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Both literature and psychoanalysis can help us work out what are the conversations we crave that may get us the lives we want. (Phillips, 2017, p. xii)
Like psychoanalysis, Paul Schimmel's anthology “Someone Saved My Life Today” helps its interlocutor pinpoint conversations they crave. Conversational points of departure abound in the rangy and engaging content of the Australian psychoanalyst's collected articles on psychoanalysis, literature, and philosophy, and in the broader tensions and questions that exist in the interstitial spaces to which these texts point. Inspired by Schimmel's work, two potential and intersecting conversation starters follow, the first on Schimmel's work and the second on Australian psychoanalysis.
Schimmel's mind is readily, distinctly, consistently, and generously available to the reader of his compendium. He explicitly identifies Bion as shaping his thinking, alongside Freud, Klein, and (Neville) Symington. Schimmel's expansive mind feels formed in the crucible of a particular psychoanalytic sensibility, as he defines it. Over the course of 15 chapters, he leaves his reader with the earnest impression that he walks his psychoanalytic talk, journeying through a brief introduction, three original poems (one as a stand-alone chapter, two within other chapters), two definition articles woven around the relationship between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, three psychobiographical essays that profile the lives and select works of W. B. Yeats, T. S. Elliot, and Samuel Beckett through a psychoanalytic lens, four treatises that explore specific psychoanalytic theses, two philosophical articles on the mind/body or mind/brain problem, a review of the history and current status of psychoanalysis within Australia, and a tribute to Australian psychoanalyst Neville Symington.
Recurring themes of freedom, awareness, reality, defenses, destruction, pain, and emotion animate Schimmel's writing, all anchored in a cent