Bad Feelings

Everyone experiences "bad" feelings - guilt, shame, humiliation, envy and more. Yet despite the fact that such emotions are a common occurrence, these painful feelings are often labelled as wrong, a moralistic determination that can complicate existing problems in the individual's emotional life. Through careful research and assessment of psychoanalytical methods, this book offers a new understanding of how painful emotional states can find relief through the talking cure. Introduction , A Joyless Life , Disappointment and Disappointedness , Forms of Extreme Shame: Humiliation and Mortification , Envy: Revisiting Melanie Klein’s “Envy and Gratitude” , The Psychotherapist’s Absence , Defenses Against Goodness , Experiencing Termination: Authentic and False Depressive Positions , Painful Progress: The Negative Therapeutic Reaction Reconceived , Afterword