Clara M. Thompson's Professional Evolution and Legacy: An American Psychoanalyst (1933-1958)

After Sandor Ferenczi's death, this volume explores Clara Thompson's life and professional career, drawing from interviews, personal correspondence, and scholarly essays. It showcases her development with influential luminaries, expands the psychoanalytic perspective, and addresses gender inequality. It clarifies Thompson's role in psychoanalytic history and is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychologists, and those interested in the field.

Format: Hardback
Length: 274 pages
Publication date: 23 January 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Beginning in 1933, after Sandor Ferenczi's death, this volume draws extensively from interviews, personal correspondence, and scholarly essays to explore the latter part of Clara Thompson's life and professional career. The reader is afforded an understanding of Thompson's development with the luminaries who influenced her, and who she, in turn, influenced, including Harry Stack Sullivan, Erich Fromm, and other cultural and social scientists. Building on her collaborative work with Ferenczi, and influenced by Sullivan, Thompson's pioneering essays expand the psychoanalytic perspective to embrace the dynamic interpersonal encounter between patient and analyst. Critical of Freud's views on women, Thompson also argues against the inequality of women and men in society, reflecting her own moral compass. This volume clarifies Thompson's role in psychoanalytic history, reclaiming her numerous and valuable contributions to both the interpersonal psychoanalytic tradition and to the field of psychoanalysis as we know it today.

Delores's artfully woven account of Thompson's life will prove essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychologists, and anyone interested in the history of psychoanalysis.

Weight: 700g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032257525