD, Phyllis Tyson PhD and Ruth Garfield MD (Feb 16, 2006)

Across the lifespan we may experience moments of sublime intimacy, suffocating closeness, comfortable solitude, and intolerable distance or closeness. In Interpersonal Boundaries: Variations and Violations Salman Akhtar and the other contributors demonstrate how boundaries, by delineating and containing the self, secure one's conscious and unconscious experience of entity and of self-governance.

The Language of Emotions: Developmental, Psychopathology, and Technique (Margaret S. Mahler) [Paperback]

Salman Akhtar (Author), Harold P. Blum (2005)

This book is about affect--its origins, development and uses--and how it is viewed in a clinical setting. The authors track and further develop the recent major changes in the understanding of affect. From its roots in childhood development to its cross-cultural aspects, affect remains clinically relevant in issues such as aggression and forgiveness.

Real and Imaginary Fathers: Development, Transference, and Healing (Margaret S. Mahler)

editors Salman Akhtar and Henri Parens (Jan 28, 2005)

This is a day and age of diminished presence of the nuclear family, a high incidence of divorce, multiple diverse family arrangements, an increase in single-parent families, and an abundance of childhood distress. Absent fathers are ubiquitous. It has become urgent, demanding, pressing that we understand the father’s contribution and what is lost in his absence. It requires our immediate and most serious attention.

Does God Help?: Developmental and Clinical Aspects of Religious Belief

editors S. Akhtar & H. Parens (2001)

Brings the issue of religious belief into the consulting room. Topics of faith, mysticism, spirituality, and the human need for God are addressed head-on as experts on Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam refract the clinical process through the prisms of these religions.

Three Faces of Mourning: Melancholia, Manic Defense and Moving On

by Salman Akhtar, Salman, MD Akhtar, M Hossein, MD Etezady and Theodore Fallon (2001)

Mourning and the importance of the capacity to bear some helplessness, while still finding pleasure in life, are central to this tightly organized volume. The multi-faceted processes involved in mourning and adaptation are addressed.

Thicker than Blood: Bonds of Fantasy and Reality in Adoption