This volume brings together some of the papers presented by leading scholars, artists and psychoanalysts at an annual Creativity Seminar, organized by the Erikson Institute of the Austen Riggs Center. Looking at creativity through a psychoanalytic lens and very importantly, vice versa the authors examine great works ("The Scarlet Letter," Mahler s "Eighth " and "The Miracle Worker") as well as great artists (Van Gogh and Lennon/McCartney) for what we might learn about the creative process itself. Deepening this conversation are a number of clinical studies and other reflections on the creative process in sickness and in health, so to speak. A central theme is that of deep play, the level at which the artist may be unconsciously playing out, on behalf of all of us, the deepest dynamics of human emotion in order that we may leave the encounter not only emotionally spent, but profoundly informed as well. The central questions of this book are how do we understand the creative process, what might psychoanalysis contribute to that understanding, and what opens up within and for psychoanalysis by engaging with the subject of creativity?"

A central thesis of this volume is that what human beings cannot contain of their experience what has been traumatically overwhelming, unbearable, unthinkable falls out of social discourse, but very often onto and into the next generation, as an affective sensitivity or a chaotic urgency. What appears to be a person's symptom may turn out to be a symbol in the context of this book, a symbol of an unconscious mission to repair a parent or avenge a humiliation assigned by the preceding generation. These tasks may be more or less idiosyncratic to a given family, suffering its own personal trauma, or collective in response to societal trauma.This book addresses this heritage of trauma and does so both from clinical and societal perspectives. It considers first the legacy of the Holocaust, the study of which broke ground for the new field of transmission studies; then the analysis and enactments of trauma in more ordinary clinical practice; and finally more recent, large-scale traumatic events within American society. Throughout, the links between the "little histories" of people and families and the "big history" of a society are illuminated."

This book is about how traumatic psychological injury is passed down to the children and grandchildren of those who originally experienced it and about finding the shared humanity in families, in psychotherapy, in society, and in memories of the past that repairs the damage people do to one another.

This book reports on clinical work in, and at the boundaries of, the intermediate space between patient and therapist, perhaps the space between reaching toward dreams and taking the transference. Though the clinical work to be described here was influenced quite deeply by the writing of Winnicott primarily and then of Lacan, it is meant to stand for itself as the record of - and a set of stories about - one therapist's experiences and learning. The chapters that follow take up a range of clinical conditions (hopelessness, self-destructiveness, psychosis), clinical phenomena (regression, impasse, trauma), technical issues (interpretation, transference, free association) and related topics (dreams, creativity, the analytic setting). Most of this work took place at the Austen Riggs Center, a small psychiatric hospital in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in which quite troubled patients are offered intensive psychoanalytic psychotherapy in a completely open and voluntary therapeutic community setting.

This volume brings together some of the papers presented by leading scholars, artists and psychoanalysts at an annual Creativity Seminar organised by the Erikson Institute of the Austen Riggs Center. Looking at creativity through a psychoanalytic lens - and very importantly, vice versa - the authors examine great works, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Mahler's Eighth Symphony, and William Gibson's The Miracle Worker; as well as great artists, such as Van Gogh and Lennon and McCartney, for what we might learn about the creative process itself. Deepening this conversation are a number of clinical studies and other reflections on the creative process - in sickness and in health, so to speak. A central theme is that of "deep play", the level at which the artist may be unconsciously playing out, on behalf of all of us, the deepest dynamics of human emotion in order that we may leave the encounter not only emotionally spent, but profoundly informed as well.

"One of the aims of this game is to reach to the child's ease and so to his fantasy and so to his dreams. What a lovely description of an easy interplay between two people, leading to the communication of, even the creation of, inner life. Winnicott was a theorist of the unnoticed obvious, as much in this statement about his squiggle game as in his recognition of the eternal phenomenon of transitional objects. But it is also a commonplace of clinical psychoanalytic practice that no sooner is inner life contacted, and a beginning link made to the external world, no sooner do both parties realize that the behavior that seemed so idiosyncratic actually has relational meaning, than something else happens: transference, and taking the transference becomes the new, vital and risky clinical problem.This book reports on clinical work in, and at the boundaries of, the intermediate space between patient and therapist, perhaps the space between reaching toward dreams and taking the transference. Though the clinical work to be described here was influenced quite deeply by the writing of Winnicott primarily and then of Lacan, it is meant to stand for itself as the record of--and a set of stories about--one therapist s experiences and learning. The chapters that follow take up a range of clinical conditions (hopelessness, self-destructiveness, psychosis), clinical phenomena (regression, impasse, trauma), technical issues (interpretation, transference, free association) and related topics (dreams, creativity, the analytic setting). Most of this work took place at the Austen Riggs Center, a small psychiatric hospital in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in which quite troubled patients are offered intensive psychoanalytic psychotherapy in a completely open and voluntary therapeutic community setting."

'Bullets don't just travel through skin and bone. They travel through time.' These words were tattooed onto the shoulder of a young woman whose father was shot during "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. This wrenching, volatile but also binding truth is the subject of this book. It's a truth about traumatic experiences that happen to a family, but also to a society, and to the organizations that link these intimate units with the larger context of history and culture. It's also a truth about the way trauma plays out over time, including between generations. Grounded in Erik Erikson's "way of looking at things", the book is a journal of encounters between clinical psychoanalysis and other disciplines, and an inquiry into what might be learned there for both. Sometimes that learning has to do with trauma: the way in which what can't be emotionally contained, thought about or spoken in one part of a system is passed along, with disorganizing, sometimes heartbreaking consequences, to another. After a reflection on dignity, the book examines intergenerational trauma in families, including Erikson's. It then illustrates how trauma to organizations slips below the threshold of awareness and yet continues to wear down its members. The final section examines aspects of the larger society, including radicalization, war trauma, the pandemic and cultural healing. What emerges is the sober yet hopeful truth that what people discover by taking their own emotional experiences seriously, though that might markedly differ from what is accepted in the everyday world, is a primary path toward recovery from trauma.

With contributions from Lord John Alderdice, Deniz Aribog an, Abdulkadir Cevik, Senem B. Cevik, Coline Covington, Robi Friedman, David Fromm, M. Gerard Fromm, Hiba Husseini, Aleksandr V. Obolonski, Ford Rowan, Regine Scholz, Edward R. Shapiro, Vamik D. Volkan The International Dialogue Initiative (IDI) is a private, international, multidisciplinary group comprised of psychoanalysts, academics, diplomats, and other professionals who bring a psychologically informed perspective to the study and amelioration of societal conflict. It aims to provide a reflective space to enable an understanding of how the emotional and historical background of hostile relations - often related to trauma - is being experienced in the present. By doing so, antagonists can overcome resistances to dialogue and facilitate the discovery of peaceful solutions to intergroup problems. This book brings together key members of the IDI to present the theory and practice of the important work they do. At its heart, the book holds the idea that, while traumatic experiences may happen to an individual or a family, they also affect society and large-group identity over long periods of time. In that way, trauma plays out between generations and between countries. The book is divided into three parts: theory, application, and methodology. Trauma is the key thread running throughout and the distinguished contributors investigate healing, dehumanisation, memory, the pandemic, war, terrorism, identity, culture, the law, justice, and religion, among many other fascinating topics. The authors bring in case studies from all over the world, including the United States, Northern Ireland, Russia, Israel, Turkey, Germany, Egypt, and Palestine. To make sense of these, they draw on a wide range of approaches: group relations theory, group analytic theory, psychoanalysis, large-group psychology, psychodynamic theory, psychology, economics, sociology, political science, history, journalism, and the law, to name but a few. This must-read book brings theory to vivid life and brings hope that our fractured world can learn to heal.

This volume addresses the topic of embodiment in psychoanalysis from both theoretical and clinical points of view. Freud's development of a psychoanalytic theory and treatment originated from his consideration of neurology, aphasia, and the great range of embodied signs constituting the hysterical neuroses. Symptoms and signs, Freud noted in 1895, "join in the conversation" by taking bodily form. The body and the mind form a nexus, which is the proper area of study for psychoanalysis. Because this is a vast field of inquiry, a pluralistic perspective is taken by this collection of papers, ranging from philosophic and semiotic understandings of the body, to Freudian, Lacanian, feminist, and object relations hypotheses. Clinical phsnomena such as self-mutilation, fantasy about the body and its representations and meanings, enactment, sexuality, and psychotic fragmentation are addressed in an attempt to extend our understanding of the psychoanalytic traditions that have evolved in relation to Freud's discoveries. This volume includes representative work from established psychoanalysts (Kalinich, Modell), psychoanalysts with sophisticated philosophical grounding (Frie, Simpson), and clinicians working with severely disturbed patients (Elmendorf, Plakun, Tillman, Fromm).

This volume addresses the topic of embodiment in psychoanalysis from both theoretical and clinical points of view. Freud's development of a psychoanalytic theory and treatment originated from his consideration of neurology, aphasia, and the great range of embodied signs constituting the hysterical neuroses. Symptoms and signs, Freud noted in 1895, 'join in the conversation' by taking bodily form. The body and the mind form a nexus, which is the proper area of study for psychoanalysis. Because this is a vast field of inquiry, a pluralistic perspective is taken by this collection of papers, ranging from philosophic and semiotic understandings of the body, to Freudian, Lacanian, feminist, and object relations hypotheses. Clinical phsnomena such as self-mutilation, fantasy about the body and its representations and meanings, enactment, sexuality, and psychotic fragmentation are addressed in an attempt to extend our understanding of the psychoanalytic traditions that have evolved in relation to Freud's discoveries. This volume includes representative work from established psychoanalysts (Kalinich, Modell), psychoanalysts with sophisticated philosophical grounding (Frie, Simpson), and clinicians working with severely disturbed patients (Elmendorf, Plakun, Tillman, Fromm).