The Omnipotent State of Mind

Jean Arundale, PhD, is a training and supervising analyst of the British Psychoanalytic Association and author of the book Identity, Narcissism, and the Other (Routledge). She is also co-editor of Transference and Countertransference and Interpretive Voices (both Routledge).

Introduction In the beginning . . . 1. The survival function of primitive omnipotence 2. The thumb-in-the-mouth phantasy and the capacity to love 3. Peter Pan, the omnipotent child In the adolescent . . . 4. Omnipotence in adolescence 5. Customising the body: From omnipotence to autonomy In the adult . . . 6. On three forms of thinking: Magical thinking, dream thinking, and transformative thinking 7. The appeal of omnipotence 8. A neuropsychoanalytic note on omnipotence 9. The relinquishment of omnipotence in a severely traumatised patient 10. Possessed by a cruel God: The damaging effect of an omnipotent internal object 11. From patients to presidents: The Grand Illusion Why is omnipotence so difficult to give up? 12. Overcoming obstacles in analysis: Is it possible to relinquish omnipotence and accept receptive femininity? 13. Omnipotence and the difficulty in relinquishing it The desire for power in culture and society . . . 14. Omnipotence and the paradoxes of insight: A Darwinian look 15. Lear, Kane and the workings of omnipotence 16. Applying my theory of psychosis to the Nazi phenomenon 17. The destructiveness of omnipotence and ‘perverted containing’: Psychoanalytic reflections on the dynamic between Donald Trump and his supporters 18. Notes toward a model for omnipotence