Negative Psychoanalysis for the Living Dead:Philosophical Pessimism and the Death Drive

by: Julie Reshe (Author)

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Edition: 2023rd

Publication Date: 2023/6/22

Language: English

Print Length: 155 pages

ISBN-10: 3031312007

ISBN-13: 9783031312007

Book Description

This book offers a radical alteative to the positive orientation of popular psychology. This positive orientation has been criticized numerous times. However, there has yet to be a coherent alteative proposed. We all know today that life hurts and that there is no ultimate remedy to this pain. The positive approach feels to us as dishonest and irrelevant. We require a new, more negative, perspective and practice, one that is honest and does not pretend to offer an escape from the agonies of the world. This book offers in three main chapters a ‘depressive realist’ perspective that explores the structural role of negativity and tragedy in relation to the individual psyche, society, and nature. It explores the possibility of ‘negative psychoanalysis’ which takes into account the tragedy of human existence instead of adopting escapist positions.

About the Author

This book offers a radical alteative to the positive orientation of popular psychology. This positive orientation has been criticized numerous times. However, there has yet to be a coherent alteative proposed. We all know today that life hurts and that there is no ultimate remedy to this pain. The positive approach feels to us as dishonest and irrelevant. We require a new, more negative, perspective and practice, one that is honest and does not pretend to offer an escape from the agonies of the world. This book offers in three main chapters a ‘depressive realist’ perspective that explores the structural role of negativity and tragedy in relation to the individual psyche, society, and nature. It explores the possibility of ‘negative psychoanalysis’ which takes into account the tragedy of human existence instead of adopting escapist positions.