Published in 2016, this is one of a number of books by the psychoanalyst Michael Eigen:
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Image and sensing have been underrated in Western thought but have come into their own since the Romantic movement and have always been valued by poets and mystics. Images come in all shapes and sizes and give expression to our felt sense of life. We say we are made in the image of God, yet God has no image. What kind of image do we mean? An impalpable image carrying impalpable sense? An ineffable sense permeates and takes us beyond the five senses, creating infinities within everyday life. Some people report experiencing colour and sound when they write or hear words. Sensing mediates the feel of life, often giving birth to image. In this compelling book, the author leads us through an array of images and sensing in many dimensions of experience, beginning with a sense of being born all through life, psychosis, mystical moments, the body, the pregnancy of "no", shame, his session with Andre Green, and his thoughts related to James Grotstein, Wilfred Bion, and Marion Milner.
Hungry to see each experience beyond safety and familiarity, Eigen takes us on an adventure of experiences, employing creative and intuitive ways to work with emotional reality. He sees failure and shame as aids for emotional growth. Chapter three, Shame, for instance, unfolds like a Shakespearean play; each paragraph shimmers with new ideas and experience. Contact between Eigen and his patient Peter flows to a point where experiences of the two meld. Shame is given room, and there is a sense of openness, breath, and breadth. Eigen delivers us from the tyranny of the self through making us aware of how “easy it is to reduce a moment to what one knows instead of letting it take you somewhere you don’t.” The book exhibits an admirable respect for what is unknown, which, as Eigen says, adds a dimension of humility to our lives. This is a book of exploration, a book that enlarges our outlook and expands our soul, a book that shows how the sublime, and the mystical, as well as the mundane, are made use of in everyday life.
Image, Sense, Infinities, and Everyday Life
Image and sensing have been underrated in Western thought but have come into their own since the Romantic movement and have always been valued by poets and mystics. Images come in all shapes and sizes and give expression to our felt sense of life. We say we are made in the image of God, yet God...
Image and sensing have been underrated in Western thought but have come into their own since the Romantic movement and have always been valued by poets and mystics. Images come in all shapes and sizes and give expression to our felt sense of life. We say we are made in the image of God, yet God has no image. What kind of image do we mean? An impalpable image carrying impalpable sense? An ineffable sense permeates and takes us beyond the five senses, creating infinities within everyday life. Some people report experiencing colour and sound when they write or hear words. Sensing mediates the feel of life, often giving birth to image. In this compelling book, the author leads us through an array of images and sensing in many dimensions of experience, beginning with a sense of being born all through life, psychosis, mystical moments, the body, the pregnancy of "no", shame, his session with Andre Green, and his thoughts related to James Grotstein, Wilfred Bion, and Marion Milner.
Hungry to see each experience beyond safety and familiarity, Eigen takes us on an adventure of experiences, employing creative and intuitive ways to work with emotional reality. He sees failure and shame as aids for emotional growth. Chapter three, Shame, for instance, unfolds like a Shakespearean play; each paragraph shimmers with new ideas and experience. Contact between Eigen and his patient Peter flows to a point where experiences of the two meld. Shame is given room, and there is a sense of openness, breath, and breadth. Eigen delivers us from the tyranny of the self through making us aware of how “easy it is to reduce a moment to what one knows instead of letting it take you somewhere you don’t.” The book exhibits an admirable respect for what is unknown, which, as Eigen says, adds a dimension of humility to our lives. This is a book of exploration, a book that enlarges our outlook and expands our soul, a book that shows how the sublime, and the mystical, as well as the mundane, are made use of in everyday life.
