The Sensitive Self

by Michael Eigen

Book Overview

Compelling insights into the role of emotional sensitivity.

Winner of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis' (NAAC) Gradiva Award for Interpretation and Psychoanalysis (2005)

We are all sensitive beings, both physically and emotionally. What do we do with our sensitivity? How much of our sensitivity can we take? How do we become partners with our sensitivity in ways that make life worthwhile?...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0819566853
• ISBN13: 9780819566850
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 18 years and up

Customer Reviews

The Soul Guide

A problem I find in reading some analytical books is- primarily they have so much of a language barrier to me-a lay person. Yet as I have grappled with some of those books and the juxtaposition of love of content with parallel reading of a 'Dictionary of Difficult Analytical Words' (if one existed!) In the process losing much of the joy of flow.(None of which is required here) More than a handful have tried to reach the wider community in such works. However, the writer/analyst who has truly entered the patient's hopes, fears, dreams with the patient is the one whose writing bears the truth in reading. Michael Eigen is one such writer. He seeks to clarify and illuminate for me and as I read his words I become as much part of the emotional fabric of his stories as he the analyst and in turn-his patients. His feelings toward his patients make me wish if I were in need of analysis(and many might say I am) that I would not hesitate to work with him. To entrust him as the guide beneath the layers to the most sacred spot- the soul. How apposite is the title in light of his role.... His words set the readers mind along a feeling pathway. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in this journey we call life. He has such a simple way with such complex subjects and words that unfold a story not soon forgotten. His writings remind me of my homeland in Ireland where these brilliant narrators would show up and draw chairs about the fireside in a circle of hope.....there was an anticipation and a longing to hear those stories...not so much that they were unique but the way they were told and long before they opened their mouths to allow the words to reach one's ears. In his books its a similiar feeling, to open and read and know one will come away far, far more enriched by his words. I have just ordered two more books.