Apologia Pro Vita Mea

Richard D. Chessick is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, Fineberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University.

This book is a narrative in dialogue form in which the author, now an octogenarian who is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and a PhD in philosophy, describes his intellectual evolution from a published laboratory researcher to engagement in the full-time clinical teaching and practice of psychoanalysis, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and philosophy.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, ABOUT THE AUTHOR, INTRODUCTION, PART I: RESEARCH, CHAPTER ONE: Preamble, CHAPTER TWO: Histochemistry: 1953¿1954, CHAPTER THREE: Training: 1955¿1958, CHAPTER FOUR: Addiction research: 1958¿1960, CHAPTER FIVE: Northwestern University: 1960¿1965, PART II: PSYCHODYNAMIC PSYCHOTHERAPY, CHAPTER SIX: Psychodynamic psychotherapy: 1966¿1996, CHAPTER SEVEN: Intensive psychotherapy of the borderline patient: 1966¿1996, PART III: PARERGA, CHAPTER EIGHT: Psychoanalysis: 1985 to the present, CHAPTER NINE: Philosophical meanderings: 1953¿1980, PART IV: PARALIPOMENA, CHAPTER TEN: On adolescence: 1970 to the present, CHAPTER ELEVEN: Psychosomatic medicine: 1981¿1995, CHAPTER TWELVE: Romance, women, and love: 1984¿2015, CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Creativity: 1964 to the present, PART V: DIVAGATIONS AND PAVANNES, CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Aporias, CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Crisis in human affairs: 1980 to the present, CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Continental philosophy and psychoanalysis: 1990¿2000, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The crisis in psychoanalysis and philosophy: 2000 to the present, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Peroration, REFERENCES, INDEX