Psychosis and Extreme States

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxi

   PDF

2. Introduction: The Psychotic as Guide

   • Bret Fimiani

   Pages 1-12

3. The Body of the Psychotic

   • Bret Fimiani

   Pages 13-39

4. The Impasse of Transference in Psychosis

   • Bret Fimiani

   Pages 41-64

5. Dream-work Versus Delusion

   • Bret Fimiani

   Pages 65-88

6. The Utility of Gilles Deleuze’s Critique of Psychoanalysis

   • Bret Fimiani

   Pages 89-101

7. Towards a New Ethics

   • Bret Fimiani

   Pages 103-135

8. The Fear of Psychosis: Part I

   • Bret Fimiani

   Pages 137-163

9. The Fear of Psychosis: Part II

   • Bret Fimiani

   Pages 165-199

10. Bridging the Gap Between Psychotic and Non-Psychotic Experience

    • Bret Fimiani

    Pages 201-219

11. Back Matter

    Pages 221-228

    PDF

This book advances a theory of transference-in-psychosis with the aim of provoking a change in the way the experience of psychosis is understood and thus, clinically treated. It examines the function of ‘ethics’ in the ‘installation’ of transference in the treatment of psychosis and contends that the aim of the psychoanalytic experience is the creation of a new ethic for the analysand and for the treatment. Beginning from the premise that the body of the psychotic is a site of social contestation, the author draws upon the work of Freud, Lacan, Deleuze & Guattari and Apollon to reframe the problem of the ‘body’ (as an effect of language) and its relation to transference, and ethics, in treating psychosis. It argues that psychosis still has much to teach psychoanalysis about how psychoanalysis must continue to change in order to create/offer an approach that is effective for psychosis (versus neurosis) and provides a comprehensive psychoanalytic theory of psychosis that derives, at its core, from the experience of psychosis itself. The book’s synthesis of clinical and ‘peer model’ principles will provide readers with a way to understand and navigate potential transference impasses often encountered with purely clinical approaches. In doing so it provides a valuable new framework for practitioners and scholars working in clinical psychology, psychoanalysis, philosophy, critical theory, psychiatry and social work.

• continental philosophy
• ethics
• extreme states
• trauma
• peer models in mental health
• schizophrenia
• transference
• psychotic experience
• psychoanalytic theory

• The San Francisco Bay Area Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis, Berkeley, USA

  Bret Fimiani

​Bret Fimiani is faculty, board member and psychoanalyst of the San Francisco Bay Area Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis, USA, and a clinical psychologist. He works with people experiencing psychosis and extreme states in his private practice in Oakland, CA and at the Haight-Ashbury Integrated Care Center in San Francisco. His research interests include adapting the Lacanian analytic frame for the treatment of psychosis and extreme states.