Creative Engagement in Psychoanalytic Practice

'Creative Engagement in Clinical Psychoanalytic Practice is a brilliant example of what is being called the "ontological" turn in psychoanalysis. Henry Markman, in a series of powerful clinically focused papers, shows how the transformation in the analyst, the risk to be opened and altered by emotional contact with an analysand, has extraordinary clinical potential and power. It is not what we know, it is what we allow ourselves to experience. This is psychoanalysis, lived in body and mind, in fantasy and in subtle unconscious transmissions across the analytic dyad. Brave and inspiring'.

Adrienne Harris, NYU and the New School for Social Research

'Henry Markman offers psychoanalysts a unique gift. Courageously, with remarkable generosity, openness, and sensitivity, he recounts his personal journey of becoming and being an analyst. This is a crucial contribution to finding ways to treat traumatized states in our patients. In multiple vignettes Markman vividly illustrates his intimate mutual and personal creative engagement, unfolding his unique and never-ending search for authentic involvement with the patient, without, for a moment, relinquishing his theoretical knowledge and analytic responsibility. It is a moving account of the rich vitality of the analyst's work. This book is fearlessly creative, profoundly important'.

Hayuta Gurevich, Israeli Psychoanalytic Society

'Henry Markman conceives the analyst's participation as a creative form of companionship. He finds the way to reach his patients' living core, engaging creatively the Body-Mind and exploring embodied participation as unique to each analytic dyad. Inspired by different theoretical sources like Ferenczi, Winnicott, and the South American Field theorists, Creative Engagement in Psychoanalytic Practice introduces the reader, with a personal and direct style, to the true spontaneous spirit of contemporary psychoanalysis. This book is essential reading for all the professionals who consider making emotional contact with the patient an irreplaceable priority'.

Riccardo Lombardi, Italian Psychoanalytic Society