You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The financial crisis upended our world in 2008. As Brenda Berger, one of the editors of this new collection of papers, puts it: “suddenly, 21 years into my practice, money burst center stage into my office. It seemed to me it was on every patient's mind, present in every session (or almost every session), and painfully it was very much on my mind.” She adds: “abruptly I was concerned about a diminished retirement account. And my patients were worried about their jobs, their savings, and whether they could afford their treatments with me” (p. 59).
That crisis, still profoundly affecting us all, was the occasion for this book. Money, usually a background issue in our work, forced itself to the forefront. Along with more practical and personal issues about supporting ourselves and preserving our savings, the crisis pushed us into the national debate on what has gone so horribly wrong with our society that allowed this to happen—the unbridled competition, deregulation and dangerous lack of oversight, and the vast upsurge of unequally distributed wealth.
This collection of papers touches on all these questions. It offers reflections by psychoanalysts on how we have changed in the past few decades as a result of the unstable prosperity that preceded the financial crisis. It provides accounts, as well, about how some have adjusted to dramatic changes in their financial status, both gaining and losing extraordinary wealth. It also offers our profession the opportunity to think about how we handle money, a charged topic too often avoided and neglected.