Commentaries on the Work of Michael Eigen

Commentaries on the Work of Michael Eigen is an accessible and engaging introduction to this ground-breaking psychoanalytic sage. Through exploration of Eigen’s two key texts, The Psychotic Core and Emotional Storm, the author addresses universal human concerns of madness and the difficulties of our emotional life.

In conversational style, the book mirrors Eigen's chapter-by-chapter approach, focusing on and amplifying important aspects of each work. Bagai follows threads of several key themes from psychoanalysis, philosophy, literature, religious thought, and the humanities, and chapters include discussion of relevant theory from Freud, Jung, Klein, Winnicott, Bion, Buber, and Levinas, among others. Rather than a comprehensive or systematic exegesis of Eigen's work, Bagai’s commentary expands nodal aspects, illuminating and probing seminal themes and ideas. Through clinical case examples, the author explores intertwining of mind and body, self and the other using an array of carefully selected quotes from Eigen's kaleidoscopic vision.

Commentaries on the Work of Michael Eigen will be essential reading for psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, as well as anyone seeking a greater understanding of Eigen’s work.

Robin Bagai, Psy.D. is a clinical psychologist in Portland, Oregon, who has been practicing psychoanalytic psychotherapy for over 35 years. His work has been published in two edited collections: The Spiritual Psyche in Psychotherapy: Mysticism, Intersubjectivity, and Psychoanalysis; and Healing, Rebirth, and The Work of Michael Eigen (both Routledge). Dr. Bagai has been leading in-person and international seminars on over a dozen of Michael Eigen’s books since 2014.