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In this timely, practical and much needed book, Alessandra Lemma develops an argument for ethical self-discipline in psychoanalytic practice. First Principles reexamines ethical theories in the light of psychoanalytic clinical practice and in the spirit of suspending knowledge and certainty. It is written for psychoanalytic colleagues in general, whatever frequency or length of analytic work they practice.
In this book, Lemma proposes that to advance clinical practice, we need a rigorously applied ethical theory to help us make ethically informed choices in the field of psychoanalysis. Lemma argues that psychoanalysis has not given enough attention to ethics other than a passing nod or reference in clinical papers or training courses. Yet, she argues, the clinician is constantly having to process issues of an ethical nature in their work, just as they have to do in their lives.
The book is divided into two parts, the first a theoretical deep dive into the ethical scene with a specific focus on the field of applied ethics and bioethics. This provides the context for the second half of the book where she examines how such an ethical framework can be learnt and applied clinically by adopting some key principles, and here she helpfully gives some interesting ethically complex clinical examples.
Lemma sets the scene in the introductory chapter with an aptly chosen quote from Rilke's collection Letters to a Young Poet (1929). “‘…be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms, like books written in a foreign language.…’ “(p. xi). She writes, ‘I draw your attention to Rilke's quote because I want to invite you, the reader, to love and live the questions as you read this book.’ This becomes something of a leitmotif throughout her entire thesis. And just as the young poet turned to Rilke for help on being a poet and how to live well, we the reader are treated to Lemma's knowledge and experience of psychoanalysis