Reimagining Psychoanalytic Theory in the Climate Polycrisis

Thinking with Giorgio Agamben and Indigenous Philosophies

Ryan LaMothe

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040687055
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Reimagining Psychoanalytic Theory in the Climate Polycrisis re-visions psychoanalysis by considering indigenous philosophy and the work of Giorgio Agamben.

Ryan LaMothe argues that the origins of psychoanalysis have tacitly produced, with some qualifications, not only dismissive attitudes and relations toward so-called "primitive" peoples and their philosophies, but also depersonalization of other species. Revisiting key psychoanalytic concepts and drawing on Winnicott, Bollas, and Lear, LaMothe sheds new light on notions of subjectivity, psychosocial development, trauma, transference, resistance, therapy, and analytic love and hope. Relying on the philosophy of Giorgio Agamben and Indigenous philosophies, this book aims to cross the divide by reimagining psychoanalytic developmental theory and concepts.

Reimagining Psychoanalytic Theory in the Climate Polycrisis will be essential reading for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in practice and in training.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Freud, Nature, and Civilization: Western Philosophical Apparatuses and the Production of the Ontological Rift in Psychoanalysis
• 2. Anarchic Care: Psychosocial Development and Dwelling in the World without the Rift
• 3. Trauma, Human Beings, and the Silence of Othered Species
• 4. Spanning the Divide: Toward Ecological Transferences
• 5. Reimaging Resistance as Acts of Impotentiality
• 6. A Psychoanalytic Process: Facilitating Ungovernable Selves in the Anthropocene
• References
• Index