Identity Crisis: Modernity, Psychoanalysis and the Self (Communications & Culture)

This book examines the psychological responses of people to the excitements and terrors that characterise the modern world. Beginning with a description of modernist and post-modernist accounts of contemporary life, it then moves into detailed discussions of narcissism and psychosis - two states of mind that seem to characterise the 'crises of self' to which the modern world gives rise. With an interweaving of social theory and psychodynamic explanations, this is a sophisticated and compelling text. Identity Crisis will be of interest to students in a wide range of disciplines including psychology, sociology, psychoanalysis, politics and cultural studies. Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction....Pages 1-9 Social Experience....Pages 10-31 Freud’s Monster....Pages 32-62 Narcissism....Pages 63-94 Narcissistic Pathology....Pages 95-125 Dreaming of Madness....Pages 126-151 Psychotic States of Mind....Pages 152-186 Conclusion: The Crisis of Identity....Pages 187-195 Back Matter....Pages 196-208 From the author of "The Politics of Psychoanalysis", this text provides a guide to modernist and post-modernist perceptions and to the uses of psycho-analysis in the contemporary cultural scene. It explores the nature of the individual's response to the pressures of the modern experience.