Breaking through Schizophrenia

Lacan and Hegel for Talk Therapy

Wilfried Ver Eecke

Breaking through Schizophrenia builds on the ideas of Jacques Lacan who argued that schizophrenia is a deficient relationship to language, in particular the difficulty to master the metaphoric dimension of language, which children acquire by the Oedipal restructuring of the psyche. This book is thus a countercultural move to present a less damaging view and a more efficient treatment method for schizophrenic persons.

Through a collection of published and unpublished articles, Ver Eecke traces the path of Lacanian thought. He discusses the importance of language for the development of human beings and examines the effectiveness of talk therapy through case studies with schizophrenic persons.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 298 • Trim: 6 x 8¾

978-1-5381-1800-9 • Hardback • May 2019 • $124.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-5381-1801-6 • Paperback • May 2019 • $55.00 • (£42.00)

978-1-5381-1802-3 • eBook • May 2019 • $52.00 • (£40.00)

Series: New Imago

Subjects: Psychology / Psychopathology / Schizophrenia, Psychology / Psychopathology / Personality Disorders

Breaking through Schizophrenia

Lacan and Hegel for Talk Therapy

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Breaking through Schizophrenia builds on the ideas of Jacques Lacan who argued that schizophrenia is a deficient relationship to language, in particular the difficulty to master the metaphoric dimension of language, which children acquire by the Oedipal restructuring of the psyche. This book is thus a countercultural move to present a less damaging view and a more efficient treatment method for schizophrenic persons.

Through a collection of published and unpublished articles, Ver Eecke traces the path of Lacanian thought. He discusses the importance of language for the development of human beings and examines the effectiveness of talk therapy through case studies with schizophrenic persons.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 298 • Trim: 6 x 8¾

978-1-5381-1800-9 • Hardback • May 2019 • $124.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-5381-1801-6 • Paperback • May 2019 • $55.00 • (£42.00)

978-1-5381-1802-3 • eBook • May 2019 • $52.00 • (£40.00)

Series: New Imago

Subjects: Psychology / Psychopathology / Schizophrenia, Psychology / Psychopathology / Personality Disorders

Author

Wilfried Ver Eecke, PhD, is professor at Georgetown University in the Department of Philosophy and adjunct professor in the Department of Psychology. He has been teaching there since 1967, the year after he had a postdoctoral year at Harvard University, where he studied with Erik Erikson.

Ver Eecke edited, translated, and published eight books and close to one hundred articles. His publications have appeared in ten languages. Two of his books are translated into Chinese, and a third is in the process of being translated.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I: Psychosocial and Linguistic Complexity of Human Beings as a Basis to Understand Schizophrenia and Psychosis

1 Toward a Philosophy of Psychosis

2 The Subjective Experience of the Person with Schizophrenia

3 Philosophical Questions about the Theory of Psychosis in the Early Lacan

4 Paternal Metaphor and Ordinary Psychosis

5 Theoretical and Therapeutic Implications of the Later Lacan’s Complex Theory of Psychosis

6 A Post-Lacanian View on Schizophrenia

Part II: Hegel and Lacan on Mental Illness

7 Hegel as Lacan’s Source for Necessity in Psychoanalytic Theory

8 Hegel and Lacan on Paranoia and the Question of How to Avoid the Dangers Inherent in Ideas of Social Reform

Part III: Psychosis and Schizophrenia Are Illnesses Marked by a Defective Relationship to Language

9 Phenomenology, Linguistic Intentionality, Affectivity, and Villemoes’s New Therapy for Schizophrenics

10 Self-Referencing in the Language of the Severely Mentally Ill

Part IV: Lacan’s Concept of “Paternal Metaphor” Applied to Schreber and Hölderlin

11 Reflections on the Concept of “Paternal Metaphor” at the Occasion of Lacan and Schatzman’s Analyses of Schreber

12 The Concept of “A-Father,” or the Psychological Origin of Mental Breakdown in Schreber and Hölderlin

Part V: Lacanian Reflections on Successful Talk Therapies with People Afflicted with Schizophrenia and Psychosis

13 A Lacanian Interpretation of Karon’s Psychoanalytic Treatment of People Afflicted with Schizophrenia

14 On Villemoes’s Lacanian-Inspired Treatment Method of People Afflicted with Schizophrenia

15 On Prouty’s Successful Treatment Method for People Afflicted with Schizophrenia

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Reviews

Ver Eecke (Georgetown Univ.) presents an analysis of schizophrenia that places talk therapy at its center, exploring this intervention's possibilities for enhancing the lives of people who suffer from schizophrenia and those—professionals and family members—who care for them. For Ver Eecke, mental illness is framed in terms of the linguistic challenges that, failing to have been mastered while growing up, account for psychosis and schizophrenia. Through his use of Lacanian psychoanalysis, its points of resemblance to Hegelian philosophy, and the phenomenology of De Waelhens, Ver Eecke lays the groundwork for demonstrations of how schizophrenia may be approached therapeutically. The book concludes by describing three methods for treating schizophrenic patients and offers a reframing of them in terms of the Lacanian ideas discussed earlier in the book. In short, this is a magisterial account of the treatment of schizophrenia, a notoriously intractable condition, and it will have immense appeal to professionals in psychoanalysis, psychology, and social work. The included clinical examples provide fertile material for future conversations about approaches to treatment. Especially illuminating in this regard is Ver Eecke's reflections on the obligatory example of Judge Daniel Paul Schreber, the most famous case of psychosis in the analytic and psychological literature.

Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty and professionals.
— CHOICE

This is a very impressive work by Wilfied Ver Eecke, bringing together important studies that witness to the worth of a philosophical approach to psychosis and schizophrenia. Ver Eecke is an honored expert on Lacan and a respected interpreter of Hegel and the relevance of his thought to the psychoanalytic situation. Mental illness is seen in developmental terms and not just in terms of genetic or organic factors. We are offered a positive and hopeful orientation to the power of the word in alleviating the distress of the patient. With a significant stress on language, he makes a deft use of Hegel to provide added heft to the themes. The results are very engaging and illuminating, and the voice of Ver Eecke is not only superbly competent in an academic sense but wise in a humane sense.
— William Desmond, David Cook Chair in Philosophy, Villanova University; Thomas A.F. Kelly Visiting Chair in Philosophy, Maynooth University, Ireland; and professor of philosophy emeritus, Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven, Belgium

Renowned Lacanian psychoanalyst Wilfried Ver Eecke brings together for the first time a collection of his seminal contributions to the talk psychotherapy of schizophrenic patients. Building on the successful treatment methods of psychologists Karon, Vergote, Villemoes, and Prouty, Ver Eecke provides a therapeutic blueprint that offers hope to patients and their families. This book will prove to be an invaluable guide for all mental health clinicians who wish to obtain the best possible outcomes for their patients who suffer and struggle with schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders.
— Gerald P. Perman MD, president, The American Academy of Psychodynamic Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis

Lacan's insights into schizophrenia were continually reworked and developed throughout his many years of teaching. This book revisits the core of Lacan's formidable approach to treating schizophrenia by linking Lacan's thought to a wider field of psychoanalytic approaches and methodologies. Ver Eecke also brings his many years of Hegel scholarship and experience as a Lacanian psychoanalyst to bear on the challenge of treating schizophrenia. This book is a treasure for analysts, philosophers, and those in the wider field of mental health.
— Daniel Tutt, PhD, professor of philosophy, Marymount University, and member, D.C. Lacanian Forum

Ver Eecke has produced a highly sophisticated study of clinical approaches to psychosis and schizophrenia that is informed by Lacanian ideas and a range of related philosophical and post-Lacanian approaches. It is very readable and covers complex ideas well, carefully balancing the conceptualizations of a range of theorists along with the author's own novel ideas. Very accessible and understandable clinical examples bring the discussions alive and make the arguments seem applicable to real-world clinical work, which is one of the successes of the book, especially given that this is often a challenge for Lacanian theorists.
— Paul Cammell, senior fellow and psychiatrist, Royal Melbourne Hospital, University of Melbourne

Wilfried Ver Eecke is a gifted Lacanian psychoanalyst and first-rate describer of psychoanalytic theories.In this book, he describes effective treatments for schizophrenia. . He also offers real hope to patients suffering from serious mental disorders, who usually have been told they are hopeless. This book will help them know that it is not true.
— Bertram P. Karon, PhD., ABPP, professor of psychology emeritus, Michigan State University

Breaking through Schizophrenia

Lacan and Hegel for Talk Therapy

Wilfried Ver Eecke

Breaking through Schizophrenia

Lacan and Hegel for Talk Therapy

ALSO AVAILABLE