Paris Kassinos

Why War?

In 1932, amidst a world edging toward another catastrophic war, Albert Einstein wrote to Sigmund Freud with a deceptively simple question: Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war? Freud’s response, later published as Why War?, offers a psychoanalytic lens on humanity’s destructive impulses. While deeply rooted in drive theory and […]

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Transference/Countertransference

Transference and countertransference are central concepts in psychoanalysis. These mechanisms (usually unconscious) provide a lens through which the therapeutic relationship can be understood and utilized for growth. They are essential tools for exploring unconscious processes and facilitating emotional transformation. Working through them is the way to go in therapy.  Transference refers to the redirection of a

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Less is more

Let’s face it, we are born and raised in materialism. And not only that, nothing seems powerful enough to stop this. My kids are not kids any more. The one is in adolescence and the other one is just about to enter. My wife and I have always tried to control the amount of material

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The Wonderful Wizard

Most people visiting my office for an initial session seek an immediate relief of their emotional suffering. They see in the therapist the magician who would transform their pain once they see him, just like Dorothy and her friends in the Wizard of Oz expected all their problems to be resolved once they find the

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Difficult Feelings

Being able to stay with the feelings no matter how difficult they are and not act on them impulsively is a sign of emotional maturity. The easiest thing to do when emotionally burden is to act. And that most of the times proves destructive for everyone involved. It’s an infantile mechanism, that’s what babies do

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The target in Psychoanalysis

We shall not cease from exploration                                            And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. (Four Quartets, T. S. Eliot) The American poet T.S. Eliot expresses through poetry one of the targets of psychoanalysis. Usually the person who visits the office of

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