The Taming of Solitude: Separation Anxiety in Psychoanalysis

Winner of the 2010 Sigourney Award!

Psychoanalysts would argue that at the root of anxiety about loneliness, which commonly brings people into analysis, lies anxiety about separation, unresolved since childhood.

When re-experienced in analysis, the painful awareness of solitude - the sense of being a separate person - can become a rich source of personal creativity. In The Taming of Solitude, Jean-Michel Quinodoz brings together the views of Freud, Klein, Hanna Segal, W.R.D. Fairbairn, D.W. Winnicott, Anna Freud, Margaret Mahler, Heinz Kohut, John Bowlby and others, presenting a comprehensive approach to the experience of loneliness, a universal phenomenon which can be observed in everyday life and in any therapeutic situation.

Written with clarity and insight, The Taming of Solitude will be of great interest to all psychoanalysts and therapists.