Existential Psychoanalysis

M. Guy Thompson is the founder and Director of the New School for Existential Psychoanalysis, and a Personal and Supervising Analyst and Faculty Member at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, San Francisco, USA. He is the author of Essays in Existential Psychoanalysis: On the Primacy of Authenticity (2023) and The Death of Desire: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness (second edition, 2016), and the editor of The Legacy of R. D. Laing: An Appraisal of His Contemporary Relevance (2015).

• Series Editor's Preface Preface Acknowledgements 1. What Is Existential Psychoanalysis? 2. Sartre and Psychoanalysis 3. Vicissitudes of Authenticity 4. The Demise of the Person in Psychoanalysis Conclusion

"This book is a much-needed and unique introduction to Existential Psychoanalysis. M. Guy Thompson’s numerous, brilliant and innovative works have made significant contributions to the fields of both existentialism and psychoanalysis, but this volume is the first to integrate them. He brings his deeply personal biography and theoretical insights to bear in this uncommonly accessible work with lucid and exceptionally clear writing devoid of jargon.Thompson’s sources include Freud but also Winnicott, Bion, Lacan, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre, but especially Laing, with whom he studied and worked intimately for many years in London. Thompson ‘s conception of existential psychoanalysis is both a unique and groundbreaking contribution to the field that brings this school into the vanguard of the twenty-first century.In our present-day technologically minded world Thompson’s plea for a return of personhood, freedom, choice, genuine relationship and authenticity to the field of psychoanalysis makes this book essential reading for analysts, therapists, patients, philosophers and anyone interested in the human condition."Emeritus Professor Douglas Kirsner, PhD, author of The Schizoid World of Jean-Paul Sartre and R. D. Laing"M. Guy Thompson is a true pioneer in the field of existential psychoanalysis. In this brilliant introduction to this school, he describes in crystal clear prose the philosophical and theoretical roots of this singular approach, as well as its underpinnings in practice. In total this volume will open readers to a world of psychoanalysis they rarely access but that is likely to be critical to their growth and enrichment as humane healers."Kirk J. Schneider, author of Existential-Integrative Psychotherapy and Life-Enhancing Anxiety