Reviews for The Sensitive Self

The average rating for The Sensitive Self based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-02-03 00:00:00 Justin Martin Michael Eigen, known by many as a "psychoanalytic mystic," writes so beautifully and powerfully about the ins and outs of our sensitive human experience. We are far more sensitive than we believe ourselves to be, than we wish ourselves to be. We are beings deeply intimate with psychological pain, scarred by wounds from every stage of our development - from the cradle to the grave. These traumas never stop. They simply are; and it is our terrific and terrifying task in life - though it is a task sadly neglected by many - to work with our capacities to feel, to experience trauma, to taste the blood of life between our teeth, and to we hope grow stronger, live more richly (and this is absolutely not a reference to our income), love more passionately, learn more earnestly, listen more empathically. Eigen uses the psychoanalytic tradition, his experiences in therapy and as a therapist, and his sensitivity to the paradoxes of our experience as humans to learn something about how we might live more openly toward ourselves and each other. A consistent theme throughout his work is the idea of openness toward our emotional reality, toward unforeseen meanings and experiences, waiting to glean more, patience during the learning process. So frequently in life we are forced to rush through experiences - to "get through" life - as quickly as possible, especially those hard and uncomfortable sides to our lives. When relationships go awry, we want to place clear-cut blame on one person: ourselves or the other person(s). We want to rush to one meaning, one way of looking, and get on with life. This betrays our rushed way-of-being. We think we see so clearly, with ease, as fast as lightning. But, if we were to sit and wait, be patient with ourselves, we might see that there are so many more layers, so much more feeling underneath the surface, that we could learn from - that we could let ourselves learn from. Or, in other instances, we can't handle the dark emotions that continue to plague us while at work, while with our family's, while with our friends, so we take medication in order to numb ourselves, please, just take away the pain. Eigen consistently says that he is not against medication (in some instances, it is necessary) but he also worries that our eagerness to medicate ourselves without addressing deeper emotional brokenness (our conscious and unconscious sensitivity processors are damaged) might be symptomatic of our age. This is exemplified in the rationale: "I need to get back to work! I need to be number one! I need that promotion, dammit, I've been stuck doing this shit job for a decade... I need to meet this month's deadline! But I feel so miserable, so sad, so depressed and unfulfilled, and I don't know why - maybe my psychiatrist can get me some pills to help." One can easily see the dangers in this sort of relation to one's own emotional life. It easily becomes an insensitivity to one's sensitivity - something Eigen cautions against, not for "moral" reasons (Eigen is nothing like a judgmental moralist), but for the main reason that we will cause ourselves so much more pain, perhaps unredemptive pain, in the process. Our sensitivity capabilities have been damaged. We need to learn, to grow our sensitivity muscles, to savor the bitter-sweet aspects of our experience. This is by no means easy. It is actually often painful. But, Eigen hopes, it is a redemptive pain, a life-giving death. Eigen, in short, desires that we be more sensitive to our sensitivity, that we be more open to our emotional life, that we listen to ourselves and each other without rushing to some "one" story about ourselves; some "one" causal link (such as, "THIS is YOUR fault," or "THIS is ALL MY fault") which is always too simplistic, too rational, too closed-off; some "one" story about others; or "one" explanation for how we got here and where we should go from here. There are many ways of seeing, many ways of being, and if we too quickly close off the possibility of imagining those new avenues of thought and feeling that are unknown at the present moment, we will inevitably rob ourselves of imaginative creativity. The unconscious is full of rich life, of dark and light, of unbelievable power and passion. Oftentimes we cannot handle all that we feel. We must each decide how much of ourselves we can handle. And hopefully psychoanalysis is one way of doing that together. Psychoanalysis isn't a cure, it isn't a solution to some problem, a key that unlocks the riddle. No such thing exists. Psychoanalysis, at its best, is a way of talking that "helps some people feel better" (as Adam Phillips says). I end with some of the many quotes that stood out to me in this work: The impact of reality is far greater than our ability to process it. We can't take too much reality. Our equipment simply is not up to it. If we are lucky, persistent, patient, hungry enough for the real, our equipment grows into the job, building more capacity to work with what is. Nevertheless, we are always behind the impact of moment, at best able to process crumbs broken off from the whole. But those crumbs can be rich indeed!... Therapy provides support for the psyche's attempts to process what bits of reality it can. It aids the psyche's attempts to sustain and digest the fact that we are alive and trying to learn something about living. (pg. 8) The model is not control so much as opening one's experiential field. (pg. 10) It would be a crazy idealization of life to think we can do away with what deforms us. (pg. 19) Winnicott touches a place where madness makes us feel real. If we fail to reach for the most frightening point of all, we may miss what is most personal in our beings. If we fail to include the point of breakdown in our search as persons, we will be leaving a crucial fact of self out… The analyst does not reach for sanity so much as enable "madness to become a manageable experience from which the patient can make a spontaneous recovery." Madness gets dosed out… I think Winnicott is urging the human race to take in the fact of madness in daily life, so that humanity will not have to go (or stay) mad. (pg. 26-27) Passivity is important. It means, for moments, one is not trying to impose anything on anyone else or on oneself, and in that mysterious lack of imposition, things start to fall into place. (pg. 73) Ethics can be superimposed from the outside only up to a point. Its deeper grounding is in maturation of sensitive responsiveness. Like eating or breathing or dying'no one can do it for you. Nevertheless, it needs a lot of help. (pg. 180)

Review # 2 was written on 2013-03-07 00:00:00 Donnie York This collection of essays gives a great overview of not only Jung's own thought, but also the ways later theorists and clinicians have engaged with his thought. Interesting reformulations are presented based on more contemporary views on gender, politics and religion, resulting in fascinating work. Not all essays are equally enlightening, but there are some true gems in there. Highly recommend to anyone looking for an accessible yet thorough introduction to analytical psychology!