‘Psychoanalytic Mythologies’ - New Book by Anthem Press

[Anthem Press]

‘Psychoanalytic Mythologies’ by Ian Parker
ISBN: 9781843313038; List Price: £45.00 / $80.00.
Available for sale at a discount on www.amazon.co.uk or www.amazon.com.

‘Psychoanalytic Mythologies’ presents a collection of essays on the theme of what it is to be a human subject in a culture permeated by psychoanalytic imagery. The author’s attempt to disturb the strongly-held belief of those in thrall to psychoanalysis that it is universally true forms the recurrent motif that binds these essays together. Instead he argues that psychoanalysis functions as something that is only ever locally true. These arguments are elaborated upon in a range of contexts, from a clubbing experience in Manchester to a trip to Disneyworld, and the different strands are distilled into a cohesive thesis in the definitive final essay ‘Psychoanalytic Myth Today’. The essays presented here were initially published in scattered newsletters and journals, and were written intermittently in a period stretching back over ten years. Ian Parker has written widely in this area, and these lively and innovative essays taken together form a searing manifesto against the accepted dogmas of psychoanalysis.

Ian Parker is Professor of Psychology in the Discourse Unit at Manchester Metropolitan University. He is a practising psychoanalyst in Manchester, and a member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, the London Society of the New Lacanian School and the College of Psychoanalysts (for which he is currently on the Board of Governors).