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This book offers a radical alternative to the positive orientation of popular psychology. This positive orientation has been criticized numerous times. However, there has yet to be a coherent alternative proposed. We all know today that life hurts and that there is no ultimate remedy to this pain. The positive approach feels to us as dishonest and irrelevant. We require a new, more negative, perspective and practice, one that is honest and does not pretend to offer an escape from the agonies of the world. This book offers in three main chapters a 'depressive realist' perspective that explores the structural role of negativity and tragedy in relation to the individual psyche, society, and nature. It explores the possibility of 'negative psychoanalysis' which takes into account the tragedy of human existence instead of adopting escapist positions.
List of contents
Chapter 1: Introduction: Welcome to Hell.- Chapter 2 : The Living Dead: Destructive Plasticity.- Chapter 3 : Destructive plasticity, War, and Anarchism: A Conversation Between Catherine Malabou and Julie Reshe.- Chapter 4 : Dead Together: Love Hurts.- Chapter 5 : The Death Drive, Politics, and Love: A Conversation Between Todd McGowan and Julie Reshe.- Chapter 6 : A Tragic Fairy Tale of Evolution: Zupancic, Zapffe and Other Monsters.- Chapter 7 : Human Animal, Positive Psychology, and Trauma: A Conversation Between Alenka Zupancic and Julie Reshe.- Chapter 8 : Epilogue: No Salvation.
About the author
Julie Reshe is a Ukrainian-born philosopher, a practicing negative psychoanalyst, and a public intellectual. She is currently a visiting professor at University College Cork and University College Dublin. She is also a Director of the Institute of Psychoanalysis at the Global Centre for Advanced Studies.
Report
In Negative Psychoanalysis for the Living Dead, Reshe invites us into a world where conventional comforts are set aside, and hard truths are faced head-on. The book tears the soul of the reader apart while profoundly resonating with what we all know but rarely dare to admit. This book stands out as a powerfully pessimistic reflection on existence and love, offering a brutally honest yet invaluable perspective. (Asijit Datta, Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, Vol. 30 (1), 2025)
