The Soul, The Mind, and the Psychoanalyst

Available for the first time in a single volume, this collection of papers by David Rosenfeld illuminates his thoughts and experiences about his fascinating, complicated and demanding work as a psychoanalyst.

This book is based on various cases whose common factor is how the psychoanalytic setting is created: the internalization and realization inside the patient’s mind, along with the feeling of fixed hours and the transferential relation with the psychoanalyst. Referring to the great masters of psychoanalysis, Rosenfeld guides us step-by-step through the mysterious terrain of the mind, especially in its most regressive, primitive and psychotic aspects.

Thomas Ogden, commenting on two of the papers collected here, wrote that “they represent two of the most important contributions of the past decade to the understanding of the psychoanalytic treatment of psychotic patients.”

This book is intended to be felt and thought about. The reader is asked to read between the lines, to imagine and feel beyond the words on the page. It will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and students.