What Are You Reading Now?

Welcome to eForum's new column "What Are You Reading Now?"

This column is an opportunity for IAPSP members to share what they are reading or have recently read. Both fiction and non-fiction are welcome. If you would like to participate, please email me at . In the meantime, enjoy reading the responses of your fellow members.
 
 

Tom Rosbrow

Geographical Location: San Francisco

Psychoanalytic and Academic Affiliations: Supervising and Training Analyst, Faculty, Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis (ICP) and Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC)

Relationship to IAPSP: Member, Presenter at Annual Conferences, Contributor to Progress in Self Psychology and International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology.

What Are You Reading Now?: Sodom and Gomorrah, Vol. 4 of Proust's In Search of Lost Time (AKA Remembrance of Things Past in earlier translations). I've been reading the series of books in a wonderful new translation (Penguin Classics deluxe edition), starting with the remarkable Swann's Way - tried to read this in the past and found it too flowery- the new translation is much more down to earth and digestible. I'm happily over half way through the 3,00 pages of the complete work, it's been a year so far, but well worth it. I find Proust definitely Freud's equal and in some way much more-- has a far more perspectival post-modern view around personal history and psychological reality; shares Freud's interest in the unconscious, transference, repetition. His profound insights into character and the constant rewriting of memory are breathtaking- and he can be very funny at times. I'd love to be in a reading group going through this.

Also reading another favorite writer Paul Auster- his new book Sunset Park.

Elena Bonn, Psy.D.

Geographical Location: Westlake Village, California

Psychoanalytic and Academic Affiliations: Supervising and Training Analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis; Member of IAPSP; Member of Division 39 of APA; Member of the California Psychological Association.

Relationship to IAPSP: Self Psychology Conferences attendee since 1989 and IAPSP member since inception.

What Are You Reading Now?: This is an interesting question for me to answer at this time because I have been relatively "asleep" for two and a half years as I went through five foot surgeries. In the last six months or so, I have used reading to "reawaken" myself and the experience has been exhilarating and genuinely relieving. Since I feared the return of my mind as I knew it, I was pleasantly surprised when, it felt to me, like my old mind did not return but a sharper, more compassionate and finely tuned one did! First I read Jonathan Lear's 2006 book, Radical Hope. I was reminded how he had challenged me to rethink the ideas of the values of courage, virtue, ethics and hope when I had read a great article of his called, "Confidentiality as a Virtue" that my dear friend, Naomi Malin, shared with me several years ago. So I reread that article that Lear had written as a chapter in a book called, Confidentiality, Psychoanalysis, Ethics and the Law (2003) and I looked through two of his older books that I had, Love and it's Place in Nature (1999) and Happiness, Death, and the Remainder of Life (2000). A quote of his from the latter book that touched me is, "Psychoanalysis teaches us that wish, if not hope, springs eternal."

Reading Daniel Stern's latest book, Forms of Vitality: Exploring Dynamic Experience in Psychology, the Arts, Psychotherapy, and Development (2010) also served me well in my "coming back to life." I liked that he wrote, "Vitality is a whole ... a Gestalt that emerges from the theoretically separate experiences of movement, force, time, space, and intention." On that same quest, I am anxiously awaiting Robert Stolorow's new book, World, Affectivity, Trauma: Heidegger and Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis (2011). Warm congratulations Bob! We have had two stellar book presentations at ICP in the last two months with the authors presenting their ideas. So of course I happily read those books to prepare! First we had Howard Bacal sharing his sage wisdom with us from his book, The Power of Specificity in Psychotherapy: When Therapy Works and When it Doesn't (2011). Secondly we had William Coburn and Roger Frie presenting their thoughts and work from the book they edited together called Persons in Context: The Challenge of Individuality in Theory and Practice (2011). And I am happily taking Roger Hastings' much awaited graduation paper to read on the plane with me for an upcoming trip to Washington D.C. The title of Roger's paper (book?) is, "Something Happens: Mirroring In Intersubjective Connection." Yes, he's finally finished it!!!

My husband, Shane, and I just read a book together called, The Invention of Air (2008) by Steven Johnson. We learned in great detail about the life of the British chemist, Joseph Priestly, who emigrated to America in 1794 after being severely harassed in England. His contributions to the field of chemistry having to do with the study of various gasses including oxygen are well known, thus the title. But his influence on the founding fathers of America is less known and covered complexly in this book. For example, Johnson unearths an interesting and illuminating statistic: in the 165 letters that passed between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the name Benjamin Franklin is mentioned five times, George Washington three times, Alexander Hamilton twice - and Joseph Priestley no fewer than 52 times. After buying copies as presents for many of my friends, I obviously highly recommend this book. I look forward to reading other books by this author!

Julia Schwartz, M.D.

Geographical Location: Santa Monica, California

Psychoanalytic and Academic Affiliations: Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis

Relationship to IAPSP: Member

What Are You Reading Now?: The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. I find Murakami's books to be great sources of imagery and language for both my office and my painting studio. Literature is something that comes up often with patients - they might bring up a book or I will, and that becomes a source of a shared metaphor. Norwegian Wood (another Murakami book) had the most amazing descriptions of finitude and traumatic loss, but as lived experience rather than clinical or theoretical experience. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle felt eerily prescient reading it in the month before the devastating Japan earthquake.

World, Affectivity, Trauma: Heidegger and Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis by Robert Stolorow. This most recent book by Bob Stolorow highlights the mutual enrichment of existential philosophy and contemporary psychoanalysis. Rich, personal, and intellectually satisfying.

Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood. I like to keep this book close at hand and reread it regularly. it is about painting, about childhood trauma, about memory, about loss.

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood. The opening pages are a beautiful fictional version of Stolorow's idea of the ontological unconscious.

Oh, and a final note: I am an old-fashioned person who needs to hold an actual book in my hand! (No e-books or kindle) My books are well-worn, dog-eared, and underlined. I mark passages in books that are moving or evocative, that might give me an idea for a painting, a series, or maybe a title of a painting.

Christine C. Kieffer, Ph.D., ABPP

Geographical Location: Chicago, IL

Psychoanalytic Affiliation: Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis

Academic Affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago

Relationship to IAPSP: Board Member through 2011 (running for re-election currently)

What Are You Reading Now?: I am teaching a course on Dissociative Processes for the core analytic training program at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis: I am including Donnel Stern's most recent book (2009): Partners in Thought. For Part II of this course, I will be including Bob Stolorow's (2007) Trauma and Human Existence as well as Ghislaine Boulanger's (2007) book, Wounded by Reality: Understanding and Treating Adult-Onset Trauma.

I also enjoy reading fiction and biography: I recently read Gary Shteyngart's (2010) novel, Super Sad True Love Story, as well as Manning Marable's (2011) magisterial biography, Malcolm X: A life of reinvention.

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