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The Electrified Tightrope can be regarded as two different accounts of the psychoanalytic experience. The first is a theoretical series of 20 essays.
For those who believe that psychoanalysis is in a serious quandary because of its restrictive perspective, Michael Eigen is worth reading. He is not the usual psychoanalytic writer. His range of interests and areas of expertise are wider than that of most analytic practitioners. His proficiency in psychoanalytic theory is supplemented by an incisive appreciation of the ways art, music, literature, and philosophy (of both east and west) contribute to our understanding of the human condition and to elucidating the suffering of the profoundly disturbed patients his book examines. In writing about topics generally eschewed by analysts, such as facial expression and breathing, Eigen broadens and enriches psychoanalytic inquiry.
Expert practitioners, as well as neophytes, also will appreciate the author's reported therapeutic ethos. Undoubtedly, the most gifted clinicians are those who recognize that the lessons learned from examining the human psyche can be seen as a two-way street. Eigen writes persuasively of therapists' not being able to afford setting aside their humanity in sharing with patients the frailties of being merely human in an imperfect world. Clinical vignettes illustrate