Liliane Weissberg - Psychoanalysis, Fatherhood, and the Modern Family

Cover illustration: ARCHIVIO GBB / Alamy Stock Photo

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG

The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book had its origin as a workshop, sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania in the context of the Colleges Year of Health program. David Fox from Penns College Office suggested that I organize an event for that year, and taking him up on the idea, I set out to plan a collaboration with the Psychoanalytic Center of Pennsylvania (PCOP). As such, Psychoanalysis, Fatherhood, and the Modern Family became part of a series of lectures and colloquia that mark the cooperation between these institutions, organized to foster a wider appreciation of, and reflection on, psychoanalytic thought, and to sponsor conversations between practicing analysts and University faculty. This ongoing cooperation has led to new programs for the PCOP and to the creation of a psychoanalytic studies minor at Penn. I would like to thank David Fox, as well as Gregory Urban of Penns Department of Anthropology, Lawrence Blum of the PCOP, and Richard Summers of Penn Psychiatry and PCOP, for their sponsorship and encouragement of, as well as participation in, the workshop. I would also like to thank German graduate students David Nelson and Alan Madin for their support. Martina Bale in German provided administrative help and Eduardo Glandt, then Dean of the School of Engineering, offered us the space for an event that quite literally engaged the University as a whole.

Some workshops do conclude at the end of the day. In this case, the discussions went on. Conversations about the role of fatherhood in Freuds work, as well as that of his successors and critics, continued, as did those regarding the role of the father in modern society. The participants of the workshop remained in touch and engaged, and new scholars and psychoanalytic practitioners joined the project as it expanded far beyond Philadelphia. The chapters collected in this book document the discussion. For me, at least, the book project evolved into a prime example of the kind of work a cooperation between a University and a Psychoanalytic Institute can and should promote.

As the project has evolved, I have been aided by various persons and institutions. In the psychoanalytic community, I would like to single out Beverly Stoute for special thanks. Penns Research Council and the Deans Office supplied funds for the preparation of the book. Philip Getz guided the project expertly at Palgrave Macmillan, and I am very grateful for his advice and support. I am also grateful for the constructive feedback that I received from the anonymous readers of the manuscript. And as always, I would also like to thank Jerry Singerman for his support.

Our groups project will embark into print, but our conversations will continue.

March 2021