Expanding Psychoanalysis The Contributions of Susie Orbach

CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES

A NOTE ON CONFIDENTIALITY

INTRODUCTION.

 Brett Kahr

Susie Orbach and the Modernization of Mental Health.

PART ONE.

ORBACH IN CONTEXT.

CHAPTER ONE.

Luise Eichenbaum.

A Tribute to Susie Orbach.

CHAPTER TWO.

Brett Kahr.

Radio Karnac:  An Unpublished Broadcast with Dr. Susie Orbach.

PART TWO.

ORBACH IN THE CONSULTING ROOM.

CHAPTER THREE.

Jane Haberlin.

Shame and Shamelessness.

CHAPTER FOUR.

Sarah Benamer.

Embodied Intimacies.

PART THREE.

ORBACH IN POLITICS AND SOCIETY.

CHAPTER FIVE.

Andrew Samuels.

Therapists as Consultants: Experts, Relationals, Visionaries, Antidotes, Fools ... and Leaders.

CHAPTER SIX.

Roanna Mitchell.

Bodies as Profit Centres: Orbach’s Work in the Context of Performance.

PART FOUR.

ORBACH IN THE MEDIA.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Brett Kahr.

“Psychotherapy is not a spectator sport”: The Dissemination of Psychoanalysis from Freud to Orbach.

PART FIVE.

ORBACH FROM A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

 Kate White.

 A Reflection on Susie Orbach’s Work: Risking the Radical Edge of Relationship-Seeking in Theory and Practice.

CHAPTER NINE.

Valerie Sinason.

A Celebration of Susie Orbach.

EPILOGUE.

Susie Orbach.

In Dialogue with ...

SUSIE ORBACH’S PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY.

Brett Kahr.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INDEX

Biography

Professor Brett Kahr has worked in the mental health field for over forty years. He is Senior Fellow at the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology in London and, also, Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis and Mental Health at Regent’s University London. A trained historian, Kahr is both an Honorary Fellow as well as the Honorary Director of Research at the Freud Museum London. He is the author of nineteen books and series editor of over eighty-five further titles. He serves as Chair of the Scholars Committee of the British Psychoanalytic Council and, additionally, as a Consultant Psychotherapist at The Balint Consultancy. He works with individuals and couples in Central London.

“Brett Kahr’s meticulously edited text gathers cutting-edge clinicians to honour Susie Orbach’s pioneering work.  They pay tribute to Orbach’s impact, which radically weaves political, cultural, gender-power dynamics, and psychoanalysis.  This inspired book confirms Orbach’s enduring influence in challenging toxic psychosocial messages about the body and countless other critical mental health topics.”

Dr. Zack Eleftheriadou is a parent-infant, child and adult psychotherapist and a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, as well as a member of The Bowlby Centre, London.

“This outstanding volume captures the essence of Dr. Susie Orbach’s brilliance and her profound impact as a thinker, clinician, writer, feminist, and social activist.  The prominent contributors bring multiple perspectives that illuminate Orbach’s work as a beacon of knowledge, hope, and empowerment for people all over the world.” 

Dr. Galit Atlas is a Faculty Member at the New York University Postdoctoral Program for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and the author of Emotional Inheritance.  

 

“Susie Orbach has made many great achievements in the mental health field for over half a century; in consequence, I commend this enriching and glowing tribute of her professional life and work.  Brett Kahr has prepared a beautifully edited “Festschrift” in Orbach’s honour, and I hope that the chapters contained herein will encourage us all to read and re-read Orbach’s many enlightening publications.”

Julia Samuel is a psychotherapist and the author of Grief Works:  Stories of Life, Death and Surviving.

 

“This book not only celebrates the life and work of the iconic feminist Susie Orbach, it also deepens, extends, and enriches it, and does so critically.  The collection of essays will be of interest not only to the psychotherapist, but also to the “ordinary” citizen.”

Dr. Farhad Dalal is a group analyst and a psychotherapist, and the author of Thought Paralysis:  The Virtues of Discrimination.

 

“Susie Orbach’s remarkable career has brought a brilliant integration of clinical commitment, feminism, and psychoanalytic-political insight to the widest public audience.  This book is an essential guide to her radical and intimate sense of how “the personal is political”, leavened with personal honesty and great common sense.”

Professor Stephen Seligman is Clinical Professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, as well as a Training and Supervising Analyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis and at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California.  He is the author of Relationships in Development:  Infancy, Intersubjectivity, and Attachment.

 

“The work of Susie Orbach has changed how we think about the body, how we speak about it and how we inhabit it.  Over several decades, she has campaigned tirelessly against social injustice and ideologies of bodily blame, as well as having a huge influence on the promotion of emotional literacy and the powers and possibilities of therapy.  This marvellous and highly readable collection of essays shows the scope and importance of her work, as well as containing many chapters which add original research and thinking into the mix.  It offers not just an introduction to Orbach’s work but a significant review of developments in her field.  A pleasure to read.”

Darian Leader is an author and a psychoanalyst at the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, London.