Richard Ekins

The field of psychoanalytic studies was formally institutionalised in the United Kingdom in 1988 (THERIP, 1994:1), through The Higher Education Network for Research and Information in Psychoanalysis and its house journal, The Psychoanalysis Newsletter. The field has yet to be formalised in student textbooks. At present, students are directed to a sizeable and diverse range of books and papers, providing variously demanding treatments of theoretical and applied psychoanalysis. As such, the available literature remains scattered and difficult to assimilate. This book is designed to meet the needs of students who seek, in one volume, a text which places emphasis upon core concepts and clinical material, but which at the same time reflects the range of applications in therapy, and in the psychoanalytic study of culture and society. It is instructive to consider these two dimensions in terms of centres and peripheries of psychoanalysis. This introductory chapter unpacks the various inter-relations between the centres and peripheries considered, with reference both to the overall standpoint of the book and its individual chapters.… (more)