Search results for ""author nina coltart""

In 1982, Nina Coltart gave a paper to the English-Speaking Conference of Psychoanalysts called “Slouching towards Bethlehem … or Thinking the Unthinkable in Psychoanalysis”, which created a stir and brought her to the attention of the psychoanalytic community. Ten years later, she produced her first book – this book – which contained her seminal paper, alongside so many others of note. Full of eloquent, meaningful, and provocative clinical stories – including “The Treatment of a Transvestite”, “What Does It Mean: ‘Love Is Not Enough?’”, “The Analysis of an Elderly Patient”, and “The Silent Patient” – Nina Coltart exposes the full truth of the therapeutic process, where the analyst may occasionally stray from orthodox practice but how such lapses can sometimes provide unforeseen breakthroughs in treatment. This volume introduced Coltart’s characteristic style of journeying through important issues in analytic practice. She elaborates on the use of intuition, the “special” attention required by an analyst, the value of silence, and of humour, and the importance of psychosomatic processes – the way the body speaks through psychosomatic symptoms. All vitally relevant today and positively groundbreaking at the time.

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'…if this is her final book, she has left the best for last. Psychoanalysts trained within the Independent Group are often asked by psychoanalysts and psychotherapists abroad which book they should read to get a feel for the way independent psychoanalysts think and work. In the past one has referred to Winnicott’s Playing and Reality, Rycroft’s Imagination and Reality, Khan’s The Privacy of the Self, and Marion Milner’s opus. But if we are to have one book, this is it. We may say “Here, you will find it here”. This work is a literary spirit of place – a beautifully rendered conjuring of sensibility – and to my mind it is the single best expression of the English psychoanalyst of independent persuasion we are ever likely to have.’ From the Foreword by Christopher Bollas

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Nina Coltart’s classic work, How to Survive as a Psychotherapist, was written over a quarter of a century ago and yet still resonates today with sage advice for the aspiring and established psychotherapist. This reissue contains a new Foreword from celebrated psychoanalyst David E. Scharff and an updated Further Reading section. Not simply a “how to” manual, this compact book is an amalgam of down-to-earth practicality about assessment, the pleasures of psychotherapy as opposed to analysis, details of how to run a practice, vivid clinical stories which don’t necessarily turn out well, discussions of Buddhism, and an autobiographical finale on the balance between life and work, including Coltart’s choice to live alone. Written in deceptively simple language, it reads easily and encourages beginners, but its backbone is the accrued wisdom for a career containing “survival-with-enjoyment” that offers new perspectives to both mid-career and experienced therapists and teachers. The professional autobiographical quality of the book reveals a lot about Coltart: her love of psychotherapy over full analysis and the number of strictures in analysis that she feels bind rather than guide. She describes the first years, in training and beyond, as full of anxiety: trying to get things right whilst an inner critical voice and the judgement of supervisors and teachers hangs over it all. Slowly, as time goes by, the ability to relax into a career with confidence in one’s own voice, knowledge, and intuition leads to a capacity for enjoyment of what can seem to outsiders a grim profession dealing only with suffering. Coltart’s book celebrates psychotherapy and its practitioners, and is full of interesting and practical advice that both experienced and novice psychotherapists will find invaluable. This enduring classic has stood the test of time and should be a feature of every aficionado’s bookshelf.

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