1st Edition
Collected Writings of Giles Clark Recycling Madness with Jung, Spinoza and Santayana
This timeless and thought-provoking volume makes available the collected writings of Giles Clark (1947-2019), whose original clinical theory constitutes a major contribution to the areas of analytical psychology, psychoanalysis, and philosophy.
Clark’s work influenced generations of analytical psychologists, psychoanalytic psychotherapists and trainees in England, Australia and elsewhere. His oeuvre covers important themes such as psychoanalysis as a deeply relational, mutually transformative and intersubjective endeavor; how as wounded healers analysts learn the art of recycling their own madness so as better to assist their patients; the clinical treatment of borderline and narcissistic disturbances and personality disorders; and psychosomatic issues as manifest and experienced in transference and counter-transference relations in the analytic field. The book also explores the relevance of Spinoza, Santayana, Jung, and German Romantic philosophers to analytical psychology and psychoanalysis, not merely in historical or theoretical terms but as a vital resource to guide clinical practice as demonstrated through a series of compelling case studies.
The Collected Writings of Giles Clark is of great interest to Jungian analysts, analytical psychologists, and psychotherapists in practice and in training, as well as anyone interested in understanding interface between depth psychology, philosophy, and neuropsychology, and in the mind-body problem more generally.
Introduction to Collected Writings of Giles Clark 1. A process of transformation: Spiritual puer, instinctual shadow and instinctual spirit 2. A black hole in psyche 3. Animation through the analytical relationship: The embodiment of self in the transference and countertransference 4. How much Jungian theory is there in my practice? 5. The animating body: Psychoid substance as a mutual experience of psychosomatic disorder 6. Mind-body intimacies and pains 7. A Spinozan lens onto the confusions of borderline relations 8. A Jungian inheritance of lack and loss: Reflections on my Jungian ancestry 9. The active use of the analyst’s bodymind: as it is informed by psychic disturbances 10. Symbolising and not-symbolising 11. Romantic catastrophes and other vital realities 12. Embodied countertransference and recycling the mad matter of symbolic equivalence 13. Unconscious structures and defences 14. On psychosis 15. Herder’s force: pluralism, expressivism, mind-body relations and empathy 16. Psychoid relations in the transferential/countertransferential field of personality disorders 17. Towards a psychoanalytic Spinoza: Reflections on his philosophy and the psychotherapeutic mind 18. Why (and how) psychoid relations matter 19. The matter of an oddly embodied mind: My spiritual travels with a faithful but savage ‘pet dog’ 20. Last jottings Bibliography of works by Giles Clark
Biography
Judith Pickering is a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, Jungian Analyst, Couple and Family Therapist in Sydney, Australia. She is author of Being in Love: Therapeutic Pathways Through Psychological Obstacles to Love (Routledge, 2008); The Search for Meaning in Psychotherapy: Spiritual Practice, the Apophatic Way and Bion (Routledge, 2019).
Geoffrey Samuel is a retired social, cultural and medical anthropologist. His books include Mind, Body and Culture (1990), Civilized Shamans (1993), and The Origins of Yoga and Tantra (2008). He is interested in mind-body interaction and healing in anthropological theory and in Buddhist practice, and in dialogue between traditions of knowledge.
'Giles Clark was a friend, colleague and inspiration. When I had a clinical problem that was giving me sleepless nights, Giles was my go to person. I looked up to him more than anyone else of my generation. It is fantastic that his collected writings are now made available in this carefully curated book. Giles was an original thinker whose deep humanity shines through his clinical and philosophical writings. What he has to tell us about – for example – narcissism, transference-countertransference, the mind-body problem and Jung/Spinoza/Santayana is absolutely remarkable.'
Professor Andrew Samuels, Author of Jung and the Post-Jungians
'The richness of this collection of writings honours our esteemed and much loved colleague Giles Clark. This volume shares the development of his thinking and experiences bringing alive his heart and humanity in the face of suffering. We have been blessed with the presence, mind and deep clinical experience of Giles Clark. His innovative thinking has been part of the rich environment for the development of Jungian trainees and analysts who have been invited into deepening understandings on key concepts like the psychoid, recycling madness, narcissistic and borderline relations, symbolising and not symbolising in the clinical setting, with embodied countertransference a key interaction. This volume shares the abundance of his significant contribution to the psychoanalytic community.'
Joy Norton, President, Australian and New Zealand Society of Jungian Analysts
