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The Emerging Tradition of Hans Loewald

Editor : Rosemary H. Balsam, Editor : Elizabeth A. Brett, Editor : Lawrence Levenson

Reviews and Endorsements

These books show why so many people see Hans Loewald as the unmatched innovator in Freudian psychoanalysis and the most profound extender of its possibilities. Loewald brings out a whole new dimension of the Freudian mind. If you are disappointed that the Freudian discovery seems to miss the hopeful vibrance of human life, you will be amazed to see what Loewald draws from the tradition.
If you're a clinician whose old terms seem a little stiff and mechanical, your professional adventure will be refreshed when you see those terms spring to life. Loewald worked quietly without proselytizing, but his writing and teaching have kindled wide enthusiasm, and a Hans W. Loewald Center has formed, from which we have this collection of scholars and practitioners who explore applications of Loewald's outlook to the nature of mind and mankind, the workings of treatment and the wider use of theory.
Experts here discuss the philosophical grounding that silently underlies Loewald's thinking about, for example, the mental scrambling of past, present, and future and the role of "futurity" in all present experience. A chapter recounts Loewald's uneasy reception by associates, and there are comparisons of his relationship to other theorists such as Winnicott and Laplanche. Other topics include a Loewaldian approach to gender, Loewald's theory of language, his reflections on religion, on mourning, on adolescence and of course the impact of his great mini-monograph on the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis.
Despite his courageous independence, Loewald was the most self-effacing of pioneers, and the editors anticipate our personal curiosity by including chapters on his training, the legacy of his studies with Heidegger, and what it was like to be treated or supervised by Loewald as a clinician. To get a fuller sense of Loewald as a person, we hear from his family as well.
These books are a treasure trove for Loewaldians, and a prospectus for those who have wondered what all the fuss is about. It announces a new era of innovation that might, indeed, go far to secure a future for psychoanalysis.
Lawrence Friedman, MD, clinical professor of Psychiatry, Weill-Cornell University College of Medicine; Psychoanalytic Association of New York

Loewald writes poetically: "We would say that the patient instead of having a past, is his past. He does not distinguish himself as a rememberer from the content of his memory."
This wonderful book conveys how the language of Loewald speaks to us profoundly, enlightens us, helps us clinically and theoretically, and conveys also that psychoanalysis may be approached in many different ways. Loewald has engaged Freud in such a complex fashion that we too become deeply involved with his investigation. I believe that everyone in the psychoanalytic field is looking towards the future, can benefit from this exciting, new encounter with Loewald.
Haydée Faimberg, MD, training and supervising analyst, Paris Psychoanalytical Society (SPP); author of The Telescoping of Generations; winner of the Sigourney Award for Outstanding Achievement