Enlivening the Self

"In this, their fourth co-authored book, the amazing trio of Lichtenberg, Lachmann, and Fosshage has creatively expanded and deepened their own already impressive contributions to the study of self-experience, exploring the process of, as they term it here, Enlivening the Self.

Two modes of experience are scrutinized in order to conceptualise how an enlivened sense of self develops, both in infancy and then throughout life. The first mode concerns the author’s more familiar territory, the individual’s experience of self when he or she is attending to a specific motivational task. But even here, within their more well-travelled realm of motivational systems, the authors have something very new to offer, the elaboration of twelve research and observation-based qualities or capacities that emerge during the first year of life and that potentially serve as life-long sources of enlivenment.

These twelve qualities are explored in the first essay of the volume, focused on infancy, and also in the second essay, demonstrating their clinical usefulness in the adult through two well elaborated case examples. The third essay is focussed in entirely new and original territory: the individual’s sense of self when he or she is not focussed on a task, when his or her mind wanders, exploring, in this, their initial foray on the topic, how such mind wandering enlivens the self. The concept of mind wandering, as is always the case with these authors, is based in explorative research and clinical observation, and brings to our awareness an exciting and novel perspective on self-development.This is a wonderful book. I can only recommend that you see for yourself."

–EstelleShane, Ph.D., is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles and a Training and Supervising Analyst at the New Center for Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles.

"In this, their fourth co-authored book, the amazing trio of Lichtenberg, Lachmann, and Fosshage has creatively expanded and deepened their own already impressive contributions to the study of self-experience, exploring the process of, as they term it here, Enlivening the Self.

Two modes of experience are scrutinized in order to conceptualise how an enlivened sense of self develops, both in infancy and then throughout life. The first mode concerns the author’s more familiar territory, the individual’s experience of self when he or she is attending to a specific motivational task. But even here, within their more well-travelled realm of motivational systems, the authors have something very new to offer, the elaboration of twelve research and observation-based qualities or capacities that emerge during the first year of life and that potentially serve as life-long sources of enlivenment.

These twelve qualities are explored in the first essay of the volume, focused on infancy, and also in the second essay, demonstrating their clinical usefulness in the adult through two well elaborated case examples. The third essay is focussed in entirely new and original territory: the individual’s sense of self when he or she is not focussed on a task, when his or her mind wanders, exploring, in this, their initial foray on the topic, how such mind wandering enlivens the self. The concept of mind wandering, as is always the case with these authors, is based in explorative research and clinical observation, and brings to our awareness an exciting and novel perspective on self-development.This is a wonderful book. I can only recommend that you see for yourself."

–EstelleShane, Ph.D., is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles and a Training and Supervising Analyst at the New Center for Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles.

"The text is beautifully fleshed out with what is evidently great experience from all three authors... [This] book provides clear concise material to give an overall understanding of the concept without economising on the necessary vignettes that never fail to bring an example to life. In the same breath, this lso encourages the reader to evaluate their own clinical work in this way... [This] structure provides on very useful way of making sense of human complexity. A deeply thought-provoking, challenging, yet enjoyable book."

-Candy Wong, Senior Mental Health Practitioner, Souther Health NHS Foundation Trust, and counselling psychologist in training, University of East London, The Psychologist

"[Slim] but densely thought-provoking... Strengths of this book include the marriage of neuroscience and observational data with analytic theory... The combination of amiable tone and incisive language allows readers to absorb a great deal of scholarly content for so few pages. The novel exploration of self-enlivening in a non-task-focused mind state is exciting and well placed at the end of the book as a springboard for future investigations... The authors of this book most certainly achieved what they set out to do; they have created a work that is inclusive of such a reader and which left this reviewer eager to learn more.... [A] tree is an apt metaphorical image for the book itself: It is rooted in classic psychoanalytic theory; its trunk is built of the sturdy stuff of more contemproary theories; its crown springs from evidence found in clinical observational, and neuroscience sources regarding child dvelopment and therapy, with branches that stretch into exploration of developmental processes as they emerge in both task-oriented and non-task-oriented mind states."

-Dr. Lauren E. Linn, University of Bridgeport, PsycCritiques