Feeling Matters

by Michael Eigen

As long as feelings are second-class citizens, people will be second class citizens. Experience is an endangered species. An important function of psychotherapy is to make time for experiencing. Psychic taste buds really exist and rarely rest. They feed us each other, gauge states of being, states of spirit. We taste each other's feelings and intentions. An important aim of this book is to build psychic taste buds, not put them down or pretend they don't exist. A positive feeling runs through this book, a love of life, an affirmation. Yet we discover many feel they do not have an impact. A sense of helplessness and impotence in face of awesome forces seems to be increasing. Health is a broad term with many dark threads. A creeping annihilating sense varies from pockets we try not to notice to soul murder that must be addressed. Yet individuals do try, in their private struggles and in the larger social sphere.

Genres: Psychoanalysis

Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Jacob · Rating 2 out of 5]

it's good for what it is, but what it is is the worked-over journal of a singular psychoanalytic voice on the American scene. It's decidedly not "smart-and-clear" and disappointed in its lack of rigor. Can't we be both subjective and rigorous?

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book, and there were moments when I really liked it.

From what I understand, this is one of his more approachable books -- less rigorous on purpose. He explores how people communicate with feelings, and he brings a rare sensitivity to this realm.

I was moved by how he brought his patients to life on the page, and I wondered if he was a frustrated novelist. I also liked how he explored his relationships with his patients -- about how their lives touched his.

He mentioned that two or three of the patients profiled in this book found him because of his writings, and I wondered if some of his patients hope to find themselves in one of his books one day. This seemed as though it was handled awkwardly in this book.

Anyone who hates therapy would hate this book. I'm a lay-person who has had a lot of therapy and has studied a lot of theory, and I found it very interesting and refreshing.