An Integrative Psychodynamic Theory
Attachment Trauma, Anxiety, and Unconscious Fantasy in Psychosis
Simon Boag author Barbara Sorensen author
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Publishing:18th Jan '27
£36.99
This title is due to be published on 18th January, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
This book offers a novel and integrative psychodynamic theory of psychosis, grounded in the concept of an unconscious fantasy of a private world. It explores a new framework that considers multiple explanatory mechanisms to sufficiently address the development of psychosis.
Drawing on critical reviews of key theorists including Freud, Bion, and Kernberg, along with contemporary affective neuroscience, this work synthesises seven foundational domains necessary for a comprehensive theory: affect regulation, unconscious thinking, anxiety, internal object relations, motivational conflict, denial of perceptual reality, and fantasy-based world construction. Central to the book is the argument that psychosis arises from the dominance of an aggressive antiaffiliative motivational structure, which shapes an unconscious fantasy of a private world. Special attention is given to Kernberg’s revised theory of drives, Davanloo’s psychophysiological model of anxiety, and the role of affective trauma in psychotic structure formation. This book enables readers to advance their understanding and treatment of psychosis. Understanding the psychotic internal world on its own terms allows for more empathic, targeted, and effective therapeutic engagement, providing a coherent explanatory framework that has immediate clinical relevance.
This work benefits academics, clinicians, and anyone interested in improving their understanding and ability to explain the development of psychosis, and will be of interest to psychological practitioners, psychoanalysts, and psychologists more generally.
“Psychosis has long been described as the one territory no theory has managed to map convincingly. In this ambitious and deeply scholarly book, the authors come closer than most. They first guide the reader through a lucid critical history of psychodynamic thinking on psychosis — from Freud and Jung through the ego-psychological, object-relational and interpersonal schools to contemporary attachment and affect theory — showing how each tradition illuminates part of the picture while leaving the rest in shadow, and why no single tradition has been sufficient on its own. The authors then do the harder thing: they build. Weaving together Kernberg's revised theory of affect and motivation, Davanloo's bio-physiological understanding of anxiety, and the meaning-making function of unconscious phantasy, the authors arrive at a genuinely integrative account, crystallised in their original and clinically resonant concept of `an unconscious fantasy of a private world' — a reality the psychotic person can construct and validate without needing confirmation from the world outside. Rigorous, humane, and grounded equally in current neuroscience and in the consulting room, this is an important contribution that will reward clinicians and theoreticians alike.”
Dr Steve Arthey, Clinical Psychologist
“During an era of biological reductionism, psychosis was misunderstood as purely a medical problem to be treated only with medications, and the person with psychological problems was often forgotten. This book reminds us of the person who suffers from psychosis, their inner world, and their struggles to face reality and the feelings it arouses that can so easily overwhelm the patient's integrative capacities. The interdisciplinary perspective offered here fits nicely with recent research showing the importance of trauma in development, which can lead to psychosis. And the authors’ synthesis offers a theoretical foundation for more effective treatment strategies in the future.”
Jon Frederickson, MSW New Washington School of Psychiatry
ISBN: 9781041270164
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
208 pages