Download Author: Chessick, Richard D. M.D., Ph.D.

Richard D. Chessick, M.D., Ph.D. is currently Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University, Emeritus Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst, Center for Psychoanalytic Study in Chicago, Emeritus Senior Attending Psychiatrist, Evanston Hospital, Evanston, IL, Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Psychoanalytic Fellow of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, Corresponding Member of the German Psychoanalytic Society, Fellow of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine, the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Orthopsychiatric Association. He is still in private practice of psychoanalysis in Evanston, IL. as he has been for about 60 years.

His Ph.D. is in Philosophy and he has taught as Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University of Chicago and the McCormick Theological Seminary. He has served on the editorial boards of many psychiatric and psychoanalytic journals and repeatedly won “teacher of the year” awards at Northwestern. He received the Sigmund Freud Award for outstanding contributions to psychiatry and psychoanalysis from the American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians and served as president of that society, and received a “Special Recognition Award” from the faculty and board of trustees of The Center for Psychoanalytic Study in Chicago “In appreciative gratitude for his contributions toward the advancement of the field of psychoanalysis.”

Dr. Chessick is a prolific writer and international speaker. He has produced 17 books in the fields of psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and philosophy and over 300 articles in professional journals; most recently “Special problems for the elderly psychoanalyst in the psychoanalytic process” in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 61:67-93,2013 and “What hath Freud wrought? Current confusion and controversies about the clinical practice of psychoanalysis and dynamic psychotherapy” in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry 42: 553-584, 2014. By invitation he wrote a column for 64 consecutive issues of the American Journal of Psychotherapy and over 200 book reviews in various professional journals. His books are titled: Agonie: Diary of a Twentieth Century Man, Intensive Psychotherapy of the Borderline Patient, Freud Teaches Psychotherapy, How Psychotherapy Heals, Why Psychotherapists Fail, A Brief Introduction to the Genius of Nietzsche, Psychology of the Self and the Treatment of Narcissism, Great Ideas in Psychotherapy, The Technique and Practice of Listening in Intensive Psychotherapy, The Technique and Practice of Intensive Psychotherapy, What Constitutes the Patient in Psychotherapy, Dictionary for Psychotherapists, Dialogue Concerning Contemporary Psychodynamic Therapy, Emotional Illness and Creativity, Psychoanalytic Clinical Practice, The Future of Psychoanalysis, and Descent Into Darkness. He is currently working on his intellectual memoirs: Apologia Pro Vita Mea, scheduled to be published in Poland.

He lectured on “The Special Theory of Psychotherapeutic Interaction” in Oslo, Norway, “Concepts of Cure in Intensive Psychotherapy” and “Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Science” in West Berlin, “Adult Eating Disorders” and “The Death Instinct and the Future of Man” at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, gave 8 lectures to the Kenyan-American Psychotherapy Seminar in Nairobi, Kenya, a series of lectures on narcissistic and psychosomatic disorders at the Keio University Hospital and served as guest consultant at the Japanese Medical School Hospital in Tokyo, Japan, “Outpatient Psychotherapy of the Borderline Patient” and “Franz Alexander and the Development of Psychoanalysis in the United States” at the University of Würzburg, “The Phenomenology of Erwin Strauss and the Epistemology of Psychoanalysis” and “What Brings About Change in Psychoanalytic Treatment” at the University of Heidelberg, “Listening to the Psychotic Patient” at the University of Marburg, “Postmodern Psychoanalysis or Wild Analysis?” at the University of Berlin Department of Psychiatry in Germany, “The Phenomenology of the Emerging Self” at the Departments of Philosophy and Psychiatry at Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia, “The psychotherapy of a terrified communist” in Milan and “Dante’s Divine Comedy revisited” in Venice, Italy at the OPIFR meetings, “Psychoanalytic Listening” to the Turkish Society of Psychiatry and Neurology, Ankara, Turkey, “The Explosion of the Other,” a case presentation at the Sorbonne and “The Five Channel Theory of Psychoanalytic Listening” both at the University of Paris XII and The University of Basel, Switzerland, “Psychoanalysis of a Wealthy and Successful Borderline Patient” at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, “The Function of Empathy in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy” at the Oxford Dept. of Psychiatry in Aylesbury, “The Implications of Postmodern Thought for the Theories and Practice of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy” at the University of Warwick and “What Constitutes Education” to the Cambridge University Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, in England as well as many other lectures and presentations all over Canada and the U.S.A.

Dr. Chessick has been called a Renaissance Man. He brings an unusual humanistic breadth and scholarly depth to his writings, which present his many years of clinical experience and extensive familiarity with psychoanalytic theory with a clarity of exposition from his philosophical background.

57 eBooks available.

Psychoanalytic Clinical Practice

In his fifteenth book, this well known author and international lecturer sums up his 45 years of psychoanalytic clinical practice in a series of chapters demonstrating his procedures and therapeutic style with the types of patients most frequently seen in the offices of mental health professionals today. All aspects of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy are illustrated. Detailed cases are presented of narcissistic personalities, eating, psychosomatic, schizophrenic and schizoid, borderline and other personality disorders. The author also focuses on the therapist’s countertransference, including a chapter on his ongoing self-analysis, a dramatization of the countertransference dangers that arise in the treatment of borderline patients, and a discussion of impasses and failures in psychoanalytic treatment. The introductory chapters outline his views about what is psychoanalysis and intensive psychotherapy. His five channel approach to psychoanalytic listening and the language of interpretation is illustrated in the case presentations. This book will have an immediate practical appeal to all mental health practitioners hoping to improve their psychotherapeutic skills and to better understand the difficulties and pitfalls involved in psychoanalytic therapy.

A Dictionary for Psychotherapists

“In the Chessick Dictionary psychotherapists will find at last a rich compendium of essays—some measured in paragraphs, some in pages—that in the aggregate give direction to appreciating the protean contours of our discipline. Both the student and the experienced practitioner will find the Dictionary invaluable.

Beyond scholarship and integrity, an author who undertakes the preparation of a dictionary, any dictionary, requires compassionate regard for the reader. Chessick knows this, possesses the capacity for it, and does succeed in engaging the reader one-to-one. He declines the role of the anonymous expert’s prescribing what is and what is not correct usage. Quite the contrary, Chessick affirms a personal presence, venturing his views—never arrogating the voice of the unseen, unmoved, unnamed, authorial majesty.

The newcomer will welcome the authority that Chessick brings and the references that follow each entry. The scholar will appreciate the implicit invitation to engage dialogically with the author about so much that is necessarily ambiguous and controversial.

The Chessick Dictionary defines and explains, placing the matters at hand within the wider contexts of intellectual currents and the variousness of meaning. Each entry is followed by references providing the reader with further avenues for learning. Many will appreciate that included in the Dictionary as entries are biographical profiles that outline the contributions of all the major theorists: Freud, Jung, Horney, Klein, Kohut, Kernberg, Winnincott, Sullivan. But included too are those who deserve more attention: Bakhtin (dialogism), Ferenczi, Gedo, Lacan, Gadamer (herneneutics), Spence (narrative truth). The list goes on.

This is a watershed publication. In its qualities of comprehensiveness, clarity, and humility we recognize in this Dictionary the first edition of what deserves to become the standard reference of its kind for our field—or the standard against which other similar references will be measured. (1375 pgs)

Douglas H. Ingram, MD

Nietzsche on Science and Metaphysics

A crucial positive assumption behind all of Nietzsche’s writings, a metaphysical apriori for Nietzsche; it is called “life.” Life is the standard of all values for Nietzsche, and enhancement of human life on earth is the crucial issue for Nietzsche—enhanced life as against decadent life.(22 pp.)

Intensive Psychotherapy of the Borderline Patient

“With the erudition and clinical sensitivity that characterizes his earlier work on the subject of psychotherapy, Chessick has now turned to the broad topic of narcissistic disorders. He has undertaken the ambitious task of integrating what is currently known about narcissistic psychopathology, in relation to both the analyzable narcissistic personality disorders and the so-called borderline patient.

Chessick allows his readers to follow his hard-won understanding and treatment approach along with his sincere attempt at making sense of the widely disparate theories and technical precepts offered in the literature. He boldly strives to incorporate the views of Balint, Klein, Kernberg, Gedo, Goldberg, Kohut, Giovacchini and others, astutely selecting the issues relevant to such an endeavor.

The usefulness of Chessick’s contribution lies in the fact that he illuminates his formulations with clinical vignettes and raises the central and still unanswered questions. This permits the reader to make his own evaluation of the various theories and techniques, guided by the fine, synthesizing mind of the author.”

Paul Ornstein, M.D.

Intensive Psychotherapy

Intensive Psychotherapy is best thought of as psychoanalysis with parameters, that is to say, a form of psychoanalytic treatment modified to suit the nature of the patient involved. (9 pp.)

The Borderline Patient

Working with borderline patients is not easy, but it is extremely rewarding in many ways. It provides a deeper and deeper understanding of the development of ego functioning and warps in ego development that can be applied to all areas of psychopathology. It forces the therapist to constantly pursue and achieve a deeper understanding of himself and demands an ever-increasing maturity from him. Most important of all, when successful, it brings the patient back to life from a situation of psychic death, a state of unparalleled suffering portrayed with great skill in modem theater and literature, beginning perhaps with Dostoyevsky. (35 pp.)

A Brief Introduction for Psychotherapists to the Genius of Nietzsche

The purpose of this book is to introduce intelligent general readers, college students, graduate students in psychology and other mental health disciplines, and especially residents in psychiatry, to the dazzling genius of Nietzsche. This genius is so haunting and seminal that it has profoundly affected the fields of literature, philosophy, psychology, religion, history, and the arts. (126 pp.)

Who was Nietzsche?

Nietzsche was the great questioner. He was an experimenter with the art of calling into question all our cherished assumptions and presuppositions. He immersed himself in philosophical problems and he tried to examine the limits of the sayable and thinkable. (26 pp.)