Repetition and Trauma: Toward A Teleonomic Theory of Psychoanalysis

Max Stern's closing work rethinks trauma, drawing on three decades of his research into traumatic processes. He brings modern physiology, psychology and neurobiology to bear on established psychoanalytic ideas, arguing that human evolution has equipped us with ways of defending against shock. At the heart of the book is a 'teleonomic principle', which underpins a new account of biotrauma.

A large part of the discussion concerns pavor nocturnus, or night terrors, which Stern reads as a defence against stress caused by threatening nightmares. He links this to laboratory studies of sleep and dreaming, including research carried out in the 1960s, and treats the compulsion to repeat as an attempt to overcome a failure to give meaning to tension. The argument then widens to repetitive dreams and includes a close rereading of Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle.

Published by Routledge as a 1st edition, with ISBN-13 9780881630732. It will appeal most to readers of psychoanalysis and of the biological study of stress and dreaming.