Psychotherapy Under the Influence of Georges Bataille: From Social Theory to Clinical Practice - Softcover

Buse, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0367347717 ISBN 13: 9780367347710

Publisher: Routledge, 2021

Synopsis

This fascinating book applies social theorist Georges Bataille’s revolutionary thinking to psychotherapy, offering clinicians a new and valuable context for practicing therapy.

In adding Bataille’s ideas to several different psychotherapeutic modalities, this book makes the notoriously obscure thinker more accessible while testing the validity of his far-reaching work in the treatment room. Through an in-depth examination of several clinical case studies, the book demonstrates how to balance an understanding of the social and historical contexts of participants with a therapeutic approach that offers empathy for individual distress. It also explains how Bataille’s innovative approach can be applied to work with couples, groups, institutions, and even one of Freud’s classic case studies. Both the content and form of each chapter demonstrate the therapeutic value of a reflexive, critical approach to one’s practice and exemplify how to write about it.

Offering an unprecedented opportunity to imagine how Bataille’s own interest in psychoanalysis and clinical psychology might have developed, this book will be of interest to both practitioners in the field and scholars of continental philosophy and social theory.

About this title

About the Author

William Buse, PhD, completed his anthropological training (Columbia University) and his psychoanalytic training (Postgraduate Center for Mental Health) in New York City. He currently serves as Director of Counseling at The Juilliard School and maintains a psychotherapy practice on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0367347717
• ISBN 13: 9780367347710
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 266