1st Edition

What Happens When the Analyst Dies Unexpected Terminations in Psychoanalysis

Edited By Claudia Heilbrunn Copyright 2019
    314 Pages
    by Routledge

    314 Pages
    by Routledge

    What Happens When the Analyst Dies explores the stories of patients who have experienced the death of their analyst. The book prioritizes the voices of patients, letting them articulate for themselves the challenges and heartache that occur when grappling with such a devastating loss. It also addresses the challenges faced by analysts who work with grieving patients and/or experience serious illness while treating patients.

    Claudia Heilbrunn brings together contributors who discuss their personal experiences with bereavement and/or serious illness within the psychoanalytic encounter. Chapters include memoirs written by patients who describe not only the aftermath of an analyst’s death, but also how the analyst’s ability or inability to deal with his or her own illness and impending death within the treatment setting impacted the patient’s own capacity to cope with their loss. Other chapters broach the challenges that arise (1) in ‘second analyses’, (2) for the ill analyst, and (3) for those who face the death of an analyst or mentor while in training.

    Aiming to give prominence to the often neglected and unmediated voices of patients, as well as analysts who have dealt with grieving patients and serious illness, What Happens When the Analyst Dies strives to highlight and encourage discussion about the impact of an analyst’s death on patients and the ways in which institutes and therapists could do more to protect those in their care. It will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, counselors, gerontologists, trainees, and patients who are currently in treatment or whose therapist has passed away.

    Preface Claudia Heilbrunn Acknowledgement Introduction Claudia Heilbrunn Part I: Patients I.I Illness and Death within the Context of Long-Term Treatments 1. Disappearing Shrinks Claudia Heilbrunn  2. Unfinished Business: The Impact of Denial on the Grieving Process Jennifer Grant I.II Sudden Death 3. The Art of Grief Rachel Brandoff 4. Monumental Losses, Monumental Gifts: Analysand and Analyst Mourn the Death of an Analyst and Friend Vanessa Hannah Bright and Merle Molofsky I.III Inconsolable Grief and Recovery Following the Death of a Young Analyst 5. Birth Interrupted Lynn Jacobs 6. Re-finding a Way Lynne Jacobs I.IV Making Room for Death within the Treatment Setting 7. After the First Death, There is no Other Maria K. Walker 8. The Gift of Goodbye and the Invisible Mourner Iris Hellner Part II: Practitioners II.I. The Post-Death Analyst 9. Defenses, Transferences, and Symbolism after an Analyst’s Death Jerome S. Blackman 10. A Patient’s and Analyst’s Self-experiences with Shared Loss David Baucher II.II. The Ill Analyst: Coping with Illness and Picking up Pieces 11. The Analyst’s Illness from the Perspectives of Analyst and Patient Therese Rosenblatt 12. Experiences of a Bereaved and Suffering Second Therapist: Replacing a Beloved Student Therapist and a Gay Psychoanalyst Hendrika Vande Kemp. III. Psychoanalytic Institutes and Training 13. Death Begets Growth Catherine Lowry 14. Hidden Illness Nancy Einbinder Epilogue Claudia Heilbrunn Index

    Biography

    Claudia Heilbrunn, LP, is a psychoanalyst in New York City, USA. She received her training at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research.

    "No one likes to think about death, despite (or perhaps) because it is unavoidable. That has meant that, although it intrudes into all our professional lives, psychoanalysts have not covered it in the literature anywhere near as much as would be helpful. What Happens When the Analyst Dies is an important step forward in providing thoughtful reflection and tools enabling analysts to engage in a far more practical way with the various effects of the death of analysts. I strongly recommend this book."-Brent Willock, Founding President, Toronto Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis; Board Member, Canadian Institute for Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy; Faculty, Institute for the Advancement of Self Psychology; Advisory Board, International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy