Psychoanalysis and the Nuclear Threat Clinial and Theoretical Studies

The analytic literature has heretofore been silent about the issues inherent in the nuclear threat. As a groundbreaking exploration of new psychological terrain, Psychoanalysis and the Nuclear Threat will function as a source book for what, it is hoped, will be the continuing effort of analysts and other mental health professionals to explore and engage in-depth nuclear issues.

This volume provides panoramic coverage of the dynamic and clinical considerations that follow from life in the nuclear age. Of special interest are chapters deling with the developmental consequences of the nuclear threat in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and those exploring the technical issues raised by the occurrence in analytic and psychotherapeutic hours of material related to the nuclear threat. Additional chapters bring a psychoanalytic perspective to bear on such issues as the need to have enemies; silence as the "real crime"; love, work, and survival in the nuclear age; the relationship of the nuclear threat to issues of "mourning and melancholia"; apocalyptic fantasies; the paranoid process; considerations of the possible impact of gender on the nuclear threat; and the application of psychoanalytic thinking to nuclear arms strategy. Finally, the volume includes the first case report in the English language - albeit a brief psychotherapy - involving the treatment of a Hiroshima survivor.

A noteworthy event in psychoanalytic publishing, Psychoanalysis and the Nuclear Threat betokens analytic engagement with the most pressing political and moral issue of our time, a cultivating of Freud's "soft voice of the intellect" in an area where it is desperately needed.

Introduction, Levine, Simon I. Theoretical Section 1. Freud's Fearful Symmetry: Further Reflections on the Life and Death Instincts, Gifford 2. Silence Is the Real Crime, Segal 3. Apocalyptic Thinking in the Nuclear Age, Ostow 4. A Short Essay on the Apocalypse, Chasseguet-Smirgel 5. Impending Nuclear Disaster: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Meissner 6. Nuclear Weapons and the Need to Have Enemies: A Psychoanalytic Perspective, Volkan 7. Gender Differences and the Nuclear Threat: Preliminary Reflections, Notman 8. Strategists, Psychoanalysts, and Nuclear Deterrence, Steinberg II. Clinical Section 9. Love, Work, and Survival: Psychoanalysis in the Nuclear Age, Jacobs 10. The Threat of Nuclear War in Clinical Work: Dynamic and Theoretical Considerations, Mack 11. Further Clinical Considerations of the Psychological Fallout of the Nuclear Threat, Wangh 12. Psychoanalytic Explorations of the Impact of the Threat of Nuclear Disaster on the Young, Parens 13. Melancholia, Mourning, and the Nuclear Threat, Rubin 14. Hiroshim and Denial, Taketomo