Leading psychotherapist offers compelling insights into the vital force of ecstasy.
In this provocative and insightful new book, psychologist Michael Eigen presents a phenomenology of ecstatic states. Ecstasy is a force to be reckoned with — sometimes creative, sometimes destructive. Eigen argues that there is an ecstasy that comes through the ever-necessary confrontation of our psychic cores with suffering and degradation, and he shows that when we can learn to be present with these feelings, they add to the tone and texture of our lives, and help us to feel real.
The author draws heavily on autobiographical material, psychotherapy sessions, case studies and psychoanalytic thinking, along with literary and biblical sources, demonstrating his reputation as one of the leading creative thinkers among psychotherapists in America. The result is an extremely intelligent, lyrical work, which succeeds in being theoretically well-informed without being pedantic. Written as a subjective first-hand account, Ecstasy will appeal to psychotherapists as well as to readers and students interested in spirituality and philosophy.
Preface
Ecstasy
Notes and References
Michael Eigen is a psychologist and psychoanalyst. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology at New York University, and author of a number of books, including Toxic Nourishment (1999), The Psychoanalytic Mystic (1998), and Psychic Deadness (1996).
""Ecstasy is an incredible book, thoroughly significant, and marvelously readable. It is rare that psychoanalysts tackle questions of spirituality, and to do so in such a thoughtful, intelligent, fearless, daring and thought-provoking way makes this book seminal.""
~Mark Epstein, author of Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective
"Ecstasy is an incredible book, thoroughly significant, and marvelously readable. It is rare that psychoanalysts tackle questions of spirituality, and to do so in such a thoughtful, intelligent, fearless, daring and thought-provoking way makes this book seminal."
~Mark Epstein, author of Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective