Psychoanalysis Meets Psychosis

Reviews / Votes

"Robbins' goal is to introduce psychoanalysis to psychosis in a way that is internal to psychoanalysis and at the same time independent of the neurosis model and the biases that attend it. He does so successfully in this carefully reasoned and clinically illustrated book, as he returns us to a theory of primitive mind and primary process that Freud himself intimated but never further developed. In so doing, Robbins joins the increasingly interesting minority of analysts who are trying to extend psychoanalytic theory to include the understanding and treatment of psychoses.

For Robbins, psychosis is the consequence of a developmental pathway separate and independent from that of neurosis. It begins with problems of attachment and separation that produce early failures to separate self from object and integrate a cohesive sense of self. These failures leave one incapable of experiencing, sustaining and resolving intrapsychic conflict and lead "to inappropriate and maladaptive persistence of primordial conscious mentation in contexts where reflective representational thought would be appropriate and adaptive."-Howard B. Levine, MD, Editor-in-Chief, The Routledge Wilfred R. Bion Studies Book Series 'Robbins' goal is to introduce psychoanalysis to psychosis in a way that is internal to psychoanalysis and at the same time independent of the neurosis model and the biases that attend it. He does so successfully in this carefully reasoned and clinically illustrated book, as he returns us to a theory of primitive mind and primary process that Freud himself intimated but never further developed. In so doing, Robbins joins the increasingly interesting minority of analysts who are trying to extend psychoanalytic theory to include the understanding and treatment of psychoses.

For Robbins, psychosis is the consequence of a developmental pathway separate and independent from that of neurosis. It begins with problems of attachment and separation that produce early failures to separate self from object and integrate a cohesive sense of self. These failures leave one incapable of experiencing, sustaining and resolving intrapsychic conflict and lead "to inappropriate and maladaptive persistence of primordial conscious mentation in contexts where reflective representational thought would be appropriate and adaptive.'

Howard B. Levine, MD, editor-in-chief, The Routledge Wilfred R. Bion Studies Book Series

'Psychoanalysis meets Psychosis is a book of great courage and extraordinary depth written by one of the great masters of contemporary psychoanalysis. It represents an important challenge to reductionist biological psychiatry, and to a psychoanalysis entrenched in conservative positions and apathetically limited to the treatment of neurotic patients. It will prove to be of particular importance for new generations that are evermore engaged in the treatment of almost impossible patients: patients that the bureaucracy of training institutes would consider untreatable and extraneous to psychoanalytic expertise. Every seasoned analyst and worker in the field of mental health has much to learn from the horizons opened by this volume.'

Riccardo Lombardi is a psychoanalyst, psychiatrist and doctor of medicine. To read this review in full, please see the following: Lombardi, R. (2023) Psychoanalysis Meets Psychosis. Attachment, Separation, and the Undifferentiated Mind, by Michael Robbins, 2019, New York, London, Routledge, Pp. 206., 34,99GBP, ISBN 9780367191177. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 104:793-796.