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Michael Paul's book is powerful and useful and I highly recommend it. Having stated my conclusion straight away, let me get some asides off my chest, then plunge in. First, the very existence of this book proves the value of collecting a significant author's essays in a single volume. I began reading Michael Paul (1981) more than 15 years ago and have seen his papers from time to time. I always found him worthwhile. But, not until reading his papers back to back in this volume, did I feel their full impact. Their cumulative effect provides food for thought and I've already, to my patients’ benefit, incorporated his suggestions in my clinical practice. Had Paul's papers remained uncollected, we might not have realized how much they offer.
Paul is a very clear, insistent writer. At first, I feared he was too much the observer, not working enough from immediate experience. But when his work stuck to me, surfacing in reveries, spontaneously making contributions to sessions, it dawned on me that his seeing mind was very connected with a line of unconscious communication—that he was very in touch with aspects of unconscious and conscious life. Intuitions, struggling to be born, are very alive in his writing. He has many passages that penetrate, describe, and illuminate difficult to reach states that matter to many patients we see today.
Paul is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who has done research in molecular pharmacology and neuro-biochemistry. He is, also, a sculptor and pianist. The book jacket shows him with one of his sculptures in a photo by Steven Kahn. His writings draw on his scientific and aesthetic sides. Jazz buffs will enjoy some of his asides.
As a psychoanalyst, Paul absorbed Klein and Bion, and makes use of other creative Kleinians (e.g., Meltzer). James Grotstein wrote a foreword for this book and Paul acknowledges other West Coast Kleinians he worked with. He is part of a seedbed or nest of rich Klein-influenced work that has been thriving in California s