1st Edition

Psychoanalysis, Intersubjective Writing, and a Postmaterialist Model of Mind I Woke Up Dead

By Dan Gilhooley, Frank Toich Copyright 2020
    364 Pages
    by Routledge

    364 Pages
    by Routledge

    In this in-depth and unique collaboration between a patient and his psychoanalyst, Psychoanalysis, Intersubjective Writing, and a Postmaterialist Model of Mind: I Woke Up Dead examines the unconscious mind by analysing the patient’s novel written during his treatment as the focus. Using the patient’s creative writing and their intersubjective relationship as evidence, Dan Gilhooley and Frank Toich show how psychoanalysis fits within a postmaterialist model of mind.

    In this ground-breaking exploration, Gilhooley and Toich together demonstrate how a nonlocal unconscious can reshape the psychoanalytic conception of the mind. Split into four parts, Intersubjective, Quantum, History and Collaboration, Dan introduces three themes in the first: recovery from death, the intersubjective nature of therapeutic work and the role of creative imagination, combining these themes with analysis of Frank’s work and short, related stories from his own life. Part II, Quantum, introduces the concept of nonlocality to describe the mind and draws on the appearance of quantum physics in Frank’s science fiction, before moving onto Part III, History, which examines the emergence of psychoanalysis out of animal magnetism, looking at rapport, telepathy and love in psychotherapy. Finally, Collaboration discusses their ongoing psychotherapeutic experiment, the role of imagination, dissociation and the cosmic mind in psychological growth. Interweaving creative writing, psychoanalytic theory and real-life stories, the book re-contextualizes the history and future of psychoanalysis.

    Due to its multidisciplinary nature, this book will appeal to psychotherapists and psychologists in practice and in training. It would also be a vital resource for academics and students of counseling, consciousness studies, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and psychology.

    Introduction;  Part 1: Intersubjective;  Chapter 1: I Woke Up Dead;  Chapter 2: You're Dead;  Chapter 3: Buried Alive;  Chapter 4: Conversations with Schrodinger's Cat;  Chapter 5: Nonlocal Time;  Chapter 6: Premonitions;  Chapter 7: Convergence;  Part 2: Quantum;  Chapter 8: Many Worlds;  Chapter 9: The Magic of Entanglement;  Chapter 10: Many Worlds, Many Minds, Multiple Selves;  Chapter 11: A Dream from the Future;  Chapter 12: Time;  Chapter 13: Falling Tree;  Part 3: History;  Chapter 14: Thought Transference;  Chapter 15: Thought Transference in Psychoanalysis;  Chapter 16: Origins of Thought Transference in Mesmer and Puysegur;  Chapter 17: Somnambulism to Hypnotism, Mesmer to Charcot;  Chapter 18: The Birth of Psychoanalysis: From Trance to Transference;  Chapter 19: Love;  Chapter 20: Telepathy and Freud;  Chapter 21: Telepathy Coda;  Chapter 22: Drawing;  Part 4: Collaboration; Chapter 23: Nigel, Mekes, and Distanziert;  Chapter 24: Raymond, the Hand of God, and Ching Ling Foo;  Chapter 25: Nigel and Raymond meet their Fate as One;  Chapter 26:  Eternal Recurrence;  Chapter 27:  Contemplating Convergence;  Chapter 28: Talking to Frank;  Chapter 29: The Project Begins;  Chapter 30: Pentimento;  Chapter 31: Imagination, Dissociation and Nous; Index

    Biography

    Dan Gilhooley is a psychoanalyst, artist and teacher. He has published papers on therapeutic process, dreams and creativity, and is a practicing visual artist. He is a training analyst, supervisor and teacher at the New York Graduate School of Psychoanalysis and the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies, with a private practice in Manhattan and Bellport, New York.

    Frank Toich is a writer living in Woodstock, New York. He is the author of The Journey West and is currently working on a second novel entitled The Way of Change. He is also a composer of transcendental and house music which he’s recorded with the musical group, Shining Path.  

    "This is a unique and creative book. Gilhooley and his patient, Toich, collaborate in detailing their complex, intense and fascinating therapeutic journey. Their account of their interactions, their rigorous examination and recontextualizing of psychoanalytic history, their brilliant integration of interdisciplinary fields, and their meticulous documentation of psi phenomena should lead to a reassessment and expansion of every clinician’s theory and technique. This highly valuable work will stir controversies energizing, enriching and developing the psychotherapeutic field." - Robert J. Marshall, PhD, ABPP in Clinical Psychology, author of Resistant Interactions: Child, Family and Psychotherapist and The Transference-Countertransference Matrix

    "A vivid picture of the unconscious resonance that occurs in psychoanalysis. Gilhooley and Toich, having both endured the traumatic death of a loved one, create a "magnetism of loss" in an analysis facilitating intersubjective rapport, where pasts never spoken of can be intuited and futures, as yet unlived, can be predicted. The physical theory of quantum entanglement grounds this concept of a nonlocal and transpersonal unconscious less in magic than in science. A must read for anyone who has ever experienced an unsettling confrontation with the uncanny." - Lucy Holmes, PhD, author of The Internal Triangle and Wrestling with Destiny

    "Dealing with concepts essential to the nature of psychoanalysis--death, time, timelessness and the nature of reality--this book is an original and captivating combination of theory and clinical practice. Weaving fictional characters through historical accounts of psychoanalysis and quantum physics, Gilhooley and Toich create an ambiance of nonlocality. As a demonstration of clinical intersubjectivity, the authors reveal that within our unconscious mind we dwell outside time and locality, accessing timeless and space-less dimensions." - Angeliki Yiassemides, PhD, author of Time and Timelessness: Temporality in the Theory of Carl Jung, editor of Time and the Psyche: Jungian Perspectives