First Principles

Lemma's deeply reasoned and erudite advocacy for ethical self-discipline on the part of psychoanalysts eschews both stodgy moralizing and formulaic guidelines. Instead, she recommends the cultivation and sustenance of psychic space for truth, fairness, and respect for the patient's essential Otherness. Lemma's approach is characterized by a gentle iconoclasm that challenges us to leave the comfort of normative narratives, societal or psychoanalytic, while listening to our patients. Her oeuvre is wide-ranging, writing style elegant, and arguments convincing. The result is a book of rare literary luminosity, theoretical soundness, and clinical significance. * Salman Akhtar, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Jefferson Medical College; Training and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia *
This remarkable book manages to be sophisticated, deeply thoughtful, expressive, lively and practical at the same time. It offers an approach to ethics focused especially on psychoanalysis but applicable to all forms of psychotherapy and elsewhere too. Few authors have absorbed the challenge of the philosophy of ethics so completely and demonstrated so brilliantly not only that it is a vital element in regulating psychoanalysis but also that it has the capacity to guide and strengthen psychotherapeutic training and practice for the benefit of therapists and patients alike. * Professor Stephen Frosh, Department of Psychosocial Studies Birkbeck, University of London and author of Those Who Come After:Postmemory, Acknowledgement and Forgiveness. *
The most important skill in life is how to think ethically. Alessandra Lemma teaches this skill to psychotherapists. To engage in rational ethical deliberation in a mind propelled by unconscious impulses is the human challenge. Stunning and original, wise and empathic. A classic in practical ethics. * Professor Julian Savulescu, Chen Su Lan Centennial Professor in Medical Ethics; Director, Centre for Biomedical Ethics, National University of Singapore and Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics Co-Director, Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, University of Oxford *