The book is Journeying : Where Shamanism and Psychology Meet.
It is Jeanette M Gagan who writes the book.
Actually, she should really extend her analysis to allow that even traumas engendered in adult life can be alleviated by revisiting the pre-Oedipal framework of consciousness, since what is most necessary for recovery from trauma is adequate nurturing, along with an adequate source of inspiration and power for the imagination to propel itself into the future -- and both trauma and recovery relate to dealing with the traumatic event at a primal level of consciousness. They both relate to primary processes -- so healing is most effectively restored in a primary process way, via imagination and the presence of nurturing (facilitated by the imagination in the psyche's process of mending itself).
A mistake for me to correct -- although it is not one currently in my thesis -- is my assumption that ego defences would prevent shamanistic journeying. Narrow, rationalistic defences are typical "ego defences" only in the sense that they defend the ego against acknowledging the politics of oppression that the ego is colluding in, in order to facilitate survival. But according to Gagan, shamanic journeying is of benefit in furnishing more mature ego defences -- ie. allowing for sublimation, playfulness, not taking oneself too seriously (because one is now very aware of where "I" stops and the other person begins), and in terms of permitting one to face what one fears without being unduly threatened. I understood this, but I was focusing on the potential for a political response coming out of shamanistic sensibilities, so I didn't take this too much into account.
Anyway, she also links the pre-Oedipal with shamanism quite squarely.
UPDATE: Also see p241 of Lacan and the Matter of Origins -- wherein Julia Kristeva talks about therapeutic "death-in-the-mother" and rebirth.
It is Jeanette M Gagan who writes the book.
Actually, she should really extend her analysis to allow that even traumas engendered in adult life can be alleviated by revisiting the pre-Oedipal framework of consciousness, since what is most necessary for recovery from trauma is adequate nurturing, along with an adequate source of inspiration and power for the imagination to propel itself into the future -- and both trauma and recovery relate to dealing with the traumatic event at a primal level of consciousness. They both relate to primary processes -- so healing is most effectively restored in a primary process way, via imagination and the presence of nurturing (facilitated by the imagination in the psyche's process of mending itself).
A mistake for me to correct -- although it is not one currently in my thesis -- is my assumption that ego defences would prevent shamanistic journeying. Narrow, rationalistic defences are typical "ego defences" only in the sense that they defend the ego against acknowledging the politics of oppression that the ego is colluding in, in order to facilitate survival. But according to Gagan, shamanic journeying is of benefit in furnishing more mature ego defences -- ie. allowing for sublimation, playfulness, not taking oneself too seriously (because one is now very aware of where "I" stops and the other person begins), and in terms of permitting one to face what one fears without being unduly threatened. I understood this, but I was focusing on the potential for a political response coming out of shamanistic sensibilities, so I didn't take this too much into account.
Anyway, she also links the pre-Oedipal with shamanism quite squarely.
UPDATE: Also see p241 of Lacan and the Matter of Origins -- wherein Julia Kristeva talks about therapeutic "death-in-the-mother" and rebirth.
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Very interesting...
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