The Dove that Returns, the Dove that Vanishes
An Independent-tradition reflection on the analyst's stance.
Few books that I know are as panoramic, kaleidoscopic, dialectically based and aphoristic as this work.
Parsons treats a contradiction at the centre of analytic work: the discipline asks for subjective, intuitive presence and for systematic theory and technique at once, and neither side can be surrendered without loss. Rather than resolving the tension, he argues that the analyst's task is to hold it open, and that clinical knowledge becomes reliable precisely through the analyst's personal engagement with the patient.
The chapters move outward from the consulting room into oriental martial arts, Greek tragedy, Constable's landscapes, and Winnicott's account of creativity, then return to test each against clinical material. Close readings of Marion Milner and John Klauber show two Independent analysts finding a personal form for their work.
For the clinician, the book offers a way of thinking about the setting, about play, and about how an analyst comes to occupy a stance that is genuinely their own rather than borrowed from a school.
About the author
Michael Parsons
Michael Parsons is a British psychoanalyst working in the Independent tradition. He is a training analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society, where he is a Distinguished Fellow, and a member of the French Psychoanalytic Association. He qualified as a psychoanalyst in 1982 and practised in London. His books include The Dove that Returns, the Dove that Vanishes: Paradox and Creativity in Psychoanalysis (2000) and Living Psychoanalysis: From Theory to Experience (2014). His writing addresses the analytic setting, listening, and creativity.
Details
- 2000
- Routledge
- Routledge
- 240
- 9780415211826