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When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.
Gerald Gargiulo's recently published book, Quantum Psychoanalysis: Essays on Physics, Mind, and Analysis Today is, most simply put, a tour de force. How often does one book interrelate concepts from psychoanalysis, quantum physics, philosophy, literature, poetry, neurology, and theology using a writing style that itself comes close to poetry at times? Gargiulo is clearly a Renaissance man, fluent in all these subject areas, and these are the very areas that Freud himself felt are necessary to, in Gargiulo's words, “have a productive dialogue with the psyche” (p. 103).
The book is a collection of essays written by Gargiulo on such topics as the use of quantum physics as a metaphor for the psychoanalytic process, the nature of the “I,” the relationship between psychoanalysis and spirituality, psychoanalytic ethics, and the state of psychoanalysis today. The book is divided into three sections: (1) Quantum Psychoanalysis, which I emphasize in this brief review because of its highly innovative and metaphorical value, (2) Theoretical Essays, and (3) Psychoanalysis Today. Though each section has a different focus, ideas and concepts from each often interweave and intersect in interesting ways.
What does Gargiulo mean by quantum psychoanalysis? Gargiulo is proposing that the wondrous and, frankly, mind-blowing concepts of quantum physics can be seen as a metaphor that can help