Truth in a Time of Disinformation

Jean Arundale, PhD, is a training and supervising analyst for the British Psychoanalytic Association. In the BPA, she recently served as president, was chair of the Scientific Committee for six years, and worked on many other committees since the BPA was founded in 2010. Primarily in private practice in North-West London, Jean was a consultant psychotherapist working part-time in the National Health Service for more than forty years, supervising groups of psychotherapy trainees at Guy’s Hospital, London. She has taught widely and presented papers at University College London, the European Psychoanalytical Federation, and International Psychoanalytical Association conferences, and published papers and books on psychoanalysis, the most recent being The Omnipotent State of Mind, published by Routledge in 2022. Jean is presently serving on The International Journal of Psychoanalysis editorial board.

• ContentsAcknowledgmentsAbout the editor and contributorsIntroduction by Jean Arundale Part I: Psychoanalytic truth: The arguments On language and truth in psychoanalysisThomas H. OgdenBelief and psychic realityRonald BrittonDo unconscious phantasies really exist?Mark SolmsThe expansion of the notion of truth in psychoanalytic inquiryJorge L. AhumadaIs truth an illusion? Psychoanalysis and postmodernism David BellWhat does research have to do with psychoanalysis?Gregorio KohonIn the space of conjunction: Discussion of Gregorio Kohon’s “What does research have to do with psychoanalysis?”Alessandra LemmaPart II: The whole truth and nothing but the truth? Psychoanalysis and freedom of thoughtHanna SegalIllusion, disillusion, and irony in psychoanalysisJohn SteinerSymbolisation, representation, and the role of narration in overcoming traumatic experience. The many faces of psychic truthElias M. da Rocha BarrosFreud’s “probability of truth”: Construction and reconstructionSara CollinsPart III: The particularity of truth On Bion’s concept of truth in an extra-moral senseGiuseppe CivitareseDemocracy, parrhesia and the psychoanalysts’ freedom of thoughtEran J. RolnikThe poetic truth of the unconscious: Metaphor, meaning, and the analytic encounterDavid MorganOn self traumatisationChristopher BollasThe truth will set you free: Explorations into psychoanalytic truth and freedomJean ArundaleIndex

'This is a remarkable book. It takes truth – psychoanalytic truth – as its guiding ideal, and explores both the grandeur of that ideal and the many ways it becomes embodied in clinical life. The volume is itself an enactment of that pursuit. Jean Arundale’s editorial vision, together with contributions from some of the most thoughtful writers in contemporary psychoanalysis, brings a rare clarity to questions that matter: What is truth? How do we recognise it? Is it beautiful, or dangerous?These reflections unfold against the backdrop of a world in which the very idea of truth is increasingly eroded – sometimes even within psychoanalysis – by the seductive claim that everyone’s individual truth is equally sovereign, a formulation that too easily masks narcissism. This book stands firmly against that drift. It is a courageous and deeply intelligent defence of truth as a shared, demanding, and transformative ideal.'