A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Contemporary Search for Pleasure The Turning of the Screw

This interdisciplinary collection of essays explores the malaise of the contemporary individual by returning the economic point of view of Freudian thinking, the concept of satisfaction, libido, and pleasure–unpleasure principle to their rightful place as the motivating forces of human existence. For Freud, pleasure stands apart from other human experiences, side by side with unpleasure, always a bonus in the search for satisfaction of the pleasure principle and beyond. Along with libido, emotional fulfillment, and the capacities for sublimation and play, pleasure has not been given enough attention in the psychoanalytic literature. The editors of this book address this lack and highlight the importance of examining today’s social and individual malaise through these specific lenses of inquiry. It is particularly timely and important today to address this lack, and thereby examine the impact of the social phenomena of the pandemic, the crises of ideals and virtuality on the subject who feels in a state of constant emergency, overwhelmed, addicted, and delibidinalized. With contributions from across psychoanalysis, this book is essential reading for psychoanalysts in training and in practice who want to understand how the modern world has shaped our understanding of pleasure.

General Introduction VAIA TSOLAS Early Barriers to Pleasure CHRISTINE ANZIEU-PREMMEREUR PART I Crises of Ideals, Delibidinalization and Its Discontents for Our Contemporary World Introduction EVAN MORIARTY 1 Preface to Kristeva’s Work: Vitality Against Virality and Virtuality RACHEL BOUÉ-WIDAWSKY 2 “In the Current State of War, It Is Our Most Inner Selves That We Must Save” JULIA KRISTEVA 3 Preface to Contri’s Work: Thinking, Drive, Law MICHAEL CIVIN 4 The Science of Thought: The Thought of Satisfaction GIACOMO B. CONTRI 5 Three Chapters to Be Remembered and Post-Scriptum GIACOMO B. CONTRI AND RAFFAELLA COLOMBO 6 Dead Mother (Ire)land MATTHEW MCCOY AND MARISA BERWALD PART II Delibidinalization and the Malaise of the Contemporary Subject Introduction SEAN LYNCH AND ANDJELA SAMARDZIC 7 Uncanny Drives: On Nightmares and Wish Fulfillment MONIKA GSELL 8 Ridding Oneself of Reality LAURENCE KAHN 9 On the Roots of Addictive Behavior in Narcissist Vulnerability and Lack of Transitional Area CHRISTINE ANZIEU-PREMMEREUR 10 Reaching for the Impossible Jouissance: The Contemporary Addictive Female VAIA TSOLAS 11 The Risk of Loss: Anxiety and Depression in Women JACQUELINE SCHAEFFER 12 Enemies of Unpleasure PANOS ALOUPIS 13 Resistance to Psychoanalysis CATHERINE CHABERT 14 “Unjoined Persons”: Psychic Isolation and Bodily Symptoms in Adolescence MARY T. BRADY 15 Death, Life, Birth and Sublimation in the Pandemic ROSEMARY BALSAM 16 Death and the Use of Pleasure DAVID LICHTENSTEIN 17 Destructive Envy and the Narcissistic Grip DOMINIQUE CUPA 18 “... whatever ...” MICHAEL CIVIN Afterword ANAND DESAI

Vaia Tsolas is a training and supervising analyst at Columbia University, Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research; co-founder and board chair of Pulsion, a psychoanalytic institute in New York City; an assistant clinical professor of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine; a corresponding member of the Hellenic Psychoanalytic Association; co-founder of Rose Hill Psychological Services in New York City; and the editor of the book A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Body in Today’s World: On the Body (Routledge 2017). Christine Anzieu-Premmereur is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in New York City. A member of the Société Psychanalytique de Paris, faculty at the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center; an assistant clinical professor in Psychiatry at Columbia University; the chair of the IPA Committee for Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis, COCAP; and the Board Secretary of Pulsion, a psychoanalytic institute in New York City.