The Birth of Hatred

What is hatred? How does it differ from rage? What are its origins? Is hatred ever rational? Why are some people unable to let go of it while others are completely incapable of feeling it? Eight distinguished psychoanalysts provide the answers to these and other related questions in this tightly organized volume. With the help of clinical vignettes and literary portrayals, these experienced therapists address the emergence of hatred in the clinical situation. They highlight the various purposes served by the patient’s hatred including drive discharge, projective identification, defense against dependence, anchoring of identity, and self holding. They also present a rich understanding of the hatred felt by the therapist vis-...-vis hateful and chronically self-destructive individuals. Finally, they discuss the technical implications of these concepts and delineate useful interventions to contain, manage, and interpret the patient’s intense hatred. The matters discussed in this book are diverse and include infant observation, gender differences, child abuse, severe character pathology, multiple personality, countertransference difficulties, literary characters, racial prejudice, ethnic hatred, and war. The focus of the book, however, remains clinical. Its ultimate aim is to enhance the clinician’s ability to deal with the hatred felt by the patient, and, at times, by the therapist.

Salman Akhtar, M.D., is Professor of Psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College, Lecturer on Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Training and Supervising Analyst at the Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Institute. He is the Book Review Editor of the Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, an associate edi-tor of the Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research, member of the editorial board of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, past member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, and an editorial reader for Psychoanalytic Quarterly. He is the author of Broken Structures: Severe Personality Disorders and Their Treatment (1992) and Quest for Answers: A Primer for Understanding and Treating Severe Personality Disorders (1995). His more than 130 scientific publications also include thirteen edited or co-edited books. Dr. Akhtar is the recipient of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Award (1995) and the Margaret Mahler Literature Prize (1996), and was named the 1998 Clinician of the Year by IPTAR, New York. He has also published five volumes of poetry.