246 Book Reviews / Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 43 (2012) 239–264

Ogden, T. H. (2012). Creative Readings: Essays on Seminal Analytic Works. London and New York: Routledge, 201 pages, ISBN 978-0-415-69833-7 (Paper).

Reviewed by Mufijid James Hannush, author of Becoming Good Parents: An Existen- tial Journey, Rosemont College

This wonderful book could have been entitled, The (Incipient) Phenomenology of Creatively Reading (Analytic) Texts or The (Incipient) Phenomenology of Reading (Analytic) Texts Creatively. In this text, Ogden throws a refreshingly new light on pivotal articles by key contributors to contemporary psychoanalysis: Sigmund Freud, Susan Isaacs, W. R. D. Fairbairn, Donald Winnicott, Wilfred Bion, Hans Loewald, and Harold Searles. Here is how the book is introduced by the publisher:

This book is not simply a book of readings, it is a book about reading, about how read in a way that reader actively rewrite what they are reading, and in so doing make the ideas truly their own. The concepts that Ogden develops in his readings provide a signifijicant step in the reader’s expansion of his or her understanding of many of the ideas that lie at the cutting edge of contempo- rary psychoanalysis.

Ogden truly delivers on this promissory note. He writes in his introduction to the book that he will try not to write “about” his experience of reading these seminal works, but “to write my experience of reading them: to write what I have let these papers and books do to me. . . . This volume is ‘a reading book’—a book about read- ing, about how to read—not simply a book about readings” (p. 1). The writing of others has the potential to show us a new perspective on our- selves. After reading an article, a chapter or a book, we may never be able to view ourselves with the same eyes again. We may use “the experience of reading to read ourselves” (p. 2). Reading can bring us alive; it can enliven us to become ourselves in a new way that we were not able to put into words before. Allow me to state unequivocally that Ogden’s writing itself does what it purports to illustrate. Ogden’s writing on Freud (Chapter 2), Isaacs (Chapter 3), Fairbairn (Chapter 4), Winnicott (Chapter 5), Bion (Chapters 6 and 7), Loewald (Chapter 8), and Searles (Chapter 9) is itself a source of inspiration and enlivenment to the reader. Yes, as a reviewer of this text, to paraphrase the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson quoted in the begin- ning of the text, I took the book into my two hands, and read my “eyes out.” After reading Ogden’s book, I will never approach the works of these key fijigures with the same eyes again. The chapter entitled “Harold Searles’ ‘Oedipal love in the countertransference’ and ‘Unconscious identifijication’,” Chapter 9, will be used as a model to illustrate

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/15691624-12341238 Book Reviews / Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 43 (2012) 239–264 247 how Ogden captures the phenomenology of reading analytic texts creatively. In his close readings of parts of these two papers, Ogden focuses “on the way in which for Searles, unflinchingly accurate clinical observation spawns original theory (in this instance, a reconceptualization of the Oedipus complex)” (pp. 157–159). By “clini- cal theory” Ogden is referring to “experience-near understandings (formulated in terms of thoughts, feelings and behaviour) of phenomena occurring in the clinical setting” (p. 158; emphasis added). This is truly phenomenological in approach and spirit. “Searing honesty (with himself and with the patient)” Ogden tells us, “permeates Searles’ account of his clinical work” (p. 176). He then provides us with examples to illustrate Searles’ unflinchingly honest descriptions of his experience- near understanding of the phenomenon of so-called (Oedipal) love between client and therapist. “Who but Searles”, asks Ogden, “could have invented a style of writing that is shockingly honest as the analytic experience itself: ‘while we [he and his hospital- ized schizophrenic patient] were sitting in silence and a radio not far away was playing a tenderly romantic song . . . I realized [in that moment] that this man was dearer to me than anyone else in the world, including my wife’ ” (p. 10). This descrip- tion, Ogden confesses, never fails to stir him deeply. Here is Ogden reflecting on Searles’ style of writing:

Searles does not simply tell the reader what occurred; he shows the reader what happened in the experience of reading: the tenderness of the music is created in the sound of the words. In the sentence describing this experience (cited above), the words ‘while we were’ (three monosyllabic words repeating the soft ‘w’ sound) are followed by ‘sitting in silence’ (a pairing of two-syllable words beginning with a soft, sensuous ‘s’ sound). The sentence continues to echo the soft ‘w’s’ of ‘while we were’ in the words ‘away,’ ‘was,’ and ‘when’ and ends with three tagged-on words which explode like a hand grenade: ‘includ- ing my wife.’ (p. 163)

Although this experience so alarmed Searles himself to the point of prematurely ending the therapy, he came to the gradual realization that such awakenings, on the part of both therapist and client, are “pivotal aspects of the analytic experi- ence” (p. 164). Not awakening to what is truly occurring in the analytic experience can lead to acting out on both participants. Here is another example. In response to the sadness felt by Searles’ patient in approaching the termination of analysis, Searles confesses that he anxiously, guilt- ily, and embarrassedly retreated from his loving response (“ ‘an adult woman who could never be mine’ ”) (p. 160) toward the patient. Contrary to his traditional ana- lytic training, Searles comes to the realization that such responses “ ‘augur well