Within a field which ostensibly aims its focus on the unknowability of a realm below the surface, the unconscious, but which continues its tradition of basing itself in a rational mode “above ground,” ego consciousness, this book aims to “stalk the roots” of the psychoanalytic enterprise in a ground breaking manner. The goal is to bring to light foundational ancestors and agencies, invisible principles and ways of seeing, underlying attitudes and structures which make up the core of the analytic mind in its approach to the question, what heals? It starts with the ancient art of alchemy which integrates theory and practice, worker and worked upon, and moves from there to illustrate the nature of language as an undercurrent in the flow of the healing process. Ritual and myth serve as guides into the core inter-relational nature of the psyche, as a “wilderness of mirrors,” and finally pathos, experience itself in its essential leaning toward chaos. is presented as the psyche’s “matter” being worked upon in the analytical mode. In short, “Stalking…” intends toward opening the vision of a field which daily grapples with the darkest “underworldly” aspects of the human soul, towards its ur, originary, depth and breadth.
“By juxtaposing comparative material …with a series of crystal-clear précis of the seminal insights of the principal theorists of the Freudian and Jungian traditions, the vicissitudes of the healing process are vividly born witness to by a master practitioner ….”
Greg Mogenson, Jungian analyst and author of Notional Practice: The Speculative Turn in Analytical Psychology.
“….While stalking the roots, he is not afraid of stirring up the mess of psychoanalysis, nor of exposing its muddy matter, and he is certainly not afraid of, as Wilfred Bion described doing psychanalysis, “making the best of a bad job.”
Pamela J. Power, Ph.D., Clinical psychologist, Jungian psychoanalyst, author of Transitions in Jungian Analysis: Essays on Illness, Death and Violence.
