As the first inaugural event of Shades, we were delighted to invite our audiences to Conversation with Michael Eigen: Changing Forms
Michael Eigen, PhD, is an instructor and supervisor at the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis and the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; the leader of a private seminar on Bion, Winnicott, Lacan, and his own work; and a past editor of The Psychoanalytic Review. He is the author of twenty-seven books and numerous papers.
This was the first event Michael Eigen has ever offered for an Indian audience, and we feel truly honored.
Michael Eigen’s work has been instrumental in teaching us how symptoms are encoded stories and symbols that can teach us something about ourselves, if we are willing to approach them with commitment and courage. The Self is a marvellous kaleidoscope to explore. The invisible ache that one encounters in Eigen’s clinical work as an ‘artist of the invisible’ is perhaps like the jabs of the unborn embryonic parts of the self. He notes, ‘Throughout our lives we are pregnant with our lives, pregnant with unborn selves and psychic babies, including thoughts, feelings, attitudes, modes of experiencing. A pregnancy that never stops, no matter how many births. Gestation does not end.’ (Eigen, 2018)
Close to the idea behind our venture ‘Shades of Becoming‘ is Eigen’s wisdom that we are threatened by the very processes that constitute our psyche. Cultivating capacities to tolerate and work with experience remains an evolutionary challenge. Very much in the spirit of the Sufi poet, Rumi, he invites emotions as guests or messengers from the unconscious, waiting to be recognised and given their due space in our mind. We are always Becoming! His work helps one imagine ways in which we can become partners to ourselves.
In this spirit of celebrating becoming, Eigen kindly agreed to talk to us on the theme of ‘Changing Forms.’
He picked up the discussion from his book ‘Image, Sense, Infinities and Everyday Life.’ (available at https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/image-sense-infinities-and-everyday-life/37604/#tab1) The book foregrounds the value of image and sensing and how they open up infinitude for the human self. Like a poet and mystic, Eigen extends his understanding of images and senses to open up the clinical vista and connect it to everyday life. He touches on the many dimensions of experience- the sense of being born all through life, psychosis, mystical meeting, shame, and his thoughts on James Grotstein, WIlfred Bion, and Marion Milner.
The discussion was facilitated by Dr Shalini Masih and Deepti Sachdev. Shalini is a psychotherapist with a psychoanalytic orientation and writer. She won the Division 39 APA Scholar Award 2020 and was a nominee for the Gradiva Award 2020. Deepti is trained in Psychoanalytic Psychology and Social Anthropology, currently teaching at Ambedkar University Delhi. She is a poet and a follower of the mysteries of love.
We believe that Conversations allow for exchange of ideas, osmosis of insights, and experiential ferment. They are occasions to learn, to reflect on the transformative shifts in the self, and to nourish the ethic of listening and healing.
Shades of Becoming 