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Going on Being in Challenging Times: Psychoanalytic Reflections book cover

1st Edition

Going on Being in Challenging Times Psychoanalytic Reflections

Edited By Michelle Flax, J. Gail White Copyright 2026
220 Pages
by Routledge

220 Pages
by Routledge

220 Pages
by Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
In this volume, we explore what it is to live through trauma while experiencing huge losses that threaten our well-being. The book demonstrates how clinicians can help patients regain meaning and purpose once again. The authors in these chapters sensitively annotate their therapeutic journeys with their patients, all of whom grapple with extremely difficult emotional conditions. There is much... Read more

PART l: Going-on-Being through Losses

1.     Free to Mourn and Mourning to be Free.                                       

            Elizabeth Sullivan

2.     East of the Awning. Staying the Course and Moving on.             

           Juliette Heeg

3.     Potential Space in the Uncertainty of the Pandemic.                   

           Alexia Camfield

4.     Going-on-Being: Aging, Agency and Downsizing.                      

             Michael Stern

PART II: Going-on-Being through Threats to the Self 

1.     Living atop archaic agonies: Treating Children Suffering from Early Trauma.                               

         Brent Willock                                        

2.     Philoctetes at 11am.                                                                 

Ionas Sapountzis

3.     I Rage, Therefore I am.                                                           

Brent Willock

4.     Accepting Death: The Role of Psychic Organizers in Death Awareness 

Joy Dryer

                                                                                       

 PART III: Representation and Going On Being

1.     Going-on-Being in Challenging Times: Mythology and Psychoanalysis.

Renee Cherow O’Leary

2.    Going-on-Being in the Body:  Through the Concrete Use of the Body to Symbolic Use of the Mind.                                                             

J. Gail White & Michelle Flax

3. So Close and Yet so Far Away: Psychoanalytic Treatment and Recovery from Psychosis Inducing Trauma.                                             

Burton Seitler

                                                            

PART IV: Going on Being Through Social- Political Upheaval

1.     Dehumanization and Going-On-Being after Catastrophic Trauma.         

John Sloane

2.     Striving to Create a Safe Space in an Unsafe World: Responding to Students’ Needs in the Days After October 7th.                                          

 Ionas Sapountzis & Amira Simha-Alpern   

3.     Going on Being in Two Cultures: Nepantla- In- between the First and Second Generation of Latinx Immigrant, Higher Education, Scholarship Students . 

Helen Quinones 

4.     Beyond Neutrality: The Role of Political Beliefs in the Therapeutic Relationship.  

John O’Leary    

                                                                                   

PART V: Going-on-Being in the Countertransference

Working with individuals

1.     Going-on-Being When the Going Gets Rough: An Impasse in the Negative Transference/Countertransference                                                             

 Heidi Knoll

2.     When There is No Room to Play.                                                    

Mehr Afarin-Kohan

Working with Couples

3.     Going on Being as a Couple during Environmental Trauma.       

Anastasia Tsamparli

4.     Taking Sides: Managing Strong Countertransference Feelings in Couple Therapy.                                                                                      

Melinda Blitzer

Biography

Michelle Flax, Ph.D., is a Clinical Psychologist and Psychoanalyst in private practice in Toronto, Canada; Supervising Psychoanalyst and Faculty, Toronto Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Faculty at the Advanced Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Program (ATPPP).

J. Gail White, Ph.D., is a Psychoanalyst in private practice in Toronto; Supervising Psychoanalyst and Faculty, Toronto Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis; and Student Progress committee member of the Advanced Program in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (ATPPP).

'Winnicott’s concept of “going-on-being” has been influential, but it has not received detailed and in-depth treatment – until now. In this excellent, wide ranging, and timely book, a diverse and talented group of psychoanalytic authors relate going-on-being to loss, mourning, trauma, social upheaval, and much else. This book is an essential resource for the clinician, those interested in psychoanalytic theory, and anyone else interested in the human condition.'

Joseph Fernando, M.D. Training Analyst, Toronto Institute of Psychoanalysis. Director, Canadian Institute of Psychoanalysis; author of “A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Trauma: Post-Traumatic Mental Functioning, the Zero Process, and the Construction of Reality.”

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