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Dr. Paul Marcus, a psychoanalytic psychologist, is the author of Sports as Soul-Craft: How playing and watching sports enhances life, an insightful book that will appeal to any analytic practitioner who finds enjoyment actively participating, passively observing, or if neither, is curious about sport's worldwide appeal. My admiration is based on the book's elegant prose and intellectual approach that elevates Soccer, Baseball, Chess, Tennis, Golf, and Cycling into an exalted place. Dr. Marcus shares his eloquent insights, which are accompanied by a stunning array of psychoanalytic, philosophical, and spiritual reflections by renowned analysts, revered athletes, and gifted writers conveying a similar passion, fascination, and zeal for the sport they love.
One of the central premises of Sports as Soul-Craft whether watching or playing is how the totality of the sports experience offers “parables for life.” Setting aside (but not dismissing or ignoring) the distasteful aspects that occur in sports, Dr. Marcus focuses on sports’ constructive features: the positive moral values or life lessons that guide the development of autonomy, willpower, humility resilience, gratitude, etc. Collectively, these facilitate how to achieve a “good life”, Dr. Marcus's term for what enhances the mind, body, and spirit. Defining psychoanalysis “as a way of being” used to help “understand, endure, and conquer the problems that beset the human condition” (p. 11) being engaged in athletics (actively or passively) can still provide invaluable experiential learning.
Each chapter has a distinctive title that captures that sport's essence. Soccer is described as the “The Beautiful Game,” as different counties and continents are showcased for their unique styles and creative on-field play. Baseball's unhurried rhythm, perfectionism, and idealism fit with its name the “The Immortal Game.” Chess, a cerebral game replete with symbolism, is anointed as “The Royal Game.” With keen perception