Recognising, Understanding and Treating Nameless States

A Psychoanalytic Exploration

Bernd Nissen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN: 9781003810902
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Abnormal Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In this captivating volume, Bernd Nissen considers the multiplicity of nameless states, and the impact of their discovery on psychoanalytic theory and practice.

The nameless is considered through a variety of lenses: trauma, unrepresented states, autistoid/autistic states, breakdown, non-existence, and unrepressed/unstructured consciousness. Nissen draws upon the work of Freud and Bion to inform his exploration of nameless states and the ways in which they might be located, understood and conceptualised. He illuminates the processes of transformation into the psychic and asks how nameless states can be psychically anchored. Clinical vignettes are used throughout to illustrate the consequences for treatment, as well as interpretations of complex holding situations.

This book will be of interest to analysts both in practice and in training, as well as psychotherapists and mental health practitioners wishing to understand nameless states more deeply.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface, which can also be a conclusion
• Nameless states
• 1 Psychoanalytical considerations on nameless states
• 2 Attempt at a conceptualisation of the nameless
• 3 Methodical and technical issues
• 4 Basic and practical-technical issues
• 5 Critical conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index