Someone Saved My Life Today by Paul Schimmel

Someone Saved My Life Today: Collected Papers on Psychoanalysis, Literature and Philosophy of Paul Schimmel

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“The papers in this book range widely over psychoanalysis, literature and philosophy. I will comment on several that grasped my attention. First ‘Freud’s “selected fact”: His Journey of Mourning.’ By identifying Freud’s personal experiences of mourning, Schimmel is able to shine new light on the fact that Freud was always thinking anew about the distressing sorrow of mourning and the possibility of this being avoided by a fall into melancholy. To my way of thinking, Schimmel in this paper explores the heart of the matter and Freud’s formulation of the similarities and the essential difference between the states of mourning and the states of melancholy. Schimmel wisely looks to the poets to open up the poetic project in two papers: ‘It is Myself that I Remake: W.B. Yeats’ Self Construction in Life and Poetry’ and ‘In My End Is My Beginning: T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and After.’ In particular, he follows Eliot’s journey of a spiritual awakening in the aftermath of his nervous breakdown, Schimmel’s understanding is paramount in realising Eliot’s spiritual journey towards the True Self. The poet and Eliot’s poetry testify to the fact that this is finally a question of Individuation: to become the person we are meant to be. In his paper ‘ “Think Pig! Think!”: Beckett and Bion, Waiting for Godot,’ Schimmel reflects on the twinship between Bion and Beckett in their individual psychological projects. Being a poet of some distinction, one of Schimmel’s great strengths as a psychoanalyst is his poetic sensibility.
Freud knew ‘Psychoanalysis must lay down its arms before the creative writer.’ ” —MICHAEL HARLOW, Alexandra, New Zealand, 19 June 2022: Jungian analytical therapist, poet, editor and recipient of the New Zealand 2018 Prime Minister’s Award for poetry.

PRAISE FOR PAUL SCHIMMEL’S: SIGMUND FREUD’S DISCOVERY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS: CONQUISTADOR AND THINKER (2014): “What place does this book stake out for itself in the vast . . . world of Freud studies? What is distinctive is Schimmel’s generous, intelligent engagement with Freud’s intellectual and emotional struggles, an engagement that is psychoanalytic in the best sense, for it leaves us room to rethink
our own engagements with Freud.”
—Humphrey Morris in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Paul Schimmel

DR. PAUL SCHIMMEL is a psychoanalyst and writer, residing in Sydney Australia. His previous books include: Sigmund Freud’s discovery of Psychoanalysis: Conquistador and Thinker (2014) and Reading the
Water, a collection of poems (2016), in addition to having authored a number of papers. He is also a keen fisherman, and has just published (2022) An “Incompleat” Angler with Europe Books.