Psychoanalysis India

“Spiritual experiences contradict Freud’s notion of common unhappiness and the idea of the world as inadequate.”

An Analyst’s Hindu-Indian Imagination
New episode of the Off The Couch podcast with Sudhir Kakar (Goa, India)

https://buff.ly/3JTaIoq

Produced for IPA by Harvey Schwartz

We are saddened to announce the passing of Sudhir Kakar on 21 April 2024 due to a long illness. As well as highly acclaimed papers and monographs on the need to attune psychoanalysis to the nuances of non-Western, especially Indian, cultures, Kakar’s oeuvre extended to short stories, meditative pieces, and novels. His considerable talent was recognised with Germany’s prestigious Goethe Award for Literature; he stands alongside Sigmund Freud as the only two psychoanalysts to have received this award.

We had been working with Sudhir on his latest book, 'The Indian Jungle', which is at the printers and will now be released posthumously. Even during his last days, Sudhir was quick to respond and very graceful and kind in all his correspondence.

We share a tribute to Sudhir from Salman Akhtar, a long-time colleague and friend:

'Sudhir Kakar was topmost among those who helped to move the antiquated “psychoanalytic anthropology” to a fresh, modern, and clinically useful “anthropological psychoanalysis.” He leaves behind an inspiring body of work and a legacy that will live on. Besides mourning, a celebration is also due for his life was venturesome, creative, cosmopolitan, aesthetically sumptuous, and generative.
He will be missed.'

Salman Akhtar

Professor Sudhir Kakar passed away today. The end of an era