Description
Book Synopsis‘Any Psychoanalyst must find his own way and come upon well-known and well-established theories through experiences of his own realisations.’ So says W. R. Bion in his Commentary in Second Thoughts. In First Thoughts, Jayne Hankinson does just this. She presents a personal account of her own ‘realisations’ and discoveries during an attempt to give thought to ‘beginnings’. She explores the meaning and relevance of creation myths, leading to a deep realisation of how they unconsciously represent and shape much of our lives, even today. This exploration meanders through the Garden of Eden, leaving with a realisation that there is an ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’ aspect in dynamic tension within each of our minds.
This serpentine journey becomes a ‘hermeneutic loop’ in which dissatisfaction with parts of psychoanalytic theory leads to an engagement in the phenomena of beginnings and a consequent reappraisal and reinterpretation, via a closer look at Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott, and Wilfred Bion to formulate an understanding of what their ‘first thoughts’ may be. The book ends with the author’s own creation myth reshaped and a deeper awareness of how important ‘beginnings’ are.
Table of ContentsA tribute to Chris Mawson
Part I
Dissatisfaction
1. My beginning
2. Creation myths
3. Presence and absence
4. The dispute
5. The chaos or the word
6. The binding of Hans
7. Circularity and straight lines
8 Initial thoughts
Part II
Engaging in the phenomenon
9. In the beginning
10. The garden
11. Conception stories
12. Vicissitudes of penetration
13. Magical structures
14. Wholeness
15. Tentative thoughts
Part III
Reappraisal
16. Freud’s first thoughts
17. Klein’s first thoughts
18. Winnicott’s first thoughts
19. Bion’s first thoughts
20. Gathered thoughts
Part IV
Reformulation
21. Modus vivendi
22. An elemental structure
23. Narcissism
24. Threads
25. To myth or not to myth
26. Final thoughts
References
Acknowledgements
About the author
