Cracking Up: The Work of Unconscious Experience

Rating:
Summary: Cracking Up Isn't What You Think
Review: Artists, intellectuals, and analysts alike, will find that Cracking Up: The Work of Unconscious Experience adds new depth and dimension to the creative process. Over the past decade Christopher Bollas' writing has been striking for it's exploration into the workings of the unconscious, particularly the driving forces of creativity and it's opposite, destruction. Bollas revisits Freud's notion of unconscious communication, tackling the difficult question: how can that which is unconscious and by definition unknowable, be conveyed and received within the conscious realm? He delves into the ways in which a `separate sense' of self is formed, the mysteries of the uncanny and the `unthought known.'

Bollas's original concept of `psychic genera,' which he distinguishes from psychic trauma, is integral to a psychoanalysis which derives from models of health as well as psychopathology. He posits that Freud's method of dream analysis -- association and interpretation -- may be used as a paradigm for understanding the intra-psychic processes which result in`unconscious freedom,' or the ability to creatively use objects and environment. The unconscious mechanism by which such `genera' are produced involves a necessary dialectic between condensation and dissemination in the taking in of data from the environment . . .

In addition, Bollas in Cracking Up, describes a psyche which, when overwhelmed by trauma, is restricted or `blanked out,' thus foreclosing the possibility of authentic self expression and vital object relationships. Bollas' descriptions of `psychic genera' and psychic trauma provide the clinician a new means of assessing diagnoses as well as a patient's capacity for psychoanalysis. His focused thinking renews the significance of the free-associative method and sheds new light on certain valuable clinical instruments such as: empathy, intuition, and unconscious communication in the therapeutic exchange.

Rating:
Summary: Cracking Up Isn't What You Think
Review: Artists, intellectuals, and analysts alike, will find that Cracking Up: The Work of Unconscious Experience adds new depth and dimension to the creative process. Over the past decade Christopher Bollas' writing has been striking for it's exploration into the workings of the unconscious, particularly the driving forces of creativity and it's opposite, destruction. Bollas revisits Freud's notion of unconscious communication, tackling the difficult question: how can that which is unconscious and by definition unknowable, be conveyed and received within the conscious realm? He delves into the ways in which a 'separate sense' of self is formed, the mysteries of the uncanny and the 'unthought known.'

Bollas's original concept of 'psychic genera,' which he distinguishes from psychic trauma, is integral to a psychoanalysis which derives from models of health as well as psychopathology. He posits that Freud's method of dream analysis -- association and interpretation -- may be used as a paradigm for understanding the intra-psychic processes which result in'unconscious freedom,' or the ability to creatively use objects and environment. The unconscious mechanism by which such 'genera' are produced involves a necessary dialectic between condensation and dissemination in the taking in of data from the environment . . .

In addition, Bollas in Cracking Up, describes a psyche which, when overwhelmed by trauma, is restricted or 'blanked out,' thus foreclosing the possibility of authentic self expression and vital object relationships. Bollas' descriptions of 'psychic genera' and psychic trauma provide the clinician a new means of assessing diagnoses as well as a patient's capacity for psychoanalysis. His focused thinking renews the significance of the free-associative method and sheds new light on certain valuable clinical instruments such as: empathy, intuition, and unconscious communication in the therapeutic exchange.