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In his new book Stories from the Bog, Patrick Kavanaugh offers us a lens for his vision of psychoanalysis as an art rather than a science. A master storyteller, Kavanuagh is at his best when he is telling stories from his life, inviting the reader along with him on a journey, attempting to understand the minds and experiences of the individuals he encounters in the back wards of state institutions. Weaving seamlessly between his patients' narratives and the story of his own becoming, he also offers chapters that more specifically articulate his philosophy.
Kavanaugh speaks from his many years of experience reaching across the gaps between self and other while working with individuals in dire distress. He begins by situating us at the beginning of a 40-year journey, in a massive county psychiatric hospital, and first explains his interest in the assumptions underlying the ways in which “care” is offered. He argues against a biological view of illness, stating that madness-and psychoanalysis-”are inseparable from the cultural and historical context in which they make their appearance” (p. xviii). He advocates a move from the medical, scientific paradigm toward conceptualizing madness as a literary, spiritual, and mystical phenomenon, stressing that the individual cannot be known outside of the life narrative through which his own unique story might be told.
Kavanaugh also situates himself in the heritage of Irish storytellers, the “magical power and cultural memory that resides in the bog” (p. 2). From this perspective, the unconscious is structured-and therefore can only become known-in relation to the systems of meaning that underpin one's culture. These archaic memories have an impact, even though they may not be accessible to the conscious mind. Through his case vignettes, Kavanaugh illustrates ways in which trauma and primitive memories may be spoken through the symptom, and become visible through movements, expressions, or gestures. He advocates for a profound “be