The Psychoanalytic Mystic

As we all know, Freudian psychoanalysis early rejected a spiritual and mystical understanding of the unconscious (should we be bold enough to say it was split off and suppressed by Freud and his analytic Establishment?), even though mysticism and notions of “the uncanny” had influenced Freud significantly in his early speculations. The “numinous” dimension then became the province of Jung and his followers, some of whose insights, however, have unfortunately tended to be formulaic in terms of mythical archetypes rather than dynamic in terms of the core sense of self. In recent decades, object relations theorists have begun cautiously to incorporate mystic and religious thinking into their search for the essential aspects of the human psyche. Into this project, Michael Eigen has leapt with a daring attempt to reclaim the Grail. Eigen's book, The Psychoanalytic Mystic, is a collection of essays (some previously published and some new) that use the work of seminal psychoanalytic thinkers such as Marion Milner, D.W. Winnicott, W.R. Bion, and Jacques Lacan to argue that somewhere in the very essence and core of the human psyche is the ultimate Emptiness and Fullness of God. Like those physicists who have looked to the uncertainty principle and other aspects of quantum mechanics for evidence of a cosmic consciousness, Eigen seeks psychoanalytic concepts wherein a trace of the godhead might be found. (This is not to say that he professes a belief in a personal God— Eigen is open to various interpretations of spirituality and is more interested in the “dance” than in any ultimate conclusions.) In Winnicott's “true self,” for example, Eigen sees a place of divine (spiritual) madness. In Bion's notion of “O,” which signifies the unconscious “thing-in-itself,” Eigen finds the emptiness and otherness that paradoxically fill and enlighten our being. In Lacan's jouissance, Eigen sees the holy joy of living that comes from relinquishing desire and accepting absence or lack as a signifier. Winnicott and Bion, I suspect, would look benignly on Eigen's efforts, but Lacan would not, I think, have any part of it; although I must say that I myself was impressed with Eigen's efforts regarding Lacan. The leitmotif running through Eigen's book is the experiencing of God, not necessarily as a Being outside the self, but in our individual and collective lives, in the joys and agonies of the life and death of the self. (For example, he discusses the biblical Jacob alongside Joyce's Leopold Bloom.) In this respect, Eigen considers that psychotherapy has its own unique value distinct from various meditation practices, and he presents cases in which meditation produced increased spiritual awareness but not necessarily the changes in the lived life to go along with it. The therapy encounter allows both therapist and patient (and Eigen is adamant that the therapist as well as the patient must experience transformation) to experience fullness and emptiness, life and death through each other—and, via an internalization process, to experience a shift in object relations that makes spirituality vital on an everyday basis. For the dimensions of life and fullness, Eigen looks to Winnicott and Buber, and for the encounter with emptiness and death, he finds insights in Bion and in Buddhism. In an interesting side essay on the fiction writer Flannery O'Connor, he suggests that going to the edge of death and the raw awareness of one's flawed being is necessary for life in its fullness. O'Connor's characters are pathetic in their frailty, yet they embody our common humanity, and they have (oh so barely!) the possibility to be redeemed. If the book has trouble succeeding as a proof of the existence of God as a metapsychological axiom, which it sometimes seems to want to accomplish, what it does admirably is to stimulate serious thinking about how psychoanalytic concepts might be integrated with the reviving spirituality of our time, whether in Judeo-Christian, Buddhist, or other traditions. And it does so with deep compassion and appreciation for those patients who really want to grow and heal, rather than merely take a Prozac or relieve a symptom. Indeed, the most impressive aspect of this book is that it combines profound theoretical understanding with personal candor, manifest love of patients, and a passion for the therapeutic endeavor—a combination rarely to be found and devoutly to be wished. I heartily recommend The Psychoanalytic Mystic to all who are interested in psychoanalytic theory and to all who are looking for ways to incorporate spiritual principles into their psychotherapy practice and research. Invoking as it does the Temple of the mind, the book can be a springboard for interesting discussions, investigations, therapy experiences, and leaps of faith.