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The Affect Theory of Silvan Tomkins for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy explores central issues in current clinical work, using the theories put forward by Silvan Tomkins and presenting them in detail, as well as integrating them with the most up-to-date neuroscience findings and infancy research, all based on a biopsychosocial, dynamic systems approach.Part I describes the essentials of life, based on our evolutionary and biological heritage, namely a need for a coherent understanding of one's world and the capacity to act in that world; the infant's capacities are described in detail as embodying both. Longitudinal data is provided beginning at birth into the third year of life. Part II reviews current debates in psychoanalysis relating to motivation, and the lack of an internally consistent theory. Recent neuroscience findings are presented, which both negate drive theory, and support Tomkins' theory. His theory is then described in detail. In Part III, two case histories are presented: one is a clinical case illustrating one of Tomkins' affect powered scripts. The second case is drawn from a longitudinal study extending from birth, into early adulthood, which is made sense of with the help of Tomkins' theory. Demos concludes with a look at competing approaches to theory and responds to recent cognitive-based attempts to disprove both Tomkins' work and the latest findings from neuroscience.
The Affect Theory of Silvan Tomkins for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, as well as psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and psychiatric nurses.
List of contents
INTRODUCTION
PART I
Chapter 1: New Developmental Paradigms
Chapter 2: Basic Human Priorities
Chapter 3: Longitudinal Studies
PART II
Chapter 4: Motivation Theory Reformulated
Chapter 5: Silvan Tomkins’s Affect Theory
Chapter 6: Tomkins’s Script Theory: A Theory of Personality
PART III
Chapter 7: Revisiting the Repetition Compulsion
Chapter 8: Trauma and the Anti-Toxic Script
Chapter 9: Conclusion
About the author
E. Virginia Demos is a retired member of the clinical staff at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, USA, who continues to work in private practice as a clinical psychologist. She also previously taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is an authority on trauma and has also worked closely with Silvan Tomkins during her career, editing Exploring Affect: The Selected Writings of Silvan S. Tomkins (1995).
Summary
The Affect Theory of Silvan Tomkins for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy explores central issues in current clinical work, using the theories put forward by Silvan Tomkins and presenting them in detail, as well as integrating them with the most up-to-date neuroscience findings and infancy research, all based on a bio-psycho-social, dynamic systems approach.
