Description
Book SynopsisInjured Men is a unique casebook of clinical material pertaining to men who have sustained trauma. With the exception of those publications dealing with the military, clinical vignettes of traumatized individuals are overwhelmingly female. By comparison, little has been written about the plight of men. Injured Men begins to fill that void. Richly illustrated with both brief and extensively detailed analytic case reports, Injured Men describes the manifestations of such phenomena as physical and sexual abuse, unresolved grief, genocidal persecution, intergenerational transmission of trauma, and of course, combat. With his perspective on dissociation and dissociative disorders, Brenner also presents a traumatic pathway to the development of a masculine self in those with female bodies. In dealing with the long term effects of trauma, he advocates a pluralistic approach, which he demonstrates in the final chapter of this fascinating volume.
Trade ReviewInjured Men is an extremely rich casebook of clinical material pertaining to men who have sustained trauma. By means of his evocative and genuine writing, Brenner guides us through the world of men who have been affected by sexual abuse, unresolved grief, genocidal persecution, intergenerational transmission of trauma, and combat. His pluralistic approach to the long-term effects of trauma is conceptually astute and reverberates with his humane sensibility.... -- Ilany Kogan, training analyst, Israel Psychoanalytic Society; author of The Struggle Against Mourning
With an eye on the complex interplay between developmental processes and the psychic detours resulting from trauma, Ira Brenner takes on the elusive topic of what it takes to be a man and how manliness is threatened, eclipsed, reclaimed, and expressed under ordinary and extraordinary circumstances. He deftly weaves a tapestry of ideas blending individual dynamics, large group psychology, phenomenology of dissociation, Holocaust studies, Vietnam War experiences, and the psychosocial aftermath of September11th. The result is a book of rare intelligence, authenticity, and clinical wisdom... -- Salman Akhtar, MD, is professor of psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College and training and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Before Ira Brenner, no other psychoanalytic investigator explored the severe early trauma leading to dissociative psychopathology as fully as it is described in this book. With lucid clinical illustrations, Injured Men: Trauma, Healing and the Masculine Self is destined to be a textbook for understanding and treating individuals who have been exposed to severe childhood traumas, are children of survivors, and have earlier traumas revived by more recent events.... -- Vamik D. Volkan M.D., professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA and the author of Killing in the Name of Identity: Stories of Bloody Conflicts.
Table of Contents1 Table of Contents Chapter 2 Introduction Chapter 3 1. On the Need to Be a Man: Traumatic Influences Chapter 4 2. Dissociation and Its Vicissitudes Chapter 5 3. Dissociation and the Enactment-Prone Patient Chapter 6 4. September 11 and the Analytic Process Chapter 7 5. A Time-Traveling Man Chapter 8 6. Echoes of the Battlefield Chapter 9 7. Forged in the Holocaust Chapter 10 8. Healing 11 Bibliography 12 Index 13 About the Author
