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The Mother, The Psychoanalyst, The Poet and The Artist: Containment and Growth of The Mind
Author(s) -
Tolliday Heather
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
british journal of psychotherapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.442
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1752-0118
pISSN - 0265-9883
DOI - 10.1111/bjp.12018
Subject(s) - attunement , unconscious mind , psychology , psychoanalysis , psychoanalytic theory , imitation , the arts , developmental psychology , social psychology , art , visual arts , medicine , alternative medicine , pathology
This paper considers the difficulties which humans have in using and developing their capacity for thought. Growth of the human mind, through attunement of the mother's unconscious experience with the infant's, is explored along with the distortions which arise because of aversion to uncertainty and suffering. It then looks at psychoanalysis and the verbal and visual arts in the light of the maternal function, and the way in which they also promote the growth of the mind. Four products of the human mind – an excerpt from an infant observation published in 1998, some post‐ K leinian psychoanalytic clinical case material from the 1980s, J ohn K eats's 19th century O de to a N ightingale and L ucas C ranach's 1526 painting, A dam and E ve – are used to illustrate some of the similarities and differences among them in giving conscious form to the unconscious.