Main description:

Unique synthesis from the French School of psychoanalytical projective methods:

This unique book synthesizes the work of leading thinkers of the French School of psychoanalytical projective methods in personality assessment. The French School is a direct successor to Rorschach's and Murray's original approaches using the Rorschach Test and the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). Underlying this method is the idea of the coexistence of conscious and unconscious processes, of opposite instinctual pairs, and of agents that are ruled by conflicts (Freud). Transitional activity is seen as part of an intermediate space, a mediator space, and bearer of messages between the subject and the clinician (Winnicott).

This book brings to life the important contributions of the French School, firstly exploring its theories and methods and then its clinical applications. Detailed case studies from different stages of life examine the psychopathology of everyday life with its severe and disabling states of suffering. Contemporary advances in research and clinical work are presented, and the groundbreaking early work of Nina Rausch de Traubenberg, Vica Shentoub, and Rosine Debray are also critically reread and discussed. Clinical tools adapted for clinicians and researchers in the appendices include a useful schema to facilitate the interpretation of the Rorschach and TAT together, a list of latent solicitations for the TAT, and the current version of the TAT Scoring Grid.

This book is essential reading for clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, researchers, and students interested in applying psychoanalytical theory to projective methods.

Contents:

Preface
Benoit Verdon and Catherine Azoulay
Theory & Methods
1 Projective Methods in Clinical Psychology: Developments, Confirmations,
and Contradictions: A Tribute to Nina Rausch de Traubenberg and Rosine Debray
Catherine Chabert
2 Dynamics of the TAT Process: Psychoanalytical and Psychopathological Perspectives
Benoit Verdon, Catherine Chabert, Catherine Azoulay, Michele Emmanuelli, Francoise Neau, Sarah Vibert, and Estelle Louet
3 From Self-Representation to Narcissism ... and Back Again?
Francoise Neau
4 The Utility of the Self-Representation Grid in Differential Diagnosis
Claude de Tychey
5 Nina Rausch de Traubenberg: A Long Transmission ...The Question of Norms in the Rorschach Test
Catherine Azoulay
Clinical Applications & Case Studies
6 How to Deal With Excessive Reality? Regarding Bodily Sources of Subjectification
Monika Boekholt
7 From Clinical Work on Learning to Learning Clinical Work With Rosine Debray
Catherine Weismann-Arcache
8 Prepsychoses in the Work of Nina Rausch de Traubenberg: Contributions and Developments in Projective Psychology
Jean-Yves Chagnon
9 Thought Processes in Adolescence: A Projective Perspective
Michele Emmanuelli
10 Traumatic Traces and Projective Figures of Catastrophes of Symbolization
Pascal Roman
11 From Bipolar Disorder to Melancholia and Mania: The Contribution of Projective Tests in the Study of Manic Depressive Disorder in a 16-Year-Old Girl
Estelle Louet
12 Psychosomatic Economy: A Notion Cherished by Rosine Debray
Marie-Christine Pheulpin
13 Mentalization and Projective Methods: Training and Research in Psychoanalysis-Oriented Clinical Psychology, Using the TAT Scoring Grid Developed by Rosine Debray
Marie-Frederique Bacque
14 Changing While Remaining the Same: Self-Representation Confronted With Aging
Benoit Verdon
Appendices
Appendix 1: Evaluation of Psychic Functioning: Using a Schema of Interpretation of Projective Data
Appendix 2: Latent Solicitations of TAT Picture Cards
Appendix 3: TAT Scoring Grid