The Emergence of Analytic Oneness

'In her beautifully written book, The Emergence of Analytic Oneness: Into the Heart of Psychoanalysis, Ofra Eshel offers a radical change in the way we conceive of the analytic endeavor, a change that opens new possibilities for everyone engaged in the life-long process of becoming a psychotherapist. She discusses and clinically illustrates what it is to be there with the patient so thoroughly that a new subjective entity and depth of experiencing emerges, an experiential process she calls withnessing. The book is a tour de force of cutting-edge psychoanalytic theory and practice, which is particularly valuable in work with severely disturbed patients.'-Thomas Ogden, author of Reclaiming Unlived Life and Creative Readings: Essays on Seminal Analytic Works 'This is a very special book you will not want to miss. If you ever wanted to learn more about psychoanalysis and psychotherapy or experience fuller appreciation of how they work, this book serves as a fusion of Virgil and Beatrice as guides. Just as you think you can't go any further, more opens, wave after wave of psychic vision and reality. Depth psychology transforms as you read and your sense of being shifts with it. Psychoanalysis enters a new age, a further age. Whatever your viewpoint or practice, you will appreciate many new beginnings as windows of experience appear out of nowhere and beg you to open them.'-Michael Eigen, Ph.D., author of The Challenge of Being Human and Contact with the Depths 'This comprehensive work reflects Dr. Ofra Eshel's many years of clinical focus on the need for a deep sense of oneness with the patient, which she feels is a paradigm shift in psychoanalysis brought about by Winnicott's work and the late work of Bion. The book includes powerful clinical descriptions of psychoanalytic work with severe early loss and trauma, breakdowns of the emerging self, and Black Holes in the interpersonal psychic space. The Emergence of Analytic Oneness: Into the Heart of Psychoanalysis, stands out in its clear description of Bion's idea of at-one-ment with the patient, and the necessity of accompanying the patient into these painful depths. This scholarly book will speak to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists interested in learning about the early frontiers of the self, and Eshel's openness to these painful states of mind is an important guide to the kind of work necessary in psychoanalysis of the 21st century.'-Annie Reiner, author, Bion And Being: Passion and the Creative Mind; Of Things Invisible to Mortal Sight: Celebrating the Work of James S. Grotstein (Editor), Los Angeles 'In her beautifully written book, The Emergence of Analytic Oneness: Into the Heart of Psychoanalysis, Ofra Eshel offers a radical change in the way we conceive of the analytic endeavor, a change that opens new possibilities for everyone engaged in the life-long process of becoming a psychotherapist. She discusses and clinically illustrates what it is to be there with the patient so thoroughly that a new subjective entity and depth of experiencing emerges, an experiential process she calls withnessing. The book is a tour de force of cutting-edge psychoanalytic theory and practice, which is particularly valuable in work with severely disturbed patients.'-Thomas Ogden, author of Reclaiming Unlived Life and Creative Readings: Essays on Seminal Analytic Works 'This is a very special book you will not want to miss. If you ever wanted to learn more about psychoanalysis and psychotherapy or experience fuller appreciation of how they work, this book serves as a fusion of Virgil and Beatrice as guides. Just as you think you can't go any further, more opens, wave after wave of psychic vision and reality. Depth psychology transforms as you read and your sense of being shifts with it. Psychoanalysis enters a new age, a further age. Whatever your viewpoint or practice, you will appreciate many new beginnings as windows of experience appear out of nowhere and beg you to open them.'-Michael Eigen, Ph.D., author of The Challenge of Being Human and Contact with the Depths 'This comprehensive work reflects Dr. Ofra Eshel's many years of clinical focus on the need for a deep sense of oneness with the patient, which she feels is a paradigm shift in psychoanalysis brought about by Winnicott's work and the late work of Bion. The book includes powerful clinical descriptions of psychoanalytic work with severe early loss and trauma, breakdowns of the emerging self, and Black Holes in the interpersonal psychic space. The Emergence of Analytic Oneness: Into the Heart of Psychoanalysis, stands out in its clear description of Bion's idea of at-one-ment with the patient, and the necessity of accompanying the patient into these painful depths. This scholarly book will speak to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists interested in learning about the early frontiers of the self, and Eshel's openness to these painful states of mind is an important guide to the kind of work necessary in psychoanalysis of the 21st century.'-Annie Reiner, author, Bion And Being: Passion and the Creative Mind; Of Things Invisible to Mortal Sight: Celebrating the Work of James S. Grotstein (Editor), Los Angeles Reading Eshel is challenging and thought-provoking. She offers deeply personal descriptions of clinical experiences, including with extremely troubled patients, as well concise theoretical explorations culminating in a broadly sketched proposal for a paradigm shift in psychoanalytic theory and technique. [...] Eshel describes how the patient suffers, how the analyst must come to suffer, and so the reader must risk suffering too. That is perhaps a necessary inevitability because Eshel, first and foremost, wants to describe experience. -Jeffrey L. Eaton, Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, Seattle. To read this review in full please see the following: Jeffrey L. Eaton (2021) The emergence of analytic oneness: into the heart of psychoanalysis, The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 102:1, 209-212, DOI: 10.1080/00207578.2020.1805620.