From death instinct to attachment theory : the primacy of the child in Freud, Klein and Hermann / Tomas Geyskens and Philippe van Haute.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 143-148) and index.

Introduction -- The death instinct: a superfluous hypothesis? -- The primacy of trauma: an unacceptable hypothesis? -- The primacy of trauma or the primary of attachment: an indissoluble dilemma? - The primacy of sexuality: a hypothesis overcome? -- 1. The death instinct, trauma, and sexuality in the work of Freud -- Psychic continuity and the pleasure principle -- Infantile amnesia and organic repression -- Trauma and the compulsion to repeat -- A death instinct? -- The repetition of primitive catastrophes -- The first taboo -- Castration -- Conclusion -- 2. The death instinct, trauma, and sexuality in the work of Melanie Klein -- The death instinct, anxiety, and guilt -- The traumatic origin of subjectivity in the work of Klein -- Klein's study of Little Dick -- A death instinct, or the primacy of trauma? -- Trauma and helplessness in Freud and Klein -- A theory of anaclisis of aggressivity? -- The positions of the subject -- The paranoid-schizoid position -- Further reflections on the paranoid-schizoid position and the depressive position -- Phantasy in the work of Klein -- Sexuality in the work of Klein -- Conclusion -- 3. Between detachment and inconsolability: toward a clinical anthropology of attachment -- Attachment in the work of Freud -- Attachment and loss -- The instinct of mastery and curiosity -- Discussion -- Attachment in the work of Klein -- Clinical anthropology vs. developmental psychology -- Normality and pathology in the work of Bowlby -- Puberty and infantile sexuality: normality and pathology in Freud -- Temporality in the work of Freud and Bowlby -- Klein, the child, and psychotic anxieties of the baby -- Discussion -- Imre Hermann: a clinical anthropology of attachment? -- Clinging - Searching -- An alternative to the death instinct? -- Conclusion: a clinical anthropology of attachment -- 4. Attachment, aggression, and sexuality -- Death instinct, Hilflosigkeit, and Haltlosigkeit -- From lost object to damaged object -- The Oedipus complex: from lost object to forbidden object.

"In From Death Instinct to Attachment Theory, Tomas Geyskens and Philippe Van Haute address a theoretical conflict at the heart of contemporary psychoanalysis. Geyskens and Van Haute resolve the apparent tension between the empirical fact of the primacy of attachment and the fundamental psychoanalytic theory of infantile trauma by drawing on Imre Hermann's distinction between natural development and subjective history. Arguing that Hermann's theory constitutes a workable clinical anthropology of attachment, they undertake an analysis of the work of Freud and Klein on the death instinct, trauma, and infantile sexuality; the critique leveled by attachment theorists like Bowlby; and the overlooked insights of the Hungarian School of Psychoanalysis." "From Death Instinct to Attachment Theory offers an answer to an important problem in psychoanalysis and provides new insight into the sort of clinical phenomena that led Freud to move beyond the pleasure principle in the first place."--BOOK JACKET.

Machine converted from AACR2 source record.