Curved Being, Knowing, and Ethics in Psychoanalysis Möbius Inflections

Orientation: Curved Psychoanalysis and the Arc of the Work  Part I: The Turn: Epistemic Curvature and the Collapse of Obviousness  1. The Möbius Turn  2. Obviousness as Orientation  3. Remainder as Ontological Curvature  Interlude I: The Tear  Part II: Life on a One-Sided Surface  4. Möbius Enactment: When Knowing Becomes Being  5. Projection and Projective Identification as Micro-Twists  6. The Möbius Unconscious  7. Dissociation and the Tear: When Orientation Collapses  Interlude II: On the Refusal of the Case  8. Analytic Presence as Movement Along the Surface  9. Symbolization on a One-Sided Surface  Part III:  Time Without Exit  10. Time on the Möbius: Recurrence, Return, and Ethics of Re-Entering  11. Time Without Exit: Recursion, Survival, and the Refusal of Resolution  Interlude III: Staying  12. Living Without Resolution: The Ethics of Unfinished Time Closing: Curved Being  13. Closing: Curved Being

Biography

Todd Anderson, PhD, PsyD, is a New York–based psychoanalyst in private practice. His writing explores recursive process, analytic presence, and symbolic remainder within curved psychoanalysis, integrating object relations, relational theory, and contemporary philosophy. He is the author of The Fragmented Self, Recognition, and the Edge of Desire; Gravitational Psyche; and Unknowing as Truth.

'This is a book that is admirably full of thought and that shows the deft power to make its reader think. It is both extensive in ranging over epistemology, ontology and psychology and intensive in its attentiveness to what is suggestively called curved being. Exploiting the image of the Möbius strip, it moves on the surface of things where the outside becomes the inside, the inside becomes the outside, all the while staying on the same surface. The exploration is not a voiding of the surface but, so to say, an unfolding that attends to turnovers on the immanent plane. Breakdowns become occasions of breakthroughs. If there is a circling it is not repetitive but brings with it revealing difference. The work proposes a stance not a position, an orientation in formation, deformation and transformation. The moving stance is the thing.

It is written in a lucid, engaging and vigorous way. It is not orientated to a last, unsurpassable destination, but is on the way and reflecting on the way. It seeks to epitomize the immanence of being in medias res. The writing embodies the stance it proposes and pursues. It challenges and beckons its reader along its way. Well worth the journey.'

William Desmond, PhD, cassiciacum fellow, The Augustinian Institute, Villanova University, USA; professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven, Belgium

 

'Curved Being offers a striking and original reorientation of psychoanalytic thought and practice. Rather than attempting to overcome the classical divide between knowing and being, Todd Anderson approaches it as intrinsic to psychic life. Through the articulating figure of the Möbius strip, he shows how interpretation and presence are not opposing domains but shifting orientations on a single surface. Rigorous and subtle, this book gives psychoanalysis a vocabulary – and a form – for something many analysts already practice but have struggled to name. Anderson protects what is most fragile and most vital in the analytic encounter: the capacity to remain responsive when clarity would be premature and certainty would distort. It is an elegant and deeply important contribution.'

Alessandra Lemma, DClinPsych, fellow, British Psychoanalytic Society; visiting professor, Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London

 

'For analysts and analysands alike, and even those in neither category, Curved Being lucidly explores the complex dialectic between the cognitive and experiential moments in therapeutic practice. Drawing on the philosophical resources of phenomenology and hermeneutics, as well as the relevant literature in contemporary analytic theory, Todd Anderson deftly guides us along the endless Möbius strip that is the emotional learning process of psychoanalysis at its best.'

Martin Jay, PhD, Sidney Hellman Ehrman professor of history emeritus, University of California, Berkeley

 

'Curved Being is a sophisticated theoretical dialogue between relational psychoanalysis, phenomenology, and topological thought. Anderson's rigorous work offers profound insights into temporality, presence, and ethical restraint, making an original and important contribution to contemporary psychoanalytic theory.'

Galit Atlas, PhD, faculty, NYU Postdoctoral Program for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; author of Emotional Inheritance

'Curved Being is a brilliant reconfiguration of subjectivity. Anderson deploys the figure of the Möbius strip to reject models of the unconscious and the analytic situation that presume a dichotomous relationship between depth and surface, inside and outside, experience and interpretation. Against such oppositions, Anderson uses the topological twists, curves, and continuities of the Möbius to trace and articulate the ways that being and knowing are ever-shifting orientations to the processes of living. The conceptual architecture of the argument is sophisticated and precise. And Anderson is a solicitous guide who, with astonishing writerly dexterity, provides a tour that provokes in the reader the kinds of shifts that the arguments explain and the examples illustrate. Moving easily between theoretical exposition and clinical anecdote, and with exquisite attention to somatic, atmospheric, and affective detail, Anderson both sketches and performs sensitivity to what “curved psychoanalysis” demands of the analyst: attunement, tolerance of ambiguity, and a commitment to accompaniment on the curved path. For scholars, practitioners, and teachers interested in embodiment, process philosophy, and ethics, this is a fascinating intervention.'

Samantha Frost, PhD, professor of Political Science and Gender & Women’s Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign

 

'Dr. Anderson's book is a stimulating challenge for all psychoanalysts and psychotherapists who place an unrelenting dialogue between epistemology, ontology, and ethics at the heart of their clinical practice. The choice to use the Möbius strip as a topological surface—rich in many eccentricities for our common perception—requires us to keep in mind paradoxicality as a central element of our experience, as Winnicott had already urged. The point at stake is to move beyond facile, reassuring dichotomies (e.g., mind/body, nature/culture, theory/practice, unconscious/conscious, subject/object, etc.) to instead consider how they are simultaneously insurmountable continuities and discontinuities. Every reader who thoughtfully carries out their clinical work can only find elements of stimulation and growth in this courageous editorial undertaking.'

Raffaele De Luca Picione, PhD, professor of Dynamic Psychology, Giustino Fortunato University (Benevento, Italy)

 

'Curved Being is a stunning, genre-bending contribution to contemporary psychoanalysis, marrying philosophical rigor with finely tuned clinical sensitivity. Anderson gives language to what many analysts feel but cannot quite articulate, rethinking interpretation, presence, enactment, and time on a Möbius surface where knowing and being are inseparable. This is not just an important book; it is one that quietly but decisively reorients how analytic work can be lived, thought, and ethically practiced.'

Aner Govrin, PhD, author of The Craft of the Psychodynamic Case Study: A Practical Guide

 

'Todd Anderson’s book is a deeply original, compelling, and indeed fascinating exploration of the philosophical dimension of the psychoanalytic clinic. With remarkable clarity and conceptual precision, it demonstrates that experience and practice are not opposed to philosophical reflection, but are themselves sites of philosophical insight. The result is a work that is both intellectually rigorous and genuinely illuminating.'

Alenka Zupančič, PhD, research councillor, Institute of Philosophy, Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU); professor of Philosophy, European Graduate School

 

'Situated in the continuation of contemporary attempts to re-problematize psychoanalytic thought, Curved Being resonates with a reflection attentive to the transformations of the contemporary world—from technology to individual pathologies, in dialogue with the sciences—while remaining anchored in the most incisive and radical thread of Freudian theory. Within this articulation emerges a perspective that can be described as “beyond Freud.” The merit of the work lies in systematizing this endeavor by mobilizing contributions from the human sciences and epistemology, within a rigorous and tightly argued discourse that dialecticizes Freudian thought with modern elaborations of alterity and intersubjectivity.'

François Richard, PhD, psychoanalyst; full member and training analyst, Société Psychanalytique de Paris (SPP); professor Emeritus of Psychopathology, Université Paris Cité

 

'Situé dans le prolongement de tentatives contemporaines de re-problématisation de la pensée psychanalytique, Curved Being entre en résonance avec une réflexion attentive aux transformations du monde actuel — de la technique aux pathologies individuelles, en dialogue avec les sciences — tout en demeurant dans le fil le plus aigu et radical de la théorie freudienne. Dans cette articulation se dessine une perspective que l’on peut qualifier d’« outre Freud ». Le mérite de l’ouvrage est de systématiser ce travail en mobilisant les apports des sciences humaines et de l’épistémologie, dans un discours rigoureux et serré qui dialectise la pensée freudienne avec les élaborations modernes de l’altérité et de l’intersubjectivité.'

François Richard, PhD (original French text)

 

'Curved Being is a work that transforms how we inhabit the analytic session—and, in turn, how we live the therapeutic relationship and think psychoanalytic practice itself. Original, elegant, and rigorous, it invites us to shift our gaze—and our embodied presence—beyond traditional binarisms such as knowing and being, interpretation and presence, epistemology and ontology.'

Vittorio Lingiardi, MD, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst; full professor of Dynamic Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome (Italy); Sigourney Award (2023)

'Curved Being puts philosophical concepts into action, and makes them encounter the complexities of reality. We see well-rehearsed distinctions moving, and then being unsettled and transformed. All of this is done by drawing upon deeply humane clinical experience. The book draws the reader in, allowing tensions to build up, and for change to occur, replicating features of the therapeutic encounter being described and recommended. This is a fascinating and gripping work.'

Christopher Insole, PhD, professor of Philosophical Theology, Durham University