“sudhir kakar”

As a ‘commentator on the worlds of love and hate’, India’s foremost psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar has isolated the ambivalence, peculiarly Indian, to matters as various—and connected—as sex, spirituality and communal passions.In Intimate Relations, the first of the well-known books in this ed... More

Feelings, impulses, wishes, and fantasties -- the dynamic content of the inner world -- occupy the deepest recesses of the psyche. It is through introspection and empathy, essential to psychotherapy, that the outside observer can grasp the meaning of the inner world of an individual. This thought-p... More

Culture and Psyche is a collection of Sudhir Kakar's essays on cultural psychology, which analyses various facets of Indian identity and sexuality through sources as diverse as case studies, Indian myths and legends, and popular cinema. The second edition of this classic includes a new introduction ... More

Disgust can be as much part of erotic love as violence although the evocation of disgust has rarely reached the extremes portrayed in the fiction of Marquis de Sade. In de Sade stories, erotic unions are routinely preceded, accompanied or followed by the smearing and eating of faces, drinking of or ... More

‘A compelling work on the cultural character of the Indian people…both provocative and revealing’—Shyam Benegal in Outlook‘A remarkably perceptive analysis of Indian character’—Khushwant Singh In this bold, illuminating and superbly readable study, India’s foremost psychoanalyst and ... More

This ground-breaking work explores in detail India's sexual fantasies and ideals, the "unlit stage of desire where so much of our inner theatre takes place". Kakar's sources are textual in the main, celebrating the primacy of the story in Indian life.... More

Drawing connections between history, individual development, group psychology and the cultures of specific communities, The Colours of Violence paints richly textured portraits of a range of subjects involved in riots, and focuses on not just the survivors but also the agents of violence. With insig... More

The time is the fourth century AD, the golden age of Indian history. The locale: an ashram in the woods a little outside Varanasi.  Every morning, Vatsyayana, author of the Kamasutra,  recounts stories from his childhood and youth to a young pupil who plans to write the great sage's biogra... More

‘The body will go...but remember, the soul will eternally cry delight.’ Dying, Gopal, or Ram Das Baba to his devotees, leaves his disciple and closest companion with the essence of his spiritual knowledge. It is the ultimate truth that a lifetime of seeking has revealed to him, made him a Parama... More

Sudhir Kakar, India’s foremost psychoanalyst, has for long tried to infuse the pre-eminently Western discipline of psychoanalysis with ideas and views from the East in both his practice and his best-selling books. In Mad and Divine, he takes on the separation of the spirit and the body favoure... More