The Mystery Of Things

Christopher Bollas takes the reader right to the heart of psychotherapy, examining the mysterious aspects of the self that are revealed by the analysis. Free association, the primary method of psychoanalytic enquiry, runs contrary to everything that we are taught is a scientific way to acquire data. Yet it is through using this subversive and apparently illogical method that pathological patterns in thinking can be revealed. In his inimitable and highly readable way, Bollas focuses on the nature and effects of the free associative process and shows how aspects such as mental illness and creative or artistic acts can disclose much about the self.