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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

"Eigen's book is for readers who are willing to engage other wills, to storm the ramparts of apathy, prejudice, and self-protection, to come alive in a democratic universe of real personalities."―E. James Lieberman, The Foreword

"Emotional Storm is a remarkable work, a tour de force. Eigen has lucidly, articulately, and eloquently put into unforgettable prose some of the most important clinical themes in contemporary psychoanalysis."―James S. Grotstein, MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine

"Emotional Storm is a remarkable work, a tour de force. Eigen has lucidly, articulately, and eloquently put into unforgettable prose some of the most important clinical themes in contemporary psychoanalysis." ―James S. Grotstein, MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine

"Eigen's latest work is an X-ray of the emotional underbelly of our contemporary world. A passionately moral work written with searing honesty, exemplary self-reflectiveness, and a respect for human complexity."―Jeffrey Rubin, author of The Good Life

MICHAEL EIGEN is in private practice in New York. Author of numerous books, he is also Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology at New York University and a Senior Member of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis.