The Importance of DisappointmentThis book explores the nature of identity in late modern society. The author, a sociologist and a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, brings together the insights of both disciplines to argue that 'late, modern' society seems to present new possibilities of living that are in fact illusions. We come to believe that we can create ourselves; that we have 'rights' to aspects of life such as happiness, a 'fulfilling relationship', parents who love us unconditionally; we come to believe that we can find a 'real self' or alternatively we believe that we can be anything that we want to be as the occasion arises. Craib shows this through examining modern theories of death and mourning, contemporary ideas of masculinity, and notions of the self espoused by modern therapies. |
Contents
Cutting out gingerbread people | 1 |
The organisation of mourning | 12 |
Psychoanalysis as the theory of disappointment | 34 |
Looking on the bright side | 57 |
The organisation of social life | 79 |
The fragmentation of everyday life | 97 |
The powerful self and its illusions | 112 |
what sort of man? | 133 |
The false self of late modernity | 158 |
The disappointed self | 168 |
The values of psychoanalysis | 181 |
| 195 | |
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Common terms and phrases
ability able abstract systems achieve Anthony Giddens anxiety argue argument aspects attempt aware become bereavement Bowlby Christopher Lasch clearly complexity context course culture death instinct deny depressive position desire difficult disappointment emphasise envy everyday example experience experiential groups external false fear feelings fragmentation Freud gender gender role Giddens going happens human human sexuality idea ideal identity important individual infant integration internal conflict intimacy involves Klein late modernity lives loss masculinity means Melanie Klein moral mother narcissism normal notion offer one's organisation ourselves pain parents partner pathological mourning patient perhaps person phantasy political possible postmodern problems psyche psychoanalysis psychoanalytic theory psychological psychotherapy reaction realised reality reason recognise relationship Robin Skynner role seems sense sexual society sociologists sociology sometimes sort super-ego suspect talk therapist therapy things thought trainees understanding Winnicott women