Beyond the Dynamic Unconscious

Franco De Masi, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is a full member of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society and a training analyst at the National Training Institute of the same society. Among his publications are Karl Abraham: At the Roots of Analytic Theory (2018), Vulnerability to Psychosis: A Psychoanalytic Study of the Nature and Therapy of the Psychotic State (2009), and Herbert Rosenfeld at Work: The Italian Seminars (2001), which he edited. Other publications include The Sadomasochistic Perversion: The Entity and the Theories (2003), Making Death Thinkable (2006), which was awarded the Gradiva prize for the best Italian book of psychoanalysis in 2003, and Working with Difficult Patients (2015). His latest books include Lessons in Psychoanalysis: Psychopathology and Clinical Psychoanalysis for Trainee Analysts (2023), and A Psychoanalytic Approach to Treating Psychosis: Genesis, Psychopathology and Case Study (2020).

• ContentsAbout the authorIntroductionPart I: Within the territory of the dynamic unconscious1. Models and theories in psychoanalysis: a radical hypothesis2. Psychopathology: returning to the roots3. The competent child4. The meaning of the analytic relationship5. The concept of truth in psychoanalysis6. Protracted analyses7. Psychotherapy at an advanced age8. The supergo: from a structuring element to an invasive object9. Perversion as a sexualised withdrawalPart II: Beyond the territory of the dynamic unconscious10. The dynamic unconscious and intuitive thought11. Patients who do not dream12. The power of alternative realities13. Outside awareness14. Unrepresentability15. The foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father16. My research on psychosis17. Towards a broader view of supervision18. Concluding reflectionsReferencesIndex

‘Franco De Masi has devoted his career as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst to the study of the elusive condition of psychosis, and more broadly psychotic thinking, in the full knowledge that we as analysts do not yet have the tools and ideas we need to understand and treat individuals suffering from a psychotic illness. In this original book, De Masi conveys concisely the limitations of the concept of the dynamic unconscious when applied to minds in which the dynamic unconscious has ceased to operate, and guides us into new territory where psychosis has manufactured an alternative reality. The creation of a replacement reality and how to think and talk about it is of the greatest importance for anyone working with severe disturbance.’