Regret: Developmental, Cultural, and Clinical Realms

Editor : Salman Akhtar, Editor : Shahrzad Siassi

Regret: Developmental, Cultural, and Clinical Realms

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Missed opportunities, unfulfilled dreams, and broken promises are the stuff of everyday life and so is regret, the emotion that accompanies them. Unlike remorse which is consequent upon the realization that one has hurt a loved one, regret revolves around a wistful sense of having let oneself down. Middle aged and elderly individuals are specially prone to regret ; the wish to reverse what one did wrong gets intensified as time left to live becomes shorter. Regret also carries with it the potential of masochistic self-flagellation which conceals the omnipotent belief that things could have been otherwise; the fact that life is what it is thus gets denied and eclipsed.

Akhtar and Siassi's edited volume on regret addresses this inoptimally studied emotion from developmental, cultural, and clinical vantage points. It deepens our understanding of regret, enhances our empathy with 'spilled-milk' hand-wringing, and sharpens our technical skills to help persons burdened by chronic regret.

Reviews and Endorsements

‘In a book of luminous beauty, Salman Akhtar and Shahrzad Siassi have brought together excellent pieces of writing on the clinically significant topic of regret. The chapters cover the vistas of the life cycle, take us from poetry to the movies, and into the privacy of the consulting room. Reading it was like getting an excellent consultation on my own current work. This book has the capacity to help all of us immensely on both clinical and personal levels.’
- Aisha Abbasi, MD, training and supervising analyst, Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute, and author of The Rupture of Serenity: External Intrusions and Psychoanalytic Technique

‘Regret is a commonplace emotion of human existence that has been infrequently addressed as a separate subject of psychoanalytic study. This volume seeks to remedy that omission by offering a series of thoughtful essays anchored in clinical experience that explore regret and related phenomena such as guilt, remorse and reparation, from developmental, cultural and clinical perspectives. Readers of all theoretical persuasions and levels of experience will come away from this evocative book with a humbled sense and profound appreciation of the challenges inherent in the analytic encounter and the human condition.’
- Howard B. Levine, MD, faculty, Psychoanalytic Institute of New England (East) and supervising analyst, Massachusetts Institute of Psychoanalysis

About the Editor(s)

Salman Akhtar, MD, is professor of psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College and a training and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. He has served on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. His more than 450 publications include twenty-three solo authored books – Broken Structures (1992), Quest for Answers (1995), Inner Torment (1999), Immigration and Identity (1999), New Clinical Realms (2003), Objects of Our Desire (2005), Regarding Others (2007), Turning Points in Dynamic Psychotherapy (2009), The Damaged Core (2009), Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (2009), Immigration and Acculturation (2011), Matters of Life and Death (2011), Psychoanalytic Listening (2013), Good Stuff (2013), Sources of Suffering (2014), No Holds Barred (2016), A Web of Sorrow (2017), Mind, Culture, and Global Unrest (2018), Silent Virtues (2019), Tales of Transformation (2022), In Leaps and Bounds (2022), and In Short (2024) – as well as sixty-nine edited or coedited volumes in psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Dr. Akhtar has delivered many prestigious addresses and lectures including, most significantly, the inaugural address at the first IPA-Asia Congress in Beijing, China (2010). Dr. Akhtar is the recipient of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Best Paper of the Year Award (1995), the Margaret Mahler Literature Prize (1996), the American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians’ Sigmund Freud Award (2000), the American College of Psychoanalysts’ Laughlin Award (2003), the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Edith Sabshin Award (2000), Columbia University’s Robert Liebert Award for Distinguished Contributions to Applied Psychoanalysis (2004), the American Psychiatric Association’s Kun Po Soo Award (2004), the Irma Bland Award for being the Outstanding Teacher of Psychiatric Residents in the country (2005), and the Nancy Roeske Award (2012). He received the Sigourney Award (2013), which is the most prestigious honor in the field of psychoanalysis. Dr. Akhtar is an internationally sought speaker and teacher, and his books have been translated in many languages, including German, Turkish, and Romanian. His interests are wide and he has served as the film review editor for the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, and is currently serving as the book review editor for the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies. He has published eighteen collections of poetry and serves as a scholar-in-residence at the Inter-Act Theatre Company in Philadelphia. His Selected Papers (Vols I–X) were recently published and released at a festive event held at the Freud House & Museum in London.

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Shahrzad Siassi, PhD, FIPA, is a psychologist-psychoanalyst with a private practice in Sherman Oaks, California. She is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Newport Psychoanalytic Institute and a Senior Faculty Member at the New Center for Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles. She has published and taught extensively on the topic of forgiveness. She has presented papers and been a panellist in the US and abroad at various meetings of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the International Psychoanalytic Association on topics related to forgiveness. Dr. Siassi is the recipient of Karl Menninger Memorial Award (2003) of the American Psychoanalytic Association and is the past president of the San Fernando Valley Psychological Association in Los Angeles.

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