The Vicissitudes of Totemism: Gérard Lucas explains how our changing view of totemism reflects our own cultural markings

One hundred years after Totem and Taboo

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Although it was the object of numerous publications by ethnologists from the mid-nineteenth century up to the First World War, the age-old practice of totemism, well-known for its quasi-worldwide dissemination and the questions of its origins, seems to have disappeared from anthropological literature thereafter.

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‘Invisible Mending: A Novel’, by Guillermo Julio Montero

‘Always’ is a beautiful word

This is a film made with the sentences and the plot of the novel  Invisible Mending by Argentine psychoanalyst and novelist Guillermo Montero. With the background of a sexual bond, and following the lives of the main characters (Vera and Victor), the novel tries to disentangle the difference between Fate and Destiny. Internationally awarded, this is the first English edition.  

         Be part of this journey:  If you have any thoughts or questions for the author, please leave a comment in the ‘Leave a Reply’ section below and he will read and respond to any queries. 

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A Nazi Legacy: The Transgenerational Inheritance of Trauma, by Vamık D. Volkan

Depositing, Transgenerational Transmission, Dissociation  and Remembering through Action

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As a psychoanalyst, I have been actively involved in international relations since 1979 and have visited many areas where wars and war-like situations existed just prior to my visits or even during my visits. I observed children with or without parents in such locations, places like South Ossetia and Kuwait. I also participated in projects designed to help children traumatized by wars or war-like conditions, and last year I was invited to a meeting in France to deliver a paper on the children of war with whom I had worked.

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The Enigma of Childhood: How our earliest relationships profoundly shape all our later ones, by Ronnie Solan

The Space of Shared Experience and the Art of Couplehood

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I would like to invite you to delve right in and explore the enigma of the art of couplehood and happiness. You may find you are one of those people who succeed in the practice of this universal art, or alternatively, discover you may resist it, unwittingly blemishing or spoiling your relationships with your children or spouse, or even with your co-workers, when part of a team.

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Analysing the Social Context of Individual Distress: Celebrating the Pioneering Work of David Smail

David Smail: Clinical Psychologist, Sociologist, Philosopher, and Political Critic

David Smail, clinical psychologist, who has died aged 76

As Karnac Books republish four key works by the pioneering clinical psychologist, his son Alastair reflects on his achievement.

When my father died just over a year ago, the family was unsure what to do with his books. He had said he would like them published on the internet for free; either that or left alone. We did not have the capacity to post them on the internet, although David had put many articles and an internet publication on his website: www.davidsmail.info. The reaction to his death, as for example in The Guardian obituary persuaded us that we needed to do something.

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The Courage of Simplicity: Hanni Biran explores the central ideas in the work of W.R. Bion

Psychoanalytic thinking through three prisms: person, group, and society

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The chapters of this book were written throughout a period of many years. The ideas they present are grounded in the thinking of Wilfred Bion. Bion has always been an inspiration to me. His books are thought-provoking and conducive to playfulness and elaboration. His writing is an exquisite combination of poetry and science. It draws on intuition, a unique life experience, and profound knowledge of psychoanalysis and other disciplines.

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