The theory of unformulated experience is an interpersonal/relational conception of unconscious process. The idea is that unconscious content is not fully formed, merely awaiting discovery, but is instead better understood as potential experience—a vaguely organized, primitive, global, non-ideational, affective state. In the past, the formulation of experience was most commonly understood as verbal articulation. That was the perspective Donnel B. Stern took in 1997 in his first book, Unformulated Experience: From Dissociation to Imagination in Psychoanalysis. In this new book, Stern recognizes that we need to theorize the formulation of nonverbal experience, as well. Using new concepts of the "acceptance" and "use" of experience that "feels like me," Stern argues for a wider conception of "meaningfulness." Some formulated experience is verbal ("articulation"), but other formulations are nonverbal ("realization"). Demonstrating how this can be so is at the heart of this book. Stern then goes on to house this entire set of ideas in the commodious conception of language offered by Charles Taylor, Gadamer, and Merleau-Ponty. The Infinity of the Unsaid offers an expansion of the theory of unformulated experience that has important implications for clinical thinking and practice; it will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists across all schools of thought.

In this powerful and wonderfully accessible meditation on psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, and social constructivism, Donnel Stern explores the relationship between two fundamental kinds of experience: explicit verbal reflection and "unformulated experience," or experience we have not yet reflected on and put into words. Stern is especially concerned with the process by which we come to formulate the unformulated. It is not an instrumental task, he holds, but one that requires openness and curiosity; the result of the process is not accuracy alone, but experience that is deeply felt and fully imagined. Stern's sense of explicit verbal experience as continuously constructed and emergent leads to a central dialectic at the heart of his work: that between curiosity and imagination, on one hand, and dissociation and unthinking acceptance of the familiar on the other. The goal of psychoanalytic work, he holds, is the freedom to be curious, whereas defense signifies the denial of this freedom. We defend against our fear of what we would think, that is, if we allowed ourselves the freedom to think it. Stern also shows how the unconscious itself can be reconceptualized hermeneutically, and he goes on to explore the implications of this viewpoint on interpretation and countertransference. He is especially persuasive in showing how the interpersonal field, which is continuously in flux, limits the experience that it is possible for participants to reflect on. Thus it is that analyst and patient are together "caught in the grip of the field," often unable to see the kind of relatedness in which they are mutually involved. A brilliant demonstration of the clinical consequentiality of hermeneutic thinking, Unformulated Experience bears out Stern's belief that psychoanalysis is as much about the revelation of the new in experience as it is about the discovery of the old

Building on the innovative work of Unformulated Experience, Donnel B. Stern continues his exploration of the creation of meaning in clinical psychoanalysis with Partners in Thought. The chapters in this fascinating book are undergirded by the concept that the meanings which arise from unformulated experience are catalyzed by the states of relatedness in which the meanings emerge. In hermeneutic terms, what takes place in the consulting room is a particular kind of conversation, one in which patient and analyst serve as one another’s partner in thought, an emotionally responsive witness to the other’s experience. Enactment, which Stern theorizes as the interpersonalization of dissociation, interrupts this crucial kind of exchange, and the eventual breach of enactments frees analyst and patient to resume it. Later chapters compare his views to the ideas of others, considering mentalization theory and the work of the Boston Change Process Study Group. Approaching the link between dissociation and enactment via hermeneutics, metaphor, and narrative, among other perspectives, Stern weaves an experience-near theory of psychoanalytic relatedness that illuminates dilemmas clinicians find themselves in every day. Full of clinical illustrations showing how Stern works with dissociation and enactment, Partners in Thought is destined to take its place beside Unformulated Experience as a major contribution to the psychoanalytic literature.

Published in German during the last 15 years, the 13 essays in this volume provide readers with valuable knowledge of the much discussed theme of hermeneutics today. Gadamer was an early student of Martin Heidegger and has been a lifelong friend and interpreter. These essays are an outgrowth of Gadamer's Truth and Method. They can be understood, however, independently of it. Gadamer's standpoint is a blend of Hegel's and Heidegger's, with his own independent development in part. The book contains a long and highly competent introduction by the editor, David E. Linge, who has translated most of the essays. - Choice, on back cover.

MFOUT is a body of literature that will take readers through a journey of raw and relatable emotions during times of heartbreak, trauma, and self discovery. This collection of poems, and reflections are brought to you by a vulnerable spirit that has bloomed from the ugly mud into a radiant soulflower.

Reflections on how the idea of catalogs has changed over the centuries and how, from one period to another, it has expressed the spirit of the times. Companion to the author's History of beauty and On ugliness.

In this USA Today bestselling debut novel, Neil Abramson explores the beauty and redemptive power of human-animal relationships and the true meaning of communication in all of its diverse forms. As a veterinarian, Helena was required to choose when to end the lives of the terminally ill animals in her care. Now that she has died, she is afraid to face them and finally admit to herself that her thirty-seven years of life were meaningless, error-ridden, and forgettable. So Helena lingers, a silent observer haunted by the life she left behind-her shattered attorney husband, David; her houseful of damaged but beloved animals; and her final project, Cindy, a chimpanzee trained to use sign language who may be able to unlock the mysteries of animal communication and consciousness. When Cindy is scheduled for a research experiment that will undoubtedly take her life, David must call upon everything he has learned from Helena to save her. In the explosive courtroom drama that follows, all the threads of Helena's life entwine and tear as Helena and David confront their mistakes, grief, and loss and discover what it really means to be human. Abramson's next novel, JUST LIFE, published in May 2016.

Sometimes we have trouble saying what we feel deep inside, because the thoughts are too heavy. Too sad., perhaps, a little too dark. We always get told to shake it off, just be happy. But no one explains to us what it means to be happy or why we can't stop and acknowledge those other feelings and try to understand ourselves from that point of view? All it does is make us lost and confused. This is for the people who can't speak those thoughts, who always get told to just be happy, this is for the lost souls, this is for anyone who feels like no one else can relate to them. It is okay to be sad, be lost, confused, burnt out, frustrated. Embrace that part of you. It's who you are. It's great being positive and sunshine. But you're human, it's okay to let go. You have a right to feel sad, to feel even depressed, to feel broke. There's nothing wrong with that. My only advice is don't let the darkness become you, only embrace it. If you're a lost soul. These poems are for you.

This book provides the context and tools to create knowledge via a proven process of inquiry, questions, and conversation. It introduces the theoretical background to explain why, as well as the practical hands-on skills and processes to demonstrate how, to surface tacit knowledge—that which we know but which we have not yet made explicit in conversation, e.g., background, education, and experience—and create new knowledge in collaboration with colleagues. In the information economy, knowledge is an asset and a currency. The creation of new knowledge, therefore, enhances an organization's position in the marketplace. How do we create new knowledge? We don't do it by learning what is already known. The learning organization is already passé. Instead, we do it by inquirinq, which is a method of bringing tacit knowledge to the forefront of awareneness. The inquiring organization surfaces tacit knowledge, which is what its employees bring to the table—their background, education, experience, character, and judgment—and transforms that knowledge into new, explicit knowledge that can be transferred from one employee to another through conversation. That is true knowledge creation, and this book provides the tools, skills, techniques, and processes for executives and professionals in any field to accomplish this task in today's fluid environment.

The unsettling context of late modernity, a terrain of an infinite fragmentation of life, poses a challenge to Christianity to rearticulate its defining doctrine of the Trinity. Christianity's initial messianic weakness_in that its canonical writings attest to a universal message of redemption for the victims of Empire_was subverted into the strong theology of the Empire. This book demonstrates that Trinitarian discourse was profoundly implicated in this development as it essentially absorbed and took the bite out of the messianic language of the early Christian movement. Zathureczky proposes a retrieval of the messianic discourse of Christianity by way of recapturing its redemptive weakness. Relying on an elective affinity between Walter Benjamin's messianism and JYrgen Moltmann Trinitarianism, he attempts to recapture the 'weakness' and fragility of the language of the initial messianic impulse of the Christian community. The resulting 'weak' Trinitarianism retains the basic character of Christianity as a Trinitarian faith, but now Trinitarian discourse about God is simultaneously messianic discourse, a language that is attuned to give voice to the damaged lives and alienating conditions of our contemporary context.