Some hidden treasures produced by our prolific committees are topical bibliographies in psychoanalysis. These resources are often unique and unavailable anywhere else.
One of the most stellar examples in the field is the volume, Female Psychology:An Annotated Psychoanalytic Bibliography, edited by Eleanor Schuker and Nadine A. Levinson, published by The Analytic Press in 1991. At 678 pages, this bibliography was not only historic but stunningly comprehensive.
Contributors included members of the COPE Workshop on Issues for Women in Psychoanalytic Education/Training and others. APsaA distributed copies to every institute's library after publication.
Author Schuker urges, “If you do not know it, please take a look!” The bibliography covers all of the analytic literature from Freud through 1990 on the general topic of female psychology, with 26 chapters on different areas, plus 2 chapters of suggested reading lists. Each chapter (such as those on sexuality, masochism, developmental phases, transference/countertransference) has an introductory overview essay followed by an annotated literature review. The volume is also indexed.
Just last December, Schuker told TAP that when Rosemary Balsam was speaking on a panel in New York on “The Mind of the Mother,” she mentioned the bibliography and quoted from it. Then she said, “Without this book, where would we in the field be?”
The female psychology bibliography can be ordered from Amazon.com.
Moisey Shopper called our attention to a 100-page gem completed in 1981, an annotated bibliography on The Psychoanalyst in the Community. This compilation was a project of the Committee on Psychoanalysis, Community, and Society, chaired at the time by Stanley L. Block, who also edited the bibliography. This remarkable document aimed to be selective, and provides a detailed summary of each article listed. Eight classes of social institutions were covered: economic, educational, family, health, legal, political, religious, and welfare. Under the economic category, for example, there is a subheading on “automation,” listing four articles. There are four articles on war, six on racism. This bibliography has considerable historical significance, and seriously reviewed the earlier literature in this area.
The document's existence attests to the longstanding interest among a dedicated core of analysts in the intersection between psychoanalysis and social issues. Copies can be obtained from the National Office for a nominal fee ($5).
Currently in the works is a new bibliography on teaching psychoanalysis as applied to community problems. Sallye Wilkinson is in the process of putting together such a bibliography for the COPE Study Group on Curricula for Applied Psychoanalysis in the Community, chaired by Nancy Kulish and Stuart Twemlow. This bibliography is co-sponsored by the Psychoanalysis and Community Committee, also chaired by Twemlow. Articles included range from interventions in schools, working with law enforcement/judiciary, homelessness, families/parenting, war zones, politics, to violence in the community, and more. A draft of the bibliography will be reviewed by the COPE Study Group in 2004. Wilkinson is happy to share both the draft and the finished product with anyone interested. She can be reached at .
The Committee on Gay and Lesbian Issues (CGLI) offers a bibliography entitled Select Bibliography on Homosexuality, last updated January 2003. According to the committee's mission statement for the bibliography, it is meant to provide “comprehensive bibliographies and course guidelines geared at helping institutes update their curricula and to raise awareness of continuing bias in psychoanalytic thinking about gay men and lesbians.”
The Select Bibliography on Homosexuality is available in its entirety on the APsaA Web site. Go to apsa.org, then under What's Here click on Committees and Task Forces and next click on Committee on Gay and Lesbian Issues. The left-hand menu contains a listing for Bibliography, which will take you to the document.
Among the many topics covered are works of historical interest, developmental and psychodynamic considerations, gay and lesbian youth, gay and lesbian psychotherapy, queer and gender theories, fiction, and film.
About five years ago, the Committee on Racial and Ethnic Diversity put together the CORED Handbook, which provided a variety of resources relevant to outreach to various racial and ethnic communities. The handbook, no longer in circulation, includes a bibliography prepared by Salman Ahktar and the late Enrico Jones entitled “Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Cultural Racial and Ethnic Diversity.” The bibliography was meant to serve as a set of readings for an 11-session model course, which covered issues such as the cultural specificity of psychoanalytic theory and practice, cultural, racial and ethnic differences between the analyst and the analysand, polylingualism and immigration. Each of the 11 sessions covers a specific topic and contains 3 suggested readings.
CORED's Handbook committee also developed a book list on the topic of psychoanalysis and race and ethnic diversity.
Both the model course bibliography and the book list can be viewed on the APsaA Web site by going to the Committees section and clicking on Committee on Racial and Ethnic Diversity.
The Fellowship Committee created a comprehensive bibliography to meet the needs of fellowship applicants and their mentors, and also nonanalyst colleagues, clinicians, and teachers interested in psychoanalysis. The committee's Psychoanalytic Reading List is not meant to be comprehensive or definitive, but rather an introduction to the basic classical and contemporary analytic literature.
Prudy Gourguechon, M.D., is editor of TAP.
The Fellowship's reading list was prepared by Robin Rendles and Lisa Mellman. It can be reached online at the APsaA Web site (apsa.org) by looking at the What's Here listing on page one, and clicking on the Fellowship Program. From there, click on Psychoanalytic Reading List.
The 21-page document features a useful table of contents and contains reading lists on about 35 subtopics, ranging from unconscious fantasy to the psychoanalytic situation to defense and adaptation.
Brian Koehler, who heads the New York Branch of the International Society for the Psychological treatments of the Schizophrenias and other psychoses (ISPS-US) has developed a bibliography of works on psychoanalysis and psychosis, and a second bibliography on mind-brain articles relating to psychoanalysis and psychosis. He has developed these for his own use in teaching and writing, and now is sharing them for the use of ISPS members and interested others who can post additions to the list, as well as annotations. This list is available, at no cost, at and at .