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Psychologist Robin Bagai's book Commentaries on the Work of Michael Eigen: Oblivion and Wisdom, Madness and Music is a testament to and treatise on psychic rhythms. Bagai's offering can be read as a stand-alone work, or as a companion to the two books by seasoned psychoanalyst and psychologist Michael Eigen that it comments upon. Part 1 of Commentaries expounds upon the teachings anchored in Eigen's first book, The Psychotic Core. Part 2 elucidates the themes of his book Emotional Storm.
The psychic rhythms that Bagai distills in his Commentaries are as much a close reading of Eigen's Psychotic Core and Emotional Storm as they are a most helpful interpretation of and elaboration on these two inspiring books. The result is a voice that simultaneously amplifies, organizes, and extends Eigen's original prose. More than that, Bagai's commentaries on these seminal texts open a space for reflecting on the vast field of Eigen's scholarship in its entirety, which includes more than 29 published books.
Part 1 of Commentaries presents the view that no single psychic operation — integration, disintegration, or unintegration — is by itself inherently a cause of health or illness, but rather that it is our capacity for the rhythm of doubleness and the complexity of these orchestrated psychic operations that fosters well-being. This view is well illustrated with Eigen's clinical examples, which are seen in the light of psychic rhythms through Bagai's narrative reverie.
Another point that Bagai offers in Part 1 of the Commentaries is that rigidity, creativity, and fluidity all work and partner together, challenging our desire to jettison rigidity in favor of creative and fluid psychological capacities. This capacity to honor the otherwise disavowed, dismissed, or
devalued aspects of the multifaceted psyche is a hallmark of Eigen's work, which Bagai helps the reader recognize and regard. In this spirit, both Bagai and Eigen serve as master therapists for clinicians of