New Books in Psychoanalysis

In this episode of the New Books Network, I sat down with the contributors of Psychoanalytic Explorations into the Primal Relationship in Japan and India (Routledge, 2025) to discuss the profound psychic textures of the East. Moving away from the traditional Eurocentric focus on the Oedipal complex, this volume investigates the "primal relationship"—the foundational bond between mother and infant—and how it is uniquely structured within the cultural contexts of Japan and India. The authors challenge the universality of Western clinical models, proposing instead that the maternal matrix in these societies offers a different roadmap for understanding the self, intimacy, and dependency. Osamu Kitayama is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Japan Psychoanalytic Society, Professor Emeritus at Kyushu University, and President of Hakuoh University. He served as President of the Japan Psychoanalytic Society from 2016–2019 and con tinues to work with patients in private practice. He has authored numerous articles on culturally oriented psychoanalysis and books.Jhuma Basak is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Indian Psychoanalytical Society. She has published on culture and gender. Over the past 20 years, she has pre sented at IPA Congresses along with the first Keynote from Asia-Pacific, 4th IPA-region at the 53rd IPA Congress (International Journal of Psychoanalysis). A past Co-chair of COWAP Asia-Pacific, she co-edited Psychoanalytic and Socio-Cultural Perspectives on Women in India: Violence, Safety and Survival (2021).Ashis Roy, PhD, is a psychoanalyst (IPS Kolkata/IPA London) and faculty member at the China-American Psychoanalytic Alliance (CAPA). With an extensive background in clinical training and institutional building at Ambedkar University Delhi, his work emphasizes the dialogue between clinical practice and Asian cultural dynamics. He is a host for the New Books Network and the author of the recently released book, Intimate Hindu-Muslim Relationships: A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Self and the Other (2024). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Echoes of Trauma: Meaning and Identity in Psychoanalysis (American Psychological Association, 2025) intricately weaves psychoanalytic and developmental theory to explain how we become who we are, and how we might grow beyond the places we get stuck.In recent decades psychological research and practice has focused heavily on cognitive domains, with far less attention paid to the nonverbal systems through which people register essential meanings. This has led many clinicians to seek disembodied and often mechanistic solutions to clients’ problems. But these approaches fail to recognize hidden sources of trauma, which can be difficult to access through conscious reflection. As the source of a trauma recedes further into the past and remains unexplored and unmourned, the effect can become a lingering adversity that masquerades as destiny―and this worldview can even be passed along through subsequent generations.In this volume, Marilyn Charles argues for a more embodied, less mechanistic view of human development. To understand a client’s problem at a particular moment in time, we must understand the history that has given rise to it, some of which the client may be able to tell us directly, but some that we must intuit from signs and symptoms because not all history can be recalled consciously. After drawing on psychoanalytic and developmental theory to ground her model, Charles uses clinical vignettes and comparisons with her own life to illustrate how we might facilitate our clients’ development.Development is never final. It is an ongoing, lifelong process that can get off-track. Using the theory and techniques in this book, therapists can help clients find and integrate the missing pieces of their life story. Your host for this episode, Ben Greenberg, PsyD is a psychoanalytic psychologist and founding director of both the Center for Dynamic Practice (CFDP) in Santa Fe, NM and Southwestern Alliance for Psychoanalytic Psychology (SWAPP). A disabled former symphony French hornist and musical pedagogue, Ben has published several scientific papers among other written media, and is currently working on several manuscripts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Why do certain women become icons of evil? Five Evil Women: Hindley, West, Wuornos, Homolka, Tucker (Reaktion, 2026) by Professor Joanna Bourke offers the first comparative, non-sensationalist account of five of the most reviled women in the modern Anglophone world: Myra Hindley, Rosemary West, Aileen Wuornos, Karla Homolka and Karla Faye Tucker. It examines their lives, crimes and cultural reception in the UK, USA and Canada, asking how violence committed by women is understood, judged and remembered. Going beyond moral outrage or tabloid headlines, the book explores how concepts of 'evil' are shaped by history, belief systems and social context. Through historical and ethical reflections, it offers a deeper, more critical engagement with female violence, and considers how society should respond to those who commit acts of unimaginable harm. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Gail N. Newman, Harold J. Henry Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Williams College, studies subjectivity and psychoanalytic readings of literature. She discusses how neoliberal pressure crushes creativity and the value of solitude, chosen family, and emptiness. Conversations trace Milner and Winnicott, explore relationality and diagnosis, and consider small acts of resistance to relentless self‑optimization.

Erica Lorentz, a Jungian analyst who trained in Authentic Movement, argues for Jung as an embodied psychologist. She discusses embodied active imagination, the somatic unconscious, and how movement-based practice opens imaginal depths. Conversation covers reading Jung’s visceral imagery, working complexes into archetypal ground, and clinical moments of reclaiming voice through embodiment.

Joseph Scalia III, psychoanalyst and environmental activist who co-directs the Institute for a Democratic Psychoanalysis, joins to explore intersections of environmentalism, education, and psychoanalysis. He discusses institutional censorship and pluralism in training. Conversations range from grassroots versus mainstream conservation, hidden aims in schooling, wilderness as ethical grounding, and strategies for democratic, non-doctrinal reform.

Louis Rothschild, clinical psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist, discusses fathers and sons across theory, myth, and clinical vignettes. He questions rigid gender binaries and the myth of the self‑made man. Topics include paternal tenderness, how masculinity is judged by other men, separation milestones like learning to ride a bike, and how parental roles become invisible in culture.

Juliane Maxwell, a seasoned licensed psychoanalyst and ASEC-certified sex therapist from NYC, delves into the intricate dance between psychoanalysis and sex therapy. She discusses how sexual symptoms often reveal deeper unconscious conflicts and attachment wounds. Using vivid clinical cases, she explores themes like the emotional roles of pornography, the embodied nature of masturbation, and how trauma informs our sexual lives. Maxwell emphasizes the importance of integrating therapeutic approaches to foster healing and reclaim authentic desire.

In this engaging discussion, Anna Fishzon, a psychoanalytic clinician and author, delves into her new book, intertwining personal experiences with breast cancer, mourning, and identity. She explores how a reconstructed breast symbolizes uncanny loss and presence. Fishzon also examines the gaps in psychoanalytic literature around cancer existentialism, shame, and maternal relations. Drawing connections to Soviet history, opera, and nonlinear time, she offers profound insights into the complexities of survivorship and the relentless process of mourning.

Analyzed by Lacan: A Personal Account (Bloomsbury, 2023) brings together the first English translations of Why Lacan, Betty Milan's memoir of her analysis with Lacan in the 1970s, and her play, Goodbye Doctor, inspired by her experience.Why Lacan provides a unique and valuable perspective on how Lacan worked as psychoanalyst as well as his approach to psychoanalytic theory. Milan's testimony shows that Lacan's method of working was based on the idea that the traditional way of interpreting provoked resistance.Prior to Why Lacan, Milan wrote a play, Goodbye Doctor, based on her experience as Lacan's patient. The play is structured around the sessions of Seriema with the Doctor. Through the analysis, Seriema discovers why she cannot give birth, namely, an unconscious desire to satisfy the will of her father who didn't authorize her to conceive. She ceases to be the victim of her unconscious, grasps the possibility of choosing a father for her child and thus becoming a mother. Goodbye Doctor has been adapted into a film, Adieu Lacan, by the director Richard Ledes.Analyzed by Lacan features an Introduction by Milan to both works as well as a new interview with Mari Ruti about her writing and Lacan.Matthew Pieknik, LCSW, MA is a psychoanalyst and clinical supervisor in private practice in Manhattan. He can be reached at matthewpieknik@gmail.com. www.matthewlpieknik.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis