The Rupture of Serenity: External Intrusions and Psychoanalytic Technique

By: Aisha Abbasi

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Synopsis: What happens when the outside world enters the psychoanalytic space? In The Rupture of Serenity: External Intrusions and Psychoanalytic Technique, the author draws on clinical material to describe some of the dilemmas she has encountered in her work with patients when external factors have entered the treatment frame. She considers analytic dilemmas that range from how to deal with patients' unusual requests regarding the conduct of an analytic treatment to the question of how to handle events in the analyst's personal life that, by necessity, must be addressed in the analysis. As a Muslim of Pakistani origin, the author is also able to discuss, frankly and with compassion, the role that ethnic and religious differences between patient and analyst can play in treatment-differences that, in the aftermath of 9/11 and the search for and killing of Osama bin Laden, became a palpable presence in her consulting room.