ABSTRACT

Primary Process Impacts and Dreaming the Undreamable Object in the Work of Michael Eigen examines Eigen’s rich phenomenological work on becoming a welcoming object.

The contributors to this collection explore the core theme with reference to key Eigen works including Feeling Matters and Contact with the Depths. As a primary process psychoanalyst, Eigen’s writing reflects a unique rhythm of faith that is able to "revivify" union-distinction body-affect-thinking potentialities within a creative psychoanalytic dyad. In this book, alongside its companion volume, Toxic Nourishment and Damaged Bonds in the Work of Michael Eigen, contemporary Eigen readers and writers articulate the various welcoming processes and attitudes needed to cultivate a "Hearing Heart," a central ingredient in reaching and touching those parts of self-deemed unwanted, unwelcomed, and even traumatized. Primary Process Impacts and Dreaming the Undreamable Object in the Work of Michael Eigen represents a wide range of psychoanalytic perspectives, and the chapters describe the genius of Eigen as well as contribute their own clinical and academic acumen.

Presenting a key aspect of Michael Eigen's transformational aesthetic, this book will be of great interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and all those with an interest in psychoanalytic and spiritual psychology.

chapter Chapter 1|12 pages

Becoming a Welcoming Object

Personal Notes on Michael Eigen's Impact

chapter Chapter 3|11 pages

Welcoming Suchness

chapter Chapter 4|16 pages

The Join and Distinction-Union

A Resonant and Complex Oneness

chapter Chapter 5|29 pages

Nomad to No-Mad – Welcoming the Psychotic Core

The Primary Process Psychoanalysis of Michael Eigen

chapter Chapter 6|11 pages

The Welcomed Object

chapter Chapter 7|10 pages

Welcoming Dreams

chapter Chapter 8|13 pages

Ah, Strawberries!

chapter Chapter 9|16 pages

Welcoming the Eye/I of the Storm

A Homecoming Story

chapter Chapter 10|6 pages

Listening in with Michael Eigen

chapter Chapter 11|12 pages

Faces of the Welcoming Object

Musings on Midlife, Madness, and Mysticism – Welcoming and Being Welcomed

chapter Chapter 12|11 pages

Music as Dreaming

Welcoming Absence through Music

chapter Chapter 13|17 pages

Moving to Inner Lights

chapter Chapter 14|10 pages

Seer, Mystic, Sage

Luminous Presence in the Work of Michael Eigen