Illusion, Disillusion, and Irony in Psychoanalysis

John Steiner

apr 2020 · Routledge

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Illusion, Disillusion, and Irony in Psychoanalysis explores and develops the role of illusion and daydream in everyday life, and in psychoanalysis. Using both clinical examples and literary works, idealised illusions and the inevitable disillusion that is met when reality makes an impact, are carefully explored.

Idealised phantasies which involve a timeless universe inevitably lead to disillusion in the face of reality which introduces an awareness of time, ageing, and eventually death. If the illusions are recognised as phantasy rather than treated as fact, the ideal can be internalised as a symbol and serve as a measure of excellence. Steiner shows that the cruelty of truth needs to be recognised, as well as the deceptive nature of illusion, and that relinquishing omnipotence is a critical and difficult developmental task that is relived in analysis.

Illusion, Disillusion, and Irony in Psychoanalysis

will be of great use to the psychoanalyst or psychotherapist seeking to understand the patient’s withdrawal into a phantasy world, and the struggle to allow the impact of reality.

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John Steiner is a training analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and the author of Psychic Retreats (1993) and Seeing and Being Seen (2011). He has also edited and written introductions to The Oedipus Complex Today (1989), Papers by Hanna Segal (1997), Essays on Herbert Rosenfeld (2008), and Melanie Klein’s Lectures on Technique (2017).