ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows how psychoanalysis replicates the classical philosophical 'body-mind' debate, adhering to categorical, evaluative and developmental fissures between psyche and soma. It traces the legacy of the energetic and psychosomatic models. The book discusses the need to formulate a theory accommodating multiple 'leaps' between the patient's and analyst's 'psyche' and 'soma', suggesting intricate and reciprocal interactive psyche-somatic functioning. It considers specific strands within psychoanalysis which have embraced unitive experience and/or unitary formulations. This espousal is displayed in the use of terminology alluding to joint psyche-somatic 'pre-reflective', structures and processes, leading to experiential 'oneness', 'fusion' or 'undifferentiation'. The book explains Nagarjuna's philosophy of 'emptiness' of substantiality and of intrinsic meanings as the foundation and precursor to Zen-Buddhist notions of non-duality.
