Knafo - Dancing with the unconscious : the art of psychoanalysis and the psychoanalysis of art

Dancing with
the Unconscious

Psychoanalysis in a New Key Book Series
Volume 14

PSYCHOANALYSIS IN A NEW KEY BOOK SERIES

DONNEL STERN

Series Editor

When music is played in a new key, the melody does not change, but the notes that make up the composition do change in the context of continuity, continuity that perseveres through change. Psychoanalysis in a New Key publishes books that share the aims psychoanalysts have always had, but that approach them differently. The books in the series are not expected to advance any particular theoretical agenda, although to this date most have been written by analysts from the Interpersonal and Relational orientations.

The most important contribution of a psychoanalytic book is the communication of something that nudges the reader's grasp of clinical theory and practice in an unexpected direction. Psychoanalysis in a New Key creates a deliberate focus on innovative and unsettling clinical thinking. Because that kind of thinking is encouraged by exploration of the sometimes surprising contributions to psychoanalysis of ideas and findings from other fields, Psychoanalysis in a New Key particularly encourages interdisciplinary studies. Books in the series have married psychoanalysis with dissociation, trauma theory, sociology, and criminology. The series is open to the consideration of studies examining the relationship between psychoanalysis and any other fieldfor instance, biology, literary and art criticism, philosophy, systems theory, anthropology, and political theory.

But innovation also takes place within the boundaries of psychoanalysis, and Psychoanalysis in a New Key therefore also presents work that reformulates thought and practice without leaving the precincts of the field. Books in the series focus, for example, on the significance of personal values in psychoanalytic practice, on the complex interrelationship between the analyst's clinical work and personal life, on the consequences for the clinical situation when patient and analyst are from different cultures, and on the need for psychoanalysts to accept the degree to which they knowingly satisfy their own wishes during treatment hours, often to the patient's detriment.

PSYCHOANALYSIS IN A NEW KEY BOOK SERIES

DONNEL STERN

Series Editor

Dancing with
the Unconscious

The Art of Psychoanalysis
and the Psychoanalysis of Art

D ANIELLE K NAFO

Cover Image: Oskar Kokoschka, Two Nudes (Lovers) (1913). Oil on canvas, 163.2 x 97.5 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Bequest of Sarah Reed Platt 1973.196. Photograph 2012 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

2012 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
Version Date: 20120120

International Standard Book Number: 978-0-415-88100-5 (Hardback) 978-0-415-88101-2 (Paperback)

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In loving memory of my father, Maurice Knafo, who loved to dance

Contents

PART 1
The Art of Psychoanalysis

Part 2
The Psychoanalysis of art

8 At the Limits of the Primal Scene: Revisiting Blue Velvet
(with Kenneth Feiner and Rocco Lo Bosco)

10 Bruno Schulz: Desire's Impossible Object
(with Rocco Lo Bosco)

Acknowledgments

This book was made possible by the encouragement and support of my friends and family. You are too numerous to name, but I hope you know the important role you play in my life. I am also grateful to those who shared with me that most singular and creative encounter called psychoanalysis and who gave me permission to write about our clinical work together.