Psychoanalysis in Social and Cultural Settings

Sverre Varvin is a training analyst at the Norwegian Psychoanalytic Society and professor emeritus at Oslo Metropolitan University. He has extensive experience in research and clinical work with severely traumatised people. He is a leading person in the development of psychoanalytic therapy in China as chair of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) China Committee.

Part I: Social terror; 1.Terror and mourning in Norway; 2. Psychoanalysis and the situation of refugees. A Human Rights perspective; 3. Genocide and ethnic cleansing: Psychoanalytic and social-psychological viewpoints; 4. Humiliation and the victim identity in conditions of political and violent conflict; 5. Fundamentalist mindset; Part II: The situation of refugees: The enigma of traumatisation; 6.Our relations to refugees: Between compassion and dehumanization; 7. The present past: Extreme traumatisation and psychotherapy; 8. The influence of extreme traumatisation on body, mind and social relations; 9. Psychoanalysis with the traumatised patient: Helping to survive extreme experiences and complicated loss; Part III: Research; 10. When dreaming doesn't work: traumatic dreams, anxiety and the capacity to symbolise; 11. "The essay method": A qualitative method for studying therapeutic dialogues; Part IV: Psychoanalysis in China: A transformative dialogue; 12. "Yu Hua: A narrator of Chinese recent history"; 13. Western-Eastern differences in habits and ways of thinking: The influence on understanding, and teaching psychoanalytic therapy