This insightful book critically reviews and presents an accessible introduction to the life and work of one of the most celebrated modern psychoanalysts, Michael Eigen.
With work spanning over five decades, countless articles, and thirty published book volumes, Daws explores Eigen’s main works through key themes and concepts such as working with our psychotic core, psychic deadness, primary affects, and the need for spirituality for practicing psychoanalysts. The book covers Eigen’s early life and formative clinical years, explores his re-reading of Freud, Jung and Lacan, and lastly covers Eigen’s Seoul seminars, the impact of trauma, the importance of faith and the use of Kabbalah as a framework for analysis.
This book will not only engage the first-time Eigen reader, but will also be of much interest to the experienced psychologist and psychoanalyst already familiar with Eigen’s work.
Biography
Loray Daws is a registered Clinical Psychologist in South Africa and British Columbia, Canada. He is currently in private practice and serves as Senior Faculty Member at the International Masterson Institute in New York, and specializes in psychoanalysis and daseinsanalysis. He is the editor of 4 books in psychoanalysis and existential analysis.
"Loray Daws's Introduction to the Work of Michael Eigen gives the reader a wide aperture into the spirit and soul of Eigen with his many colors and voices: poet, psychotherapist, Tzadik, orphic visionary, and breather of psychic life. More than simply an introduction, Daws's work on Eigen's oeuvre is both a profound academic resource and an extension of the wisdom tradition they both share. One finds emotional and spiritual truths quoted from a vast array of Eigen's work as part of an arc and trajectory that expresses deep love for how we touch each other's insides."
Robin Bagai, Psy.D., Author of "Michael Eigen and Evolution of Psyche"
"Loray Daws has a developing international reputation as a scholar- practitioner whose interests cover the full range of psychoanalytic praxis and theory. In this volume, which without hyperbole can be describes as brilliant, Daws provides the first introductory text to one of the most significant figures in contemporary psychoanalysis. He is the right person to have done this and there is no doubt that he is up to the task. The core concerns of Eigen are articulated with singular clarity. At the same time the experienced Eigen reader is opened to dimensions and nuances which they may not have previously realized. While clearly basing Eigen’s work in a Elkin-Winnicott-Bion field, Daws also locates it a broader psychoanalytic context (for example Bollas, Balint) thereby helping the reader sense where Eigen fits in .The writing is both emotionally in touch and intellectually rigorous. This is a palpably alive book which reveals the sheer fecundity of Eigen’s work."
Stephen Bloch, Jungian Psychoanalyst, Editor of "Living Moments: On the Work of Michael Eigen" and "Music and Psyche"
"Over the past forty years, Michael Eigen’s voluminous and evocative writing - intriguing, profoundly moving, and challenging - connects us with the fundamental psychic realities of psychoanalytic treatment and human sensibilities, pain, suffering and faith. It is a living process emerging from the very act of experiencing, feeling, and sharing. Loray Daws’ Introduction to Michael Eigen offers us a thoughtful, telling, and engaging exploration of the most essential themes of Eigen’s writing. The reader is in for a thorough and enriching journey into Eigen’s unique psychoanalytic world."
Ofra Eshel, faculty, training and supervising analyst of the Israel Psychoanalytic Society, honorary member of the New Center for Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles
