2020 American Board & Academy of Psychoanalysis (ABAPsa) book
award winner! If, when a patient enters therapy, there is an
underlying yearning to discover a deeper sense of meaning or
purpose, how might a therapist rise to such a challenge? As both
Carl Jung and Wilfred Bion observed, the patient may be seeking
something that has a spiritual as well as psychotherapeutic
dimension. Presented in two parts, The Search for Meaning in
Psychotherapy is a profound inquiry into the contemplative,
mystical and apophatic dimensions of psychoanalysis. What are some
of the qualities that may inspire processes of growth, healing and
transformation in a patient? Part One, The Listening Cure:
Psychotherapy as Spiritual Practice, considers the confluence
between psychotherapy, spirituality, mysticism, meditation and
contemplation. The book explores qualities such as presence,
awareness, attention, mindfulness, calm abiding, reverie, patience,
compassion, insight and wisdom, as well as showing how they may be
enhanced by meditative and spiritual practice. Part Two, A Ray of
Divine Darkness: Psychotherapy and the Apophatic Way, explores the
relevance of apophatic mysticism to psychoanalysis, particularly
showing its inspiration through the work of Wilfred Bion.
Paradoxically using language to unsay itself, the apophatic points
towards absolute reality as ineffable and unnameable. So too, Bion
observed, psychoanalysis requires the ability to dwell in mystery
awaiting intimations of ultimate truth, O, which cannot be known,
only realised. Pickering reflects on the works of key apophatic
mystics including Dionysius, Meister Eckhart and St John of the
Cross; Buddhist teachings on meditation; Sunyata and Dzogchen; and
Levinas' ethics of alterity. The Search for Meaning in
Psychotherapy will be of great interest to both trainees and
accomplished practitioners in psychoanalysis, analytical
psychology, psychotherapy and counselling, as well as scholars of
religious studies, those in religious orders, spiritual directors,
priests and meditation teachers.
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