Describing the Unconscious. Phenomenological Perspectives on the Subject of Psychoanalysis

Dear Reader,

We are pleased to announce the release of our new publication:

Describing the Unconscious. Phenomenological Perspectives on the Subject of Psychoanalysis

This collective volume aims at contributing to an in depth understanding of the relationship between phenomenology and psychoanalysis, drawing on research that renews and complements the area of discussion opened by recent publications on this interdisciplinary approach. Coming from the field of phenomenology, the authors participating in this volume examine the various ways in which phenomenology has become interested in what psychoanalysis has to offer, both as a practice and as a theoretical perspective. While psychoanalysis provides an understanding of the unconscious which is derived directly from practice, the psychoanalytical practice itself appears to be a form of transcendental intersubjectivity put at work in such a way that it sheds light on the meaningful life of experience phenomenology strived so much to describe from Husserl to Henry and further on. The book is divided in three sections: “Phenomenological Approaches to the Concept of Unconscious”, “Phenomenological Ambiguities of the Psychoanalytic Subject” and “Phenomenological Resources from Husserl to Henry”. The first section begins by defining the multiple functions of the unconscious (Tamás Ullmann) and by situating the common ambition of phenomenology and psychoanalysis in the attempt to go from self-evidence to “the birthplace of meaning” (Dorothée Legrand). After revisiting the status of the “second phenomenology” generated within the psychoanalytical practice (Virgil Ciomoș), the specificity of the phenomenology’s contribution to the psychoanalytic practice is discussed (Gunnar Karlsson). The second section focuses on the problem of subjectivity as it emerges both from psychoanalytical theory and phenomenology, in relation to loss and melancholia (Delia Popa) and to nostalgia (Dylan Trigg), bringing it ultimately to a body that makes sense (Cristian Bodea) thanks to a transcendental transposition at work in our imagination (István Fazakas). The last section discusses the descriptive resources psychoanalysis can find in the field of phenomenology understood as descriptive psychology (László Komorjai), such as the theory of habits and passive synthesis in Husserl (Luciana Priolo), the theory of the illeity in Lévinas (Livia Dioșan), and the phenomenology of life in Henry (Max Schaefer).

We thank you for your consideration and hope you take advantage of this special offer.