This book focuses on Samuel Beckett's psychoanalytic psychotherapy with W. R. Bion as a central aspect both of Beckett's and Bion's radical transformations of literature and psychoanalysis. The recent publication of Beckett's correspondence during the period of his psychotherapy with Bion provides a starting place for an imaginative reconstruction of this psychotherapy, culminating with Bion's famous invitation to his patient to dinner and a lecture by C.G. Jung. Following from the course of this psychotherapy, Miller and Souter trace the development of Beckett's radical use of clinical...

The empirical baseline of today's psychoanalytic vernacular may be inferred from what psychoanalysts read. Contemporary information aggregation provides us with a unique moment in "reading" today's psychoanalytic vernacular. The PEP Archive compiles data on journal articles analogous to radio stations' "hit parades" of contemporary favorites. Defining Psychoanalysis: Achieving a Vernacular Expression provides a close reading of this contemporary assemblage, including three "strong" readings by Winnicott and two by Bion. It pursues the elements generated by these papers as an indication of...