Books by Fernando Castrillon, Psy.D.
ReVision, 31(3 &4), 2010
Special Double Issue of the journal "ReVision"
European Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2015
Special issue edited by Fernando Castrillon and Jamieson Webster
This book seeks to confront an apparent contradiction: that while we are constantly attending to ... more This book seeks to confront an apparent contradiction: that while we are constantly attending to environmental issues, we seem to be woefully out of touch with nature. The goal of Ecopsychology, Phenomenology and the Environment is to foster an enhanced awareness of nature that can lead us to new ways of relating to the environment, ultimately yielding more sustainable patterns of living. This volume is different from other books in the rapidly growing field of ecopsychology in its emphasis on phenomenological approaches, building on the work of phenomenological psychologists such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty. This focus on phenomenological methodologies for articulating our direct experience of nature serves as a critical complement to the usual methodologies of environmental and conservation psychologists, who have emphasized quantitative research. Moreover, Ecopsychology, Phenomenology and the Environment is distinctive insofar as chapters by phenomenologically-sophisticated ecopsychologists are complemented by chapters written by phenomenological researchers of environmental issues with backgrounds in philosophy and geology, providing a breadth and depth of perspective not found in other works written exclusively by psychologists.
REVIEW
"The collection of essays in Ecopsychology, Phenomenology, and the Environment: The Experience of Nature helps to expand the epistemological and methodological approaches that are so well suited for the interdisciplinary field of ecopsychology. Like many of its antecedents (e.g., Abram, 1996; Roszak, 2001; Roszak, Gomes, & Kanner, 1995; van Gennep, 1961), it will appeal to readers curious about the interplay of nature, consciousness, and psyche, and to those specifically interested in climate change, environmental ethics, public health, or phenomenological knowing...What I liked most about it, apart from some really beautiful writing, is its mature approach to suffering and the wildness of our nature, as part of the great chain of being. There is a cogent argument that we must address our sense of separateness from the world that holds us. I believe that readers will come away with an expanded sense of identity, and with a sense of calmness about what can be done and how one might go about contributing."
Barbara Landon
PsycCRITIQUES
November 10, 2014, Vol. 59, No. 45, Article 2
Published Peer-Reviewed Articles by Fernando Castrillon, Psy.D.
European Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2014
In this brief essay I tackle the thorny issue of the translation of Freud’s texts into English. S... more In this brief essay I tackle the thorny issue of the translation of Freud’s texts into English. Specifically, why is it that Freud’s Angst was translated as anxiety in English, instead of anguish or even angst itself, terms which actually exist in English? Or to ask a different question, what is the problem with anxiety as the English equivalent for Freud’s German Angst? I argue that these (mis)translations of Freud’s work, perhaps more obvious in English than in either French or Spanish, have generated real consequences for the actual practice of psychoanalysis in the English-speaking world, particularly the U.S.A., and moreover, have contributed to the cold reception that Lacan’s work has garnered in English-speaking psychoanalytic circles. The translation of Angst into anxiety is a sort of stripping or negating of certain aspects of Freud’s understanding of Angst, thereby making the remainder, understood in all its psychiatric glory, into an isolable problem worthy of being excised or medicated. This psychiatric resonance of the term anxiety has permeated Anglo-American psychoanalysis.
Furthermore, Lacan’s take on angoisse provokes a real Freudian angst among Anglo-Americans; an apprehension and terror regarding an unknown danger that speaks an originary trauma that has been displaced into the future. An angst not easily dismissed and that is not in accord with the cultural and even geographical sensibilities of this place (the U.S.A) with a past masquerading as history. This is the kind of issue that must be dealt with if a Lacanian practice in English is to make any headway. It is not enough to translate Lacan into English. We must also make a cultural translation, and in doing so, address the problem of anxiety among Anglo-American psychoanalysts confronting the work of Lacan.
European Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2015
Introduction to the issue "Feminine Pathologies"
European Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2017
The genesis of this set of three articles is to be found three years in the past, in a Parisian c... more The genesis of this set of three articles is to be found three years in the past, in a Parisian café amidst an enormous gathering of children protesting proposed cuts by the government of François Hollande. Néstor Braunstein had suggested that I meet with Daniel Koren, a close colleague of his, while I was visiting the French capital. Our meeting marked the beginning of a fruitful exchange that has resulted in the following conversation, undertaken in three parts.
At the time, I had been reading a fair amount of work by Charles Melman and his close collaborator J.P. Lebrun. Their ideas regarding new psychical economies, new subjects and the ominous implications for the clinic and the social sphere, seemed to accord with some of my experiences as a psychoanalyst in California. As I spoke to Koren about this, he noted that he had engaged in several valuable public discussions with J.P. Lebrun on these very issues, and while he shared many of Lebrun and Melman’s concerns, he had reached rather different conclusions than they had.
I thought it would prove useful to have an exchange regarding these issues within the pages of the European Journal of Psychoanalysis, in the hopes that it might provoke further reflection and commentary by others interested in this interplay between the subjective and the social. The three articles that follow constitute the beginning of a conversation that we hope will continue in EJP and elsewhere.
We begin with J.P. Lebrun’s epigrammatic The 21st Century Will be Lacanian or It Will be Barbarian!.[1] Originally published in www.lacaninireland.com in Summer/Autumn of 2000, it brings forth in a dynamic manner, some of the main concerns that have animated the work of both Melman and Lebrun. While both authors have gone on to further develop their arguments, this early work by Lebrun nicely captures the portentous thread that runs throughout their collective work.
We continue the conversation with Daniel Koren’s lengthy and accomplished response to Lebrun’s article, On an Apocalyptic Tone Adopted Today in Psychoanalysis.[2] Addressing not only Lebrun’s article, but the larger implications of Melman and Lebrun’s collective oeuvre, Koren endeavors to deepen the inquiry and arrives at significant conclusions that have direct relevance for the clinic and the place of psychoanalysis in a world riven by unremitting social and technological transformations.
In the final article, Apocalypse Now?: Preliminary Notes on Barbarism, Psychoanalysis and the Subject under the Sign of Trump[3], I respond to both Lebrun and Koren by grounding the discussion in my clinical experience in California, particularly as it relates to the discourse of the Capitalist. In response to my musings in Paris three years ago and in contradistinction to what Lebrun and Melman have posited in their many works, I assert that we are not witnessing the birth of “new” pathologies or new/neo-subjects. Instead, I argue that the discourse(s) the subject is implicated in have undergone exchange, and the relationships between discourses have likewise been transformed.
Again, we reiterate our hope that the following discussion brings others to the table. The juncture/disjuncture of the subjective and the social has animated and baffled many a psychoanalyst. This set of three articles is only the latest intervention in a long line of considerations that began with Freud and continue into a nebulous and always fraught future.
European Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2020
Conference Presentations by Fernando Castrillon, Psy.D.
The Evolutionary Epic: Science's Story & Humanity's Response, 2008
Papers by Fernando Castrillon, Psy.D.
European Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2022
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Books by Fernando Castrillon, Psy.D.
REVIEW
"The collection of essays in Ecopsychology, Phenomenology, and the Environment: The Experience of Nature helps to expand the epistemological and methodological approaches that are so well suited for the interdisciplinary field of ecopsychology. Like many of its antecedents (e.g., Abram, 1996; Roszak, 2001; Roszak, Gomes, & Kanner, 1995; van Gennep, 1961), it will appeal to readers curious about the interplay of nature, consciousness, and psyche, and to those specifically interested in climate change, environmental ethics, public health, or phenomenological knowing...What I liked most about it, apart from some really beautiful writing, is its mature approach to suffering and the wildness of our nature, as part of the great chain of being. There is a cogent argument that we must address our sense of separateness from the world that holds us. I believe that readers will come away with an expanded sense of identity, and with a sense of calmness about what can be done and how one might go about contributing."
Barbara Landon
PsycCRITIQUES
November 10, 2014, Vol. 59, No. 45, Article 2
Published Peer-Reviewed Articles by Fernando Castrillon, Psy.D.
Furthermore, Lacan’s take on angoisse provokes a real Freudian angst among Anglo-Americans; an apprehension and terror regarding an unknown danger that speaks an originary trauma that has been displaced into the future. An angst not easily dismissed and that is not in accord with the cultural and even geographical sensibilities of this place (the U.S.A) with a past masquerading as history. This is the kind of issue that must be dealt with if a Lacanian practice in English is to make any headway. It is not enough to translate Lacan into English. We must also make a cultural translation, and in doing so, address the problem of anxiety among Anglo-American psychoanalysts confronting the work of Lacan.
At the time, I had been reading a fair amount of work by Charles Melman and his close collaborator J.P. Lebrun. Their ideas regarding new psychical economies, new subjects and the ominous implications for the clinic and the social sphere, seemed to accord with some of my experiences as a psychoanalyst in California. As I spoke to Koren about this, he noted that he had engaged in several valuable public discussions with J.P. Lebrun on these very issues, and while he shared many of Lebrun and Melman’s concerns, he had reached rather different conclusions than they had.
I thought it would prove useful to have an exchange regarding these issues within the pages of the European Journal of Psychoanalysis, in the hopes that it might provoke further reflection and commentary by others interested in this interplay between the subjective and the social. The three articles that follow constitute the beginning of a conversation that we hope will continue in EJP and elsewhere.
We begin with J.P. Lebrun’s epigrammatic The 21st Century Will be Lacanian or It Will be Barbarian!.[1] Originally published in www.lacaninireland.com in Summer/Autumn of 2000, it brings forth in a dynamic manner, some of the main concerns that have animated the work of both Melman and Lebrun. While both authors have gone on to further develop their arguments, this early work by Lebrun nicely captures the portentous thread that runs throughout their collective work.
We continue the conversation with Daniel Koren’s lengthy and accomplished response to Lebrun’s article, On an Apocalyptic Tone Adopted Today in Psychoanalysis.[2] Addressing not only Lebrun’s article, but the larger implications of Melman and Lebrun’s collective oeuvre, Koren endeavors to deepen the inquiry and arrives at significant conclusions that have direct relevance for the clinic and the place of psychoanalysis in a world riven by unremitting social and technological transformations.
In the final article, Apocalypse Now?: Preliminary Notes on Barbarism, Psychoanalysis and the Subject under the Sign of Trump[3], I respond to both Lebrun and Koren by grounding the discussion in my clinical experience in California, particularly as it relates to the discourse of the Capitalist. In response to my musings in Paris three years ago and in contradistinction to what Lebrun and Melman have posited in their many works, I assert that we are not witnessing the birth of “new” pathologies or new/neo-subjects. Instead, I argue that the discourse(s) the subject is implicated in have undergone exchange, and the relationships between discourses have likewise been transformed.
Again, we reiterate our hope that the following discussion brings others to the table. The juncture/disjuncture of the subjective and the social has animated and baffled many a psychoanalyst. This set of three articles is only the latest intervention in a long line of considerations that began with Freud and continue into a nebulous and always fraught future.
Conference Presentations by Fernando Castrillon, Psy.D.
Papers by Fernando Castrillon, Psy.D.
REVIEW
"The collection of essays in Ecopsychology, Phenomenology, and the Environment: The Experience of Nature helps to expand the epistemological and methodological approaches that are so well suited for the interdisciplinary field of ecopsychology. Like many of its antecedents (e.g., Abram, 1996; Roszak, 2001; Roszak, Gomes, & Kanner, 1995; van Gennep, 1961), it will appeal to readers curious about the interplay of nature, consciousness, and psyche, and to those specifically interested in climate change, environmental ethics, public health, or phenomenological knowing...What I liked most about it, apart from some really beautiful writing, is its mature approach to suffering and the wildness of our nature, as part of the great chain of being. There is a cogent argument that we must address our sense of separateness from the world that holds us. I believe that readers will come away with an expanded sense of identity, and with a sense of calmness about what can be done and how one might go about contributing."
Barbara Landon
PsycCRITIQUES
November 10, 2014, Vol. 59, No. 45, Article 2
Furthermore, Lacan’s take on angoisse provokes a real Freudian angst among Anglo-Americans; an apprehension and terror regarding an unknown danger that speaks an originary trauma that has been displaced into the future. An angst not easily dismissed and that is not in accord with the cultural and even geographical sensibilities of this place (the U.S.A) with a past masquerading as history. This is the kind of issue that must be dealt with if a Lacanian practice in English is to make any headway. It is not enough to translate Lacan into English. We must also make a cultural translation, and in doing so, address the problem of anxiety among Anglo-American psychoanalysts confronting the work of Lacan.
At the time, I had been reading a fair amount of work by Charles Melman and his close collaborator J.P. Lebrun. Their ideas regarding new psychical economies, new subjects and the ominous implications for the clinic and the social sphere, seemed to accord with some of my experiences as a psychoanalyst in California. As I spoke to Koren about this, he noted that he had engaged in several valuable public discussions with J.P. Lebrun on these very issues, and while he shared many of Lebrun and Melman’s concerns, he had reached rather different conclusions than they had.
I thought it would prove useful to have an exchange regarding these issues within the pages of the European Journal of Psychoanalysis, in the hopes that it might provoke further reflection and commentary by others interested in this interplay between the subjective and the social. The three articles that follow constitute the beginning of a conversation that we hope will continue in EJP and elsewhere.
We begin with J.P. Lebrun’s epigrammatic The 21st Century Will be Lacanian or It Will be Barbarian!.[1] Originally published in www.lacaninireland.com in Summer/Autumn of 2000, it brings forth in a dynamic manner, some of the main concerns that have animated the work of both Melman and Lebrun. While both authors have gone on to further develop their arguments, this early work by Lebrun nicely captures the portentous thread that runs throughout their collective work.
We continue the conversation with Daniel Koren’s lengthy and accomplished response to Lebrun’s article, On an Apocalyptic Tone Adopted Today in Psychoanalysis.[2] Addressing not only Lebrun’s article, but the larger implications of Melman and Lebrun’s collective oeuvre, Koren endeavors to deepen the inquiry and arrives at significant conclusions that have direct relevance for the clinic and the place of psychoanalysis in a world riven by unremitting social and technological transformations.
In the final article, Apocalypse Now?: Preliminary Notes on Barbarism, Psychoanalysis and the Subject under the Sign of Trump[3], I respond to both Lebrun and Koren by grounding the discussion in my clinical experience in California, particularly as it relates to the discourse of the Capitalist. In response to my musings in Paris three years ago and in contradistinction to what Lebrun and Melman have posited in their many works, I assert that we are not witnessing the birth of “new” pathologies or new/neo-subjects. Instead, I argue that the discourse(s) the subject is implicated in have undergone exchange, and the relationships between discourses have likewise been transformed.
Again, we reiterate our hope that the following discussion brings others to the table. The juncture/disjuncture of the subjective and the social has animated and baffled many a psychoanalyst. This set of three articles is only the latest intervention in a long line of considerations that began with Freud and continue into a nebulous and always fraught future.