Emotional Storm

The prolific writer of eight previous books, seven of them released in the last eight years, Eigen here again records his most intimate associations and feelings, while educating the reader on various renowned writers and thinkers, such as W.R. Bion, Freud, Wittgenstein, Blake, Eugenio Montale, Shakespeare, Flannery O'Connor and others. Eigen believes in trauma's creative force, that the darkest parts of our experience and selves, if accepted and held, rather than avoided, can open us up and lead to rebirth. Referencing the Bible, especially the story of Abraham and Isaac, Eigen sheds light on the profound experience of guilt and rage, power and vulnerability. The psychoanalyst also reveals many of his own and his patients' most dramatic hours, and they can be excruciating. Hate, murder, violence, envy, death and helplessness permeate our experience, he argues, and dream analysis unleashes vital energy through unlocking the truth. ""We survive as partially murdered beings,"" he writes at one point. Yet, ""if things go well enough, we help each other just by being together, even if being together is part of the difficulty."" Elaborating on the theory that parents and children psychically annihilate each other, he states, ""We don't know what we're doing (as Jesus noted, a basis for forgiveness)."" Increasingly maniacal in character, Eigen's dissertation on death and suffering thankfully yields to the centrifugal force of his associations, ultimately sustaining a moving dialogue with the reader. Dedicated to ""storm survivors, storm transformers and those who live and work in storm's heart,"" Eigen's latest work succeeds as a spiritual probe, a book to dip into if one is inclined toward complex, deepening journeys. A more optimistic book might not be as freeing.