Groundwork for a Transpersonal Psychoanalysis Spirituality, Relationship, and Participation

This book explores how a deeper engagement with the theme of spirituality can challenge and stimulate contemporary psychoanalytic discourse. Bringing relational psychoanalysis into conversation with Jungian and transpersonal debates, the text demonstrates the importance of questioning an implicit reliance on secular norms in the field. With reference to recognition theory and shifting conceptions of enactment, Brown shows that the continued evolution of relational thinking necessitates an embrace of the transpersonal and a move away from the secular viewpoint in analytic theory and practice. With an outlook at the intersection of intrapsychic and intersubjective perspectives, Groundwork for a Transpersonal Psychoanalysis will be a valuable resource to analysts looking to incorporate a more pluralistic approach to clinical work.

PART I. 1. The Spiritual Ground of Psychoanalysis 2. Where do Minds Meet? 3. Being Psychological PART II. 4. Panpsychism and Psychotherapy 5. Imaginal Action 6. Therapeutic Non-Action PART III. 7. Towards a Participatory Psychoanalysis 8. Bridging Worlds

Robin S. Brown, PhD, LP, NCPsyA, is a psychoanalyst in private practice and a member of adjunct faculty for the Counseling and Clinical Psychology Department at Teachers College, Columbia University. He is the author of Psychoanalysis Beyond the End of Metaphysics: Thinking Towards the Post-Relational, and the editor of Re-Encountering Jung: Analytical Psychology and Contemporary Psychoanalysis.