Against Catastrophism: Climate Change, Pandemics, and Hope for the Future
Book Details
- Publisher : Routledge
- Published : April 2025
- Cover : Paperback
- Pages : 188
- Category :
Forthcoming - Category 2 :
Psychoanalysis - Catalogue No : 98032
- ISBN 13 : 9781032811987
- ISBN 10 : 1032811986
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Against Catastrophism explores catastrophism from multiple vantage points and considers the impact of ongoing crisis on individuals.
Bringing together contributors from psychoanalysis, economics, anthropology, and gastroenterology, this book explores themes including fossil fuel culture, social movements like Extinction Rebellion, the COVID-19 pandemic, media messaging, and the future of food supply chains. By assessing the value of a constant barrage of information about catastrophes and considering the need for a containing environment, the chapters explore how we can avoid endorsing a closed-off vision of the future and instead unlock possibilities. The book concludes with a discussion of optimism, radical hope, and how we can put forward a new narrative on nature.
Against Catastrophism will be of great interest to psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, economists, anthropologists, sociologists, food scientists, environmentalists, ecologists, politicians, and communication experts.
Reviews and Endorsements
To read these essays is to engage in an exciting conversation with eminent psychoanalysts and academic scholars on the global impact of rapidly increasing climate change affecting every aspect of our existence - from economic stability and food accessibility to physical health and mental stability. The authors address our intrapsychic resistances of denial and disavowal, with their compensatory fantasies of omnipotent control over nature; but also the catastrophic paralyses we experience when defenses fail. This book invites readers to join in a new narrative that acknowledges the truth but also offers hope for next generation stakeholders.
Bonnie E. Litowitz, Ph.D.; Editor-in Chief Emerita, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JAPA); editor (with Glen Gabbard and Paul Williams), Textbook of Psychoanalysis, 2nd & 3rd Editions; faculty, Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, retired
This book explores the concept of catastrophism, that today refers to the tendency to exaggerate dangers, which hampers the response to the global environmental crisis. With brilliant and clear contributions from psychoanalysts, economists, food scientists and anthropologists, the text criticizes the paralysis caused by fear and the media, and proposes a new narrative that promotes ecosystem regeneration and a sustainable future. The book urges overcoming inaction through a culture that combines individual creativity with collective commitment, and offers valuable insights not only for psychotherapists but for anyone interested in psychoanalysis and the humanities.
Giuseppe Civitarese, MD, PhD; member, SPI, APsaA, IPA; author of On Arrogance: A Psychoanalytic Essay
I especially recommend reading this book, which displays a topic of pressing relevance with seriousness and commitment that make it a truly necessary text.
Dr Hilda Catz, PhD; full member, IPA, FEPAL; director, Psychoanalysis and Society of the Argentine Psychoanalytic Association; visual artist and writer
If we needed an original, direct, nuanced psychoanalytic inquiry into the dangers of catastrophic thinking, most notably with regard to the desecration of planet earth, this book is it. Cosimo Schinaia has brought together a first-rate group of authors to engage in disentangling catastrophism from creativity, radical hope, essential inter-dependence and psychic growth in times of great difficulty, through a series of dazzling essays. This book is of great relevance to us all.
Paul Williams, member, Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California; Joint Editor-in-Chief, The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2001-2007
This collection of essays passionately argues for a creative hope to confront the catastrophism of today. In the face of pending global destructivity, each author thoughtfully explores how psychoanalysis can authentically challenge the drastic warnings of our time.
Jan Abram, President, European Psychoanalytical Society; author of The Surviving Object: Psychoanalytic Clinical Essays on Psychic Survival-of-the-Object
Table of Contents
Presentation
Cosimo Schinaia
1. Hope in a Changing World between Individual Creativity and Collective Working Through
Cosimo Schinaia
2. Radical Hope
Gohar Homayounpour
3. A Changing World: Psychoanalysis between Catastrophe and Hope
Alfredo Lombardozzi
4. Catastrophic Fossil Culture and Other Desires of Relatedness
Mauro Van Aken
5. Illusory Immunity and Actual Inhumanity
Ronny Jaffè
6. Catastrophe versus Catastrophic Change. Between Psychoanalysis and Art
Luca Caldironi
7. Climate Change and Adolescence: A Dangerous Collusion of internal and External Catastrophe
Christine Franckx
8. Birth is not Destiny
Orazio Attanasio
9. Our Food Future
Attilio Giacosa
10. Pushing Back on Catastrophism: The Case for a New Nature Narrative
Mark Halle
11. Catastrophism and Media Catastrophic Images
Cosimo Schinaia
About the Editor(s)
Cosimo Schinaia is a psychiatrist who worked as Director of Mental Health Centre of Central Genoa for many years. He is a training and supervising psychoanalyst of SPI (Italian Psychoanalytical Society) and a full member of the International Psychoanalytical Association. He has published many scientific papers for both Italian and international journals and books, including Dal Manicomio alla Città; Il Cantiere delle Idee; and Pedofilia Pedofilie: La Psicoanalisi e il Mondo del Pedofilo. He currently lives and works in private practice in Genoa.
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