POETRY, METAPHOR AND THE PSYCHOANALYTIC IMAGINATION. Instructor: Peter Schou, PhD. ICP, Fall 2012
Description: In a recent interview on NPR, the American poet Peter Gizzi said that poetry for him is most fundamentally about listening. This course is based on the idea that reading and listening to poetry can teach us about the process of listening to our patients and our use of metaphor and imagination in understanding what they tell us. We will read a number of poems and discuss the experience of making sense of them as a way of exploring the process of listening to and making sense of what patients tell us and what we tell them in response. In each class we will read and discuss three or four poems that touch on areas of particular interest to clinical work, such as memory, loss, mind/body, metaphor and the relationship between verbal and non-verbal domains. We will review articles from the psychoanalytic literature that address specifically the relationship between poetry and psychoanalysis and the experience of reading poetry. Psychoanalysis and poetry share the challenge of putting words to experiences that seem to fall outside what can be verbalized. Both endeavors involve the creative use of imagination to meet that challenge. Using the shared experience of the selected poems, we will review readings that address the larger issues of metaphor and imagination and their use in clinical work. No particular background in poetry or literature is required to participate in the course. The selected poems are mostly by historically recent poets and some of them may seem “difficult” at first glance. The emphasis will be on what each poem does or does not do for us, without any preconceived notions of what a particular poem is about. The course does not have a primary clinical focus, but the use of clinical experiences and vignettes will be an important component of the course, and many of the articles include a treatment perspective. With regard to the poems, I strongly suggest that you read them, preferably aloud, for yourself before delving into the articles that provide readings of them. Let them work on you before you open yourself to how others experience them. (PEP) means that the article is available on PEP
Session 1: Introduction. We will start by viewing several segments from the DVD accompanying An Invitation to Poetry (2004) edited by Robert Pinsky and Maggie Dietz. The DVD features participants in the Favorite Poems Project reading and talking about their favorite poems. We will read poems by Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens, and then discuss the article by Thomas Ogden. Poems: Robert Frost: Never Again Would Bird’s Song Be the Same (The Poetry of Robert Frost, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, NY, 1967) Wallace Stevens: The Snowman (Wallace Stevens: Poems Collected by John Burnside, Faber and Faber, London 2008) Ogden, T.H. (1998). A Question of Voice in Poetry and Psychoanalysis. Psychoanal Q., 67:426-448. (PEP) Session 2: Poetry and Psychoanalysis. We will start with the poem by Frost and then discuss the article by Ogden where he uses his reading of the poem to talk about the experience of listening to a poem and listening to a patient. Alice Jones is a poet and psychoanalyst. Her article includes a reading of the poem “Pearl” by James Merrill. Poems: Robert Frost: Acquainted with the Night (The Poetry of Robert Frost) Ogden, T.H. (1999). ‘The Music of What Happens’ in Poetry and Psychoanalysis. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 80:979-994. (PEP) Jones, A. (1997), Experiencing language: Some thoughts on poetry and psychoanalysis. Psychoanal. Q., 66: 683-703. (PEP) Session 3: Metaphor and Memory 1 The poems by Heaney and the Scottish poet Robin Robertson articulate feelings of loss and mourning from very different angles. The brief piece by Mark Doty provides a summary of some of the functions of metaphor, a topic thatwe will explore in more detail in the next session. Poems: Seamus Heaney: Three poems from Clearances. (Seamus Heaney: Opened Ground, Farrrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1998) Robin Robertson: Hammersmith Winter (The Wrecking Light, Mariner Books, NY, 2011)
Ogden, T.H. (2001). An Elegy, a Love Song, and a Lullaby. Psychoanal. Dial., 11:293311. (PEP) M.Doty (2010): Speaking in Figures. In : M.Doty: The Art of Description, World Into Word. Graywolf Press, Minneapolis MN, 2010, p.75-82.
Session 4: Metaphor and Memory 2 Poems: Thomas Transtromer: The Stones (The Great Enigma, New Directions Books, NY 2006) Thomas Transtromer: Memories Look at Me (The Great Enigma) Elizabeth Bishop: In the Waiting Room (The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry, Columbia University Press, NY 1995). Adrienne Rich: Diving Into the Wreck (The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry). Lichtenberg, J.D. (2009). The Clinical Power of Metaphoric Experience. Psychoanal. Inq., 29:48-57. Lakoff G. and .Johnson M.: Metaphors We Live By, The University of Chicago Press, 1980, p. 3-40. Modell, A.H. (2009). Metaphor—The Bridge Between Feelings And Knowledge. Psychoanal. Inq., 29:6-11. Session 5: Words and Wordlessness/Mind and Body The poems by Merwin and Stevenson thematise the enigmatic relationship between words and what lies beyond words. Stern’s article articulates a way of thinking about this relationship within the clinical setting. Adam Phillips’ essay is more generally about the relationship between poetry and psychoanalysis with a particular focus on the tendency among psychoanalysts, starting with Freud, to idealize poets and poetry which Phillips sees as a need to seek reassurance from the poets that words can matter. Note his reference to Keats’ idea of negative capability, which plays a role in Bion’s thinking. Poems: W.S. Merwin: By the Avenue, The Shadow of Sirius, Cooper Canyon, Fort Townsend, 2009 W. S. Merwin: Note, The Shadow of Sirius. Anne Stevenson: The Spirit Is Too Blunt an Instrument, The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry, Columbia University Press, NY, 1995. D.B Stern (2002). Words and Wordlessness in the Psychoanalytic Situation. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 50:221-247. (PEP) Adam Phillips (2001): Poetry and Psychoanalysis, in: Promises, Promises, Essays on Psychoanalysis and Literature, Baisc Books, NY, p.1-34.
Session 6: A Brief History of Illusion and Imagination in (British Middle School) Psychoanalysis. Much of current psychoanalytic thinking about imagination and illusion derives from Winnicott’s writing. The first article by Turner situates Winnicott and the notion of illusion within a larger cultural and historical context. The second article by Turner starts with a review of the section of Wordsworth’s “Immortality Ode” where he develops the theme of the child being the “father of the man.” Turner draws a line between this paradox as developed by Wordsworth and Winnicott’s thinking about paradox and play. The article covers a wide range of topics. If you are pressed for time, skip the “Conclusion”section and read/re-read Winnicott’s Playing and Reality, in particular “Playing, A Theoretical Statemen”t and” Creativity and Its Origins.” Turner, J.F. (2002). A Brief History of Illusion. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 83:1063-1082. (PEP) Turner, J. (1988). Wordsworth and Winnicott in the Area of Play. Int. Rev. Psycho-Anal., 15:481-496. (PEP) Session 7: Imagination in the Clinical Setting Poem: A.R. Ammons: Corsons Inlet, The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry, Columbia University Press, NY, 1995.
For the final session, we will read A.R.Ammons’ poem Corsons Inlet in which he describes a walk along the New Jersey shore. In my reading, the poem captures the sense of indeterminancy, connectedness, non-linearity and openness that guides much of contemporary psychoanalytic thinking. We will read articles that focus on clinical aspects of imagination. Steven Cooper’s article describes his particular experience and use of reverie. His idea of the ethical imagination refers to “the analyst’s modes of thinking about various forms of enactment of the unconscious transference-countertransference or psychical entanglement between patient and analyst.” Is your use of imagination similar to or different from Cooper’s? Lauren Levine’s article is about the complex meanings that are evoked when a patient shares or gives the therapist a work of imagination. Cooper, S.H. (2008): Privacy, Reverie, and the Analyst's Ethical Imagination. Psychoanal Q., 77:1045-1073. (PEP) L.Levine (2012): Into Thin Air: The Co-Construction of Shame, Recognition and Creativity in An Analytic Process, Psychoanalytic Dial., Vol. 22, P.456-471. P. Ringstrom (2012): Commentary on Paper by Lauren Levine, Psyhoanalytic Dial, Vol. 22, 478-488.
