What Thought Leaders are Saying about Brent’s Work
Elements of Self-Destruction
"A book-length critique of the concept of 'borderline personality disorder' is long overdue, and Jacqueline Simon Gunn and Brent Potter have achieved this deconstruction masterfully. Their book will go a long way toward humanizing and contextualizing the clinical phenomena under discussion."
Robert D. Stolorow, PhD, Author, World, Affectivity, Trauma: Heidegger and Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2011)
"Potter takes us step-by-step through the various tacklings of this issue...He presents empirical data, as well as taking us through the details of his social scientific points of view. Therefore, as readers, we can sharpen our perspectives, as we go along in this rather cold and dark cellar of human kind...Potter elegantly elaborates the ghosts of abandoned meaning in suffering and formless destructiveness of patients or clients."
Theodor Itten, author of Rage: Managing an Explosive Emotion and Executive Editor of the International Journal of Psychotherapy
"Elements of Self-Destruction is a wide-ranging, reader-friendly study of the enigma of self-destructiveness. The study is unique in the literature in its hermeneutic-phenomenological approach to this subject matter, seeking understanding from within the experiential worlds of those engaged in self-destruction. Drawing on the thinking of Bion and Heidegger, Potter makes a fascinating proposal concerning the intimate relationship between the essence of technology—which reduces beings, including human beings, to meaningless resources to be exploited—and the essence of self-destructiveness, illustrating his thesis with evocative discussions of child trafficking, pornography, and the Holocaust. Readers of this book will be richly rewarded."
- Robert Stolorow, PhD, author of World, Affectivity, Trauma: Heidegger and Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis
"Brent Potter touches a central problem of our time – human destructiveness. Destructiveness has always been part of our nature but presses us all the more with our added technological capacities and global scale of reach. It is the elephant in the room we try to find ways around, lacking adequate tools or capacity to address directly or well. Books like this are imperative as a way to keep destructiveness in focus and stimulate growth towards working with forces that injure and maim. Potter’s research peels layers off evasiveness while adding to the store of wisdom needed to address who we are and how we work."
- Michael Eigen, PhD, author of Contact With the Depths and Psychic Deadness
"Brent Potter guides us on an erudite, elegant and deeply instructive hermeneutic investigation into the most disturbing and contradictory of all human impulses--one, as he shows, potentially inherent in all of us - the urge to self-annihilation." - Gabor Mate, MD, author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction
Elements of Reparation: Truth, Faith, & Transformation in the Works of Heidegger, Bion, and Beyond
"Whenever ancient Greek thought weaves with psychoanalysis, the impact on the imagination can be fertile. Brent Potter's wonderful journey into this labyrinth produces fresh ideas and new commitments. I found this work exciting, enriching and instructive."--Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul
"Elements of Reparation is a rigorous, cogent and penetrating exploration of a fundamental dynamic in human life: damage and transformation. Brent Potter deftly traverses many highways and byways from ancient Greek thought and mythology through psychoanalysis to humanistic psychology, showing us how awareness is lost and regained."
-Gabor Maté, MD, author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction
"Brent Potter's new book is a powerful calling. The concept of 'reparation' is lucidly elaborated over an impressively broad range of fields: statistical and epidemiological data, contemporary psychiatry and psychology, therapy and philosophy - all of them linked together in genuine, exciting and illuminating ways. The book is a milestone on the path emerging out of the ever-sharpening crisis in mainstream psychiatry and psychology."
-Konstantin Gemenetzis, MD, existential psychoanalyst, former President
"Searching, penetrating, searing, enriching - this is a book filled with rich discussions exploring our need to damage ourselves and others and our need to repair, transcend, heal, and grow. Brent Potter touches the pulse of our existence, delineates what we are up against, and portrays a creative spirit working on the edge of the possible."
--Michael Eigen, PhD, author of Contact with the Depths, The Birth of Experience, and Faith
"In Elements of Reparation, Brent Potter covers a huge psychological landscape, from Greek mythology, Freud and Jung, to Heidegger and Bion. He skillfully leads readers through the labyrinth of complex theoretical concepts and ambiguous psychological terms, to shed light on the ageless themes of truth, faith, and transformation. More importantly, he convincingly shows us that these existential phenomenological processes can heal a psyche traumatized by both the inherent condition of life and the contemporary technological culture. For all those who are struggling with suffering and trauma and disappointed in current mental health care, this book offers a very hopeful alternative of healing through openness to and acceptance of life in all its mystery. I highly recommend this book to all mental health professionals."
--Paul T. P. Wong, PhD, Psych. Adjunct Professor
Borderline Personality Disorder: New Perspectives on an Overused and Stigmatizing Diagnosis (Co-authored with Jacqueline Simon Gunn)
"This is a remarkable book, both erudite and personal. The authors take us beyond the medical label to the inner world of individuals suffering from BPD. We are able to witness, up close and personal, the genesis and development of an ego traumatized by abandonment, wounded by relational failures, and torn between the intense longing for intimacy and uncontrollable anger towards the other. The take-home message of this book is that in spite of the challenges of treating a long untreated trauma, healing can still occur, only if a therapist is able to stick to clients' experiences and stay engaged with authentic empathy, even when he becomes the target of therapeutic rage. I highly recommend this book to both novice and seasoned psychotherapists."
(Paul T. P. Wong, PhD, C.Psych, President of the International Network on Personal Meaning)