Continuing Education

Registration

Reserve your spot today. Register early and receive the pre-registration discount (where applicable).

Co-sponsored by the Robert J. Stoller Foundation and New Center for

Psychoanalysis

Russell Jacoby's Bloodlust alerts us to an unsettling truth about violence, its

origins, course, and prevention. It is not the unknown that threatens us, but the

known. In the past and present fratricide—here referring to violence among

family, friends, and neighbors—constitutes the main form of violence. In regard

to assault or murder, one has much less to fear from a complete stranger than

from a spouse, ex-spouse, or co-worker; on a political and global scale, the

same relationships holds true. From assassination to war and genocide, violence

emerges from inside the fold. Bloodlust surveys the history of violence, paying

especial attention to the prevalence of fratricidal strife such as the religious wars

of the 16th century and genocide in the 20th century. Jacoby argues that even

the genocide of the Jews was less an aggression against some unknown stranger

than against familiar neighbors. After all, German Jews were largely successful

and assimilated. To understand this phenomenon, Jacoby avails himself of Freud

who puzzled upon the enmity that arises from closeness and dubbed it the

“narcissism of minor differences.” Bloodlust seeks to unravel the mystery of this

violence by an encounter with history and Freud.

Course Objectives

• Discuss the history of violence with attention to its roots within the familiar

rather than the other

• Summarize Freud’s description of the “narcissism of minor differences”

• Outline a psychoanalytic perspective on cruelty and its vicissitudes

Russell Jacoby, Ph.D. is Professor in Residence, Department of History, UCLA.

He has published eight books that have been translated into a dozen languages.

Psychoanalysis—its ideas, history, and interpretation—has figured into several of

his books, including his first, Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist Psychology

from Adler to Laing. Another of his books, The Repression of Psychoanalysis: Otto

Fenichel and the Political Freudians, explored the fate of this psychoanalyst who

played an important role in Vienna and who helped to introduce psychoanalysis to

Los Angeles. His most recent work, Bloodlust is a psychoanalytically informed

essay that discusses the origins and persistence of violence.

David James Fisher, Ph.D. is Program Moderator and Michael Gales, M.D. is

the NCP Program Committee Chair.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

8 PM–10 PM

$20 with CE Credits

Free attendance without credit

Copies of Professor Jacoby's book will be on sale in the lobby

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