This book includes material from Michael Eigen’s celebrated and long-running seminar series, to explore some of the classic and contemporary key concepts in psychoanalytic theory and practice.
Drawing on the work of Winnicott, Bion and Lacan, Eigen explores key psychoanalytic themes which have risen to prominence over the last decade such as the place of politics in psychoanalysis, life, death and psychic deadness, and the role of lies and deception in the consulting room and our world.
With over 50 years of experience in leading seminars and working psychoanalytically, Eigen's work is essential reading for all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists.
Foreword by Keri Cohen
Introduction by Michael Eigen
Chapter One: Dead, Dread, Deflected and Little Bits of Grace
Chapter Two: Bits of Bion and Multiple Undercurrents
Chapter Three: Tiny I-bits and Big Ones Too
Chapter Four: After the Election: Between Truth and Lies and More
Chapter Five: A Near Christmas Meeting
Chapter Six: Playing with Bion: Gifts and Dreads of our Problematic Psyche
Chapter Seven: A Bit of Madness
Biography
Michael Eigen is a psychologist and psychoanalyst from the USA. He is the author of 30 books and numerous papers. He has given a private seminar on Winnicott, Bion, Lacan and his own work since the 1970s. Eigen is known for his work with patients "who had been given up on by others", including people who experience psychosis.
‘Michael Eigen continues to be one of our most profound, interesting and prolific writers. This book is no exception. Clinician, scholar, philosopher and mensch, his discourse on the clinical encounter explores the work of Bion in an ever-evolving, illuminating dialogue with and about contemporary psychoanalysis, culture and the human condition.’
Howard B. Levine, Editor-in-Chief, The Routledge W.R. Bion Studies Series
‘With virtuosity and passion Mike Eigen in his unique way conducts a communal reverie, essentially about what it means to be human. It is no accident that the themes of these recent seminars circle around the questions of truth and lies, the stress of not-knowing, and the matter of what it costs us to allow reality to ‘keep opening up our being’ whilst retaining both hope and humour – namely to ‘keep smiling with the patient’, who is always ourselves.’
Meg Harris Williams, Author, The Art of Personality in Literature and Psychoanalysis
‘In this compelling book, Michael Eigen delves into the intricate workings of the human psyche, exploring its pulsations, conflicts, creativity, and the interplay between the forces of life and death. Through seminars on Bion's work and his own profound insights, Eigen invites readers to trace the moments of growth and transformation in the midst of destruction. This book embraces the unknown, enhancing the creative and imaginative aspects of our beings, while illuminating themes of identity, trauma, shame and the ever-changing nature of reality. Eigen also analyses Bion's A Memoir of the Future, uncovering the themes of identity, fiction and the creative unknown. Also highlighted are the role of psychoanalysis as a poetic experience or art form, and the inherent complexity of the mind and its ever-changing states. Eigen's expertise and deep understanding make Bits of Psyche: Selected Seminars a valuable resource for psychoanalysts, scholars and anyone seeking valuable insights into the human condition.’
Giuseppe Civitarese, Author of Psychoanalytic Field Theory A Contemporary Introduction
‘Psychoanalysis is eternally grateful to Michael Eigen, a distinguished and exceptional psychoanalyst. Michael is well known for theorizing about the challenge and blessing of being human, including Bion's idea that various models touch varied tendencies and dimensions of psychic life.
"Bits of the Psyche: selected Seminars" offers us glimpses of life in each of the seven chapters. These seminars from 2015-2022 contain true gems of understanding, evocations, and sound theoretical and clinical wisdom. Furthermore, he invites readers to feel what it might be like to participate in and experience psychic transformation. In doing so, Michael uses a clear, poetic, and very effective style of living language. The reader breathes hope in every paragraph and receives the sustained effect of conversing with the author. It is an essential book for anyone interested in the psyche and how to access it.’
Jani Santamaría Linares PhD, Training and Supervisor Psychoanalyst of Children , Adolescents and Adults of the Mexican Psychoanalytic Association and Director of A-Santamaría Psychoanalysis Mexico AC . Latin American Representative of the IPA Board – 2019-2023 - Co-author of Autistic Phenomena and Unrepresented States : Explorations in the Emergence of Self
‘Mike Eigen, who offers much to psycho-analysts appreciative of Freud, Klein, Winnicott and Bion's works, furnishes all of us a renewed work of renewals. It is a rare working through of more than half a century of active dedication to psycho-analysis. He does it in a text whose title is, Bits of Psyche, displaying a realistic insight about our theoretical and practical limits in our possible apprehensions about what Freud so aptly named "psychic reality". With his usual generosity, Eigen presents an opportune trans-disciplinary integration of psycho-analysis with its outside sources, rarely reunited in a single text. In this sense, it resembles an important contribution by Bion that inspired him, A Memoir of the Future. Any psycho-analyst's library and its owner or curator will become less poor if it profits from Eigen's Bits of Psyche.’
Paulo Cesar Sandler, MD, MSci, HMFab, Training analyst, SBPSP
