Creative Repetition and Intersubjectivity looks at contemporary Freudian and post-Freudian theory through an intersubjective lens. Bruce Reis offers views on how psychoanalytic conceptions from the last century uniquely manifest in the consulting rooms of this century – how analytic technique has radically evolved through developing Freud’s original insights into dreaming, and hallucinosis; and how the presentation of today’s analysands calls for analyst’s use of themselves in unprecedented new ways.
Taking up bedrock analytic concepts such as the death instinct, repetition, trauma and the place of speech and of silence, Reis brings a diversely inspired, twenty-first century analytic sensibility to his reworking of these concepts and illustrates them clinically in a process-oriented approach. Here the unconscious intersubjective relation takes on transformative power, resulting in the analyst’s experience of hybridized chimerical monsters, creative seizures, reveries and intuitions that inform clinical realities outside of verbal or conscious discourse -- where change occurs in analysis.
Drawing on an unusually broad selection of major international influences, Creative Repetition and Intersubjectivity will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists across the schools of thought.
Table of Contents:
Preface by Christopher Bollas Introduction 1. Monsters, Dreams and Madness 2. An Introduction to Dreaming 3. Zombie States 4. Symbiont Life 5. Performative and Enactive Features of Psychoanalytic Witnessing 6. Silence 7. Form and Content 8. Duende 9. Creative Repetition
About the Author :
Bruce Reis, Ph.D., FIPA, is a Fellow and Faculty Member at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, New York, an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor in the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and a member of the Boston Change Process Study Group. He is North American book review editor for the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and serves on the editorial boards of The Psychoanalytic Quarterly and Psychoanalytic Dialogues. He is the co-editor (with Robert Grossmark) of Heterosexual Masculinities (Routledge, 2009).
Review :
"Graceful. Poised. Accepting. Poetic. Generous. Open to life's mysteries. These are thoughts that circulated through my mind as I read Bruce Reis' marvelous, monstrous, zombie-filled book. Here is an author who can make the death drive seductive. Reis extends a heartfelt welcome to his patients, to other psychoanalysts working in the field and to his readers. His review of the literature is remarkable for its compassion and insight into the thoughts of others. His clinical vignettes beautifully illuminate worlds of being together. For anyone who wants to grasp the vibrant realm of intersubjective psychoanalysis this is a wonderful book."-Jonathan Lear, The University of Chicago, USA
"A sparkling and erudite journey through the intersubjective dimension of psychoanalytic work. Reis weaves together the literature from two continents, from Freud to de M’Uzan, from Bion to Ogden and Spezzano. As he does so, illustrating his ideas with artful clinical vignettes, he develops a style and conceptual model that is very much his own, one in which the analyst’s presence, openness and even psychic surrender to the patient’s communications create the conditions for gradual change. A book well worth reading."-Lucy LaFarge, Regional Editor for North America at the IJP; Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, USA
"Creative Repetition and Intersubjectivity is an exceptional book in which Bruce Reis succeeds in freshly approaching the subtle paradox that lies at the core of the analytic process. That paradox involves the tension between the effort on the part of the analyst to open himself or herself as fully as possible in a free and undirected way to what is occurring in the session; and at the same time, to bring to bear on those forms of experiencing a disciplined use of the mind with which to gauge the manner and timing in which to make one’s presence felt. Reis’ clinical discussions crackle with the immediacy, the intimacy, and the danger of true analytic engagement. I cannot recommend this book more highly both to those new to analytic practice and those well-seasoned in that work."-Thomas H. Ogden, M. D., author most recently of Reclaiming Unlived Life: Experiences in Psychoanalysis and Creative Readings: Essays on Seminal Analytic Works
"Dr. Bruce Reis’ book takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the unique territory that is created by the engagement between analyst and analysand at deeply unconscious levels. It is here in the depths of the mind that we become acquainted with the unexpected chimeras and ‘monsters’ of our psyches, like the unexpected sea creatures living at deep ocean steam vents. Dr. Reis is simply masterful in his ability to access and intricately weave together the valuable contributions of both classical and contemporary psychoanalysts, including Freud, Searles, Winnicott, de M’Uzan, Bion and many others. For those analysts interested in the continued relevance of unconscious processes, Dr. Reis’ book is an invaluable companion that is simultaneously an excellent read."-Lawrence J. Brown, Author, Transformational Processes in Clinical Psychoanalysis: Dreaming, Emotions and the Present Moment
""Duende" wrote John Berger, "is a quality, a resonance which makes a performance unforgettable…" Such is the quality of El Duende present in Bruce Reis’s unforgettable book. Here Reis captures the complex, creative and unfolding process of the live analytic encounter. In a movement toward the future of psychoanalysis, Reis takes the reader back in time to a pre-enlightenment ethos in which receptivity to emergent experiences in the field of analysis reveals the surfacing of dynamic unconsciousness in action. His book offers a unique and beautifully written addition to cutting edge analytic theories about the non-conscious, non-verbal dimension of our work and much more."-Rachel Peltz, Faculty and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, San Francisco, CA, USA
"Graceful. Poised. Accepting. Poetic. Generous. Open to life's mysteries. These are thoughts that circulated through my mind as I read Bruce Reis's marvelous, monstrous, zombie-filled book. Here is an author who can make the death drive seductive. Reis extends a heartfelt welcome to his patients, to other psychoanalysts working in the field and to his readers. His review of the literature is remarkable for its compassion and insight into the thoughts of others. His clinical vignettes beautifully illuminate worlds of being together. For anyone who wants to grasp the vibrant realm of intersubjective psychoanalysis this is a wonderful book."-Jonathan Lear, The University of Chicago, USA
"A sparkling and erudite journey through the intersubjective dimension of psychoanalytic work. Reis weaves together the literature from two continents, from Freud to de M’Uzan, from Bion to Ogden and Spezzano. As he does so, illustrating his ideas with artful clinical vignettes, he develops a style and conceptual model that is very much his own, one in which the analyst’s presence, openness and even psychic surrender to the patient’s communications create the conditions for gradual change. A book well worth reading."-Lucy LaFarge, Regional Editor for North America at the IJP; Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, USA
"Creative Repetition and Intersubjectivity is an exceptional book in which Bruce Reis succeeds in freshly approaching the subtle paradox that lies at the core of the analytic process. That paradox involves the tension between the effort on the part of the analyst to open himself or herself as fully as possible in a free and undirected way to what is occurring in the session; and at the same time, to bring to bear on those forms of experiencing a disciplined use of the mind with which to gauge the manner and timing in which to make one’s presence felt. Reis’ clinical discussions crackle with the immediacy, the intimacy, and the danger of true analytic engagement. I cannot recommend this book more highly both to those new to analytic practice and those well-seasoned in that work."-Thomas H. Ogden, M. D., author most recently of Reclaiming Unlived Life: Experiences in Psychoanalysis and Creative Readings: Essays on Seminal Analytic Works
"Dr. Bruce Reis’ book takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the unique territory that is created by the engagement between analyst and analysand at deeply unconscious levels. It is here in the depths of the mind that we become acquainted with the unexpected chimeras and ‘monsters’ of our psyches, like the unexpected sea creatures living at deep ocean steam vents. Dr. Reis is simply masterful in his ability to access and intricately weave together the valuable contributions of both classical and contemporary psychoanalysts, including Freud, Searles, Winnicott, de M’Uzan, Bion and many others. For those analysts interested in the continued relevance of unconscious processes, Dr. Reis’ book is an invaluable companion that is simultaneously an excellent read."-Lawrence J. Brown, Author, Transformational Processes in Clinical Psychoanalysis: Dreaming, Emotions and the Present Moment
""Duende" writes John Berger, "is a quality, a resonance which makes a performance unforgettable…" Such is the quality of El Duende present in Bruce Reis’s unforgettable book. Here Reis captures the complex, creative and unfolding process of the live analytic encounter. In a movement toward the future of psychoanalysis, Reis takes the reader back in time to a pre-enlightenment ethos in which receptivity to emergent experiences in the field of analysis reveals the surfacing of dynamic unconsciousness in action. His book offers a unique and beautifully written addition to cutting edge analytic theories about the non-conscious, non-verbal dimension of our work and much more."-Rachel Peltz, Faculty and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, San Francisco, CA, USA
