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The Psychoanalytic Mystic

Author: Michael Eigen

Publisher: Free Publishing Limited

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781853433986

Most psychoanalysts tend to be anti-mystical or , at least, non-mystical. Psychoanalysis is allied with science and, if anything, is capable of deconstructing mystical experience. Yet some psychoanalysts tend to be mystical or make use of the mystical experience as an intuitive model for psychoanalysis. Indeed, the greatest split in the psychodynamic movement, between Freud and Jung, partly hinged on the way in which mystical experience was to be understood. Michael Eigen has often advocated and encouraged a return to the spiritual in psychoannalysis-what Freud called the oceanic feeling. Here he expands on his call to celebrate and explore the meaning of mystical experience within psychoanalysis, illustrating his writing with the work of Bion, Milner, and Winncott. Like Bion, he explicitly relates psychoanalysis to faith. Both patient and analyst are immersed in each other and this immersion restores and enriches, and drains. Each has the chance to use their minds and feelings creatively. Each has to hold faith that something good will come of their work together. Professor Eigen, who received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the Graduate Faculty in 1974, has maintained this passion through a career that includes nineteen books, hundreds of journal papers, and forty years of work in clinical psychology. He is currently Associate Clinical Professor in NYU's Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and also a training and control analyst at the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis (NPAP) where he has served on the Board of Directors.

Explorations of the Psychoanalytic Mystics

Author: Daniel Merkur

Publisher: Brill Rodopi

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 9789042028593

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Little discussed by psychoanalysts and almost unknown outside the profession, a small but distinguished group of psychoanalysts were or are mystics: Otto Rank, Erich Fromm, Marion Milner, D.W. Winnicott, Heinz Kohut, Hans W. Loewald, Wilfred R. Bion, James S. Grotstein, Neville Symington, and Michael Eigen. All favoured an extrovertive mysticism that perceives unity throughout physical reality. Several saw creativity as an application of mystical consciousness to the physical material of artwork, artefact, or, more generally, culture. Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies (CPS) is an international scholarly book series devoted to all aspects of psychoanalytic inquiry in theoretical, philosophical, applied, and clinical psychoanalysis. Its aims are broadly academic, interdisciplinary, and pluralistic, emphasizing secularism and tolerance across the psychoanalytic domain. CPS aims to promote open and inclusive dialogue among the humanities and the social-behavioral sciences including such disciplines as philosophy, anthropology, history, literature, religion, cultural studies, sociology, feminism, gender studies, political thought, moral psychology, art, drama, and film, biography, law, economics, biology, and cognitive-neuroscience.

Psychoanalysis, Mysticism and the Problem of Epistemology

Author: Alice Bar Nes

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-09-09

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 1000435768

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This book presents key psychoanalytic theories from a fresh perspective: that of the mystical element. The author explores the depth-structure of central assumptions in psychoanalytic theory to uncover the mystical core of conventional analytic thinking. Exploring authors from Freud and Ferenczi, through Bion and Winnicott, to contemporary voices such as Ogden, Bollas and Eigen, the book shows that psychoanalysis has always operated on the assumption of psychic overlap, a "soul-to-soul" contact, between patient and analyst. Surprisingly, the book shows how this "magical" facet goes hand in hand with a pragmatic worldview that explores the epistemological complexities of psychoanalysis in search of a way to join the subjective, even the mystical, with the practical aim of serving as a validated mental health discipline. This is accomplished through an interdisciplinary and intertextual encounter between psychoanalysis and the innovative pairing of William James’ pragmatic philosophy and Martin Buber’s dialogic thought. The author's paradoxical stance surrounding the nature and role of psychoanalysis and its mystical facet resonate the great challenge embedded in Winnicott's insistence on tolerating paradox and Bion's demand to respect all parts of the (psychoanalytic) truth, in this case, the practical and mundane alongside the mystical and magical. The book’s broad, interdisciplinary outlook will captivate both psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic therapists as well as scholars of philosophy.

Kabbalah and Psychoanalysis

Author: Michael Eigen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-03-08

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 0429915373

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Wilfred Bion once said, "I use the Kabbalah as a framework for psychoanalysis." Both are preoccupied with catastrophe and faith, infinity and intensity of experience, shatter and growth of being that supports dimensions which sensitivity opens. Both are preoccupied with ontological implications of the Unknown and the importance of emotional life. This work is a psychospiritual adventure touching the places Kabbalah and psychoanalysis give something to each other. Michael Eigen uses aspects of Bion, Winnicott, Akivah, Luria and Nachman (and many more) as colours on a palette to open realities for growth of experience. Bion called faith "the psychoanalytic attitude" and Eigen here explores creative, paradoxical, multidimensional aspects of faith. Eigen previously wrote of psychoanalysis as a form of prayer in The Psychoanalytic Mystic. In Kabbalah and Psychoanalysis he writes of creative faith. Sessions as crucibles in which diverse currents of personality mix in new ways, alchemy or soul chemistry perhaps, or simply homage to our embryonic nature which responds to the breath of feeling moment to moment.

The Analyst and the Mystic

Author: Sudhir Kakar

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13: 0226422836

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Kakar goes beyond the traditional psychoanalytic interpretation of Ramakrishna's mystical visions and practices. He clarifies their contribution to the psychic transformation of a mystic and offers fresh insight into the relation between sexuality and ecstatic mysticism. Through a comparison of the healing techniques of the mystical guru and those of the analyst, Kakar highlights the difference in their healing objectives and reveals the positive psychological aspects of the religious experience.

Freud and Augustine in Dialogue

Author: William B. Parsons

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2013-11-15

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 081393480X

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"It is arguably the case," writes William Parsons, "that no two figures have had more influence on the course of Western introspective thought than Freud and Augustine." Yet it is commonly assumed that Freud and Augustine would have nothing to say to each other with regard to spirituality or mysticism, given the former's alleged antipathy to religion and the latter's not usually being considered a mystic. Adopting an interdisciplinary, dialogical, and transformational framework for interpreting Augustine's spiritual journey in his Confessions, Parsons places a "mystical theology" at the heart of Augustine's narrative and argues that his mysticism has been misunderstood partly because of the limited nature of the psychological models applied to it. At the same time, he expands Freud's therapeutic legacy to incorporate the contemporary findings of physiology and neuroscience that have been influenced in part by modern spirituality. Parsons develops a new psychological hermeneutic to account for Augustine's mysticism that will capture the imagination of contemporary readers who are both psychologically informed and interested in spirituality. The author intends this interpretive model not only to engage modern introspective concerns about developmental conflict and the power of the unconscious but also to reach a more nuanced level of insight into the origins and the nature of the self.

Ecstasy

Author: Michael Eigen

Publisher: Wesleyan University Press

Published: 2001-11-15

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 9780819565310

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"Ecstasy is a force to be reckoned with--sometimes creative, sometimes destructive. Eigen argues that there is an ecstasy that comes through the ever-necessary confrontation of our psychic cores with suffering and degradation and he shows that when we can learn to be present with these feelings, they add to the tone and texture of our lives, and help us to feel real."--Page 4 of cover.

On Bearing Unbearable States of Mind

Author: Ruth Riesenberg-Malcolm

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-09-02

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1134627793

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This is a problem almost all practising psychoanalysts will face at some time in their career, yet there is very little in the existing literature which offers guidance in this important area. On Bearing Unbearable States of Mind provides clear guidance on how the analyst can encourage the patient to communicate the quality of their often intolerably painful states of mind, and how he/she can interpret these states, using them as a basis for insight and psychic change in the patient. Employing extensive and detailed clinical examples, and addressing important areas of Kleinian theory, the author examines the problems that underlie severe pathology, and shows how meaningful analytic work can take place, even with very disturbed patients. On Bearing Unbearable States of Mind will be a useful and practical guide for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, and all those working in psychological settings with severely disturbed patients.

Toxic Nourishment

Author: Michael Eigen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-05-30

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 0429923120

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A profound look at the origins of patient's maladies and the way they lead their lives. The author describes the analyses leading to de-programming these patients from their toxins and intoxicators. The spirits of Bion, Winnicott, and Lacan grace the text.

The Psychotic Core

Author: Michael Eigen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-05-30

Total Pages: 459

ISBN-13: 0429921977

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This book examines the key ordering—disordering processes of the psychotic self. It draws on Sigmund Freud, Jung, object relation and selfpsychologies, and, particularly, the work of Winnicott, Bion, and Elkin.