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Psychoanalysis and Ethics: The Necessity of Perspective

Author(s) : David M. Black

Reviews and Endorsements

Psychoanalysis and Ethics aims to overcome a split in psychoanalytic thinking and training that arose, as David M. Black puts it, from the contingent fact that Freud lacked a philosophical base on which to consider the hugely important questions of ethics. In fact, human life is ethical life, and it essentially includes the struggles, frustrations, furies and tremendous joys of putting ethical life into words. Through subtle readings of Dante, as well as Melanie Klein, Hans Loewald, Donald Winnicott and many others, Psychoanalysis and Ethics revives our understanding of allegorical thinking and its power. This book is passionate and throught-provoking, rigorous and imaginative.
Jonathan Lear, Committee on Social Thought, the University of Chicago

Few books so generously provide a rich and nuanced conceptual scaffolding to help us to push open new doors in our thinking. This is one of those rare books. Masterful in his integration of philosophy, theology, psychoanalysis and literature, David M. Black has instantiated the "necessity of perspective" through his interdisciplinary approach to ethics. In the morally challenging times we live in, this book is essential and rewarding reading, not only for psychoanalytic clinicians and academics, but also for anyone interested in ethics - it is a book that I am sure I will return to many times.
Alessandra Lemma, fellow, British Psychoanalytic Society and visiting professor, Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London; author of First Principles: Applied Ethics for Psychoanalytic Practice

David M. Black has made an extraordinary individual contribution to psychoanalytic writing over many years. He approaches psychoanalysis from a unique combination of experiences and trainings in which he has been depply immersed: religion, philosophy, ethics, psychoanalysis, literature - most recently the mammoth project of translating and writing commentaries on Dante. His voice is very much his own, and he approaches any subject with this very broad set of references, which infuses his writing with a particular quality of contemplation and vitality. I always look forward hungrily to receiving his latest psychoanalytic contribution.
Francis Grier, editor-in-chief, International Journal of Psychoanalysis; training analyst and supervisor of the British Society of Psychoanalysis