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This is a memorable book; it is also valuable. Its fourteen contributors come from both sides of the Atlantic — from North America but also Britain. It is an important work for both child and adult analysts and therapists, for, most unusually, they are brought together here under one cover. It is developmental in outlook no matter what age is being addressed. Nearly every chapter has a case study at its axis; the youngest subject is 3, the oldest in his fifties.
As the title indicates, it is about the over-valuation of intellect at the expense of body-feeling. Such over-valuation leads, so the authors argue, to a person experiencing his or her mind as a clever cognitive-functioning ‘thing’ — a marvellous yet self-tormenting agency. This is the ‘mind object’ of the title. We are in the region of narcissistic disorders. Corrigan and Gordon ask: ‘Can a person relate to his mind as an object — depend upon it to the exclusion of other objects — idealize it, fear it, hate it? Can a person live out a life striving to attain the elusive power of his mind's perfection, yielding to its promise while sacrificing the body's truth?’ (p. xiii).
The authors are clear that, though Ferenczi (1933), with his concept of precocious maturity as a response to early trauma, is an inspirational forebear, it is Winnicott who has been seminal. His (1949) paper ‘Mind and its relation to the psyche-soma’ was the first to describe how an individual can respond to very early environmental failure by turning away from body awareness and its needs to establish a conception of intellectual-mental functioning as a ‘thing in itself’. This is the key of the book. Winnicott sees that a violent split allows the mind to negate the role of the body. Such a mental thing in itself can be a substitute for maternal care. It can become an object of intense attachment — giving security and solace. However it can turn on the self and the body — demeaning, accusing and torturing. It is in fact a precocious structur