Are You Considering Therapy? is a guidebook for people who are thinking about going into therapy but aren't quite sure where to start. It will look at the various aspects of choosing a therapist, from sorting through the numerous types of treatment on offer, to deciding whether an individual practitioner is someone you might want to work with. The book will not only explain the differences between a psychiatrist, a psychotherapist and a psychologist, say, but will also give people some sense of the sorts of things that might happen in a session - as well as looking at the many and varied notions of 'cure'. For example, while a behavioural counsellor might make it their mission to rid you of your symptom as quickly as possible, a Lacanian psychoanalyst may consider it their ethical duty to see you through an experience of subjective destitution. (The book would also explain what on earth this means.) Are You Considering Therapy? will aim to treat all therapies equally, and to allow readers to make their own choices about what might suit them.
Hysteria, one of the most diagnosed conditions in human history, is also one of the most problematic. Can it even be said to exist at all? Since the earliest medical texts people have had something to say about 'feminine complaints'. Over the centuries, theorisations of the root causes have lurched from the physiological to the psychological to the socio-political. Thanks to its dual association with femininity and with fakery, the notion of hysteria inevitably provokes questions about women, men, sex, bodies, minds, culture, happiness and unhappiness. To some, it may seem extraordinary that such a contested diagnosis could continue to merit any mention whatsoever. Hysteria Today is a collection of essays whose purpose is to reopen the case for hysteria and to see what relevance, if any, the term may have within contemporary clinical practice.
From Anxiety to Zoolander is a collection of writings on psychoanalytic themes. Each text was originally delivered as a talk, and the book aims to retain the informality and directness of the spoken word. While many of the chapters focus on clinical questions, they also speak about art, comedy, fashion, fame and fiction. Freudian and Lacanian theories are central, but the book as a whole is far from doctrinaire, with all areas of psychoanalytic thinking being up for discussion. Clinical topics include acting out, narcissism, gender, transference, diagnosis, and the Oedipus complex, tracing ideas through Freud and the post-Freudians, and examining their relevance to the contemporary psychoanalytic clinic. Non-clinical topics include Louise Bourgeois's notes on her analysis, stand-up comedy, Paris Hilton's televised friendship auditions, and Ben Stiller's penetrating stupidity in Zoolander 2. While each essay is self-contained, the book argues overall for the continued relevance of Freudian ideas in the treatment of psychic suffering, as well as in the interpretation of cultural phenomena.