Dancing with the Unconscious

Combining theory and therapy--the clinic and the studio--Danielle Knafo's Dancing with the Unconscious extends the dialogue between psychoanalysis and art and shows how each discipline informs the other. The first chapter in Part One frames Knafo's discussion of the analytic encounter by describing it as a dance performed by two unconscious minds. Through the narration of a treatment with a transgendered patient's struggle with unconscious conflict, she demonstrates the profound creative possibilities inherent in free association, transference, and dream work. Chapters that follow investigate the use of regression in psychoanalysis and art, the relationship between creativity and substance abuse, the creative transformations of trauma, and the psychological partnership between solitude and creativity. Part Two begins with a provocative analysis of the dreams of Freud and Jung and shows how unconscious contents reveal the genesis of each psychologist's respective theory.Chapters that follow include a reevaluation of the film Blue Velvet through the lens of the primal scene, the symbolic expression of trauma and the attempt to repair it in the art of Egon Schiele and Ana Mendieta, and the spellbinding, sadomasochistic vision of writer and artist Bruno Schulz. This new work by Knafo illustrates how, taken together, the art of psychoanalysis and the psychoanalysis of art bear witness to the endless creativity and healing potential of the unconscious mind.

“"Yet in an era when psychoanalysis is so beleaguered, we may need ambitious writers such as Knafo who can return us to a visionary sense of possibilities. As far as applied psychoanalysis is concerned, Dancing with the Unconscious makes it abundantly clear that the method is up to the task." The Psychoanalytic Quarterly ”

"Danielle Knafo has written a compelling and enlightening book, a testimony to the depths of the creative spirit. Explorations span psychoanalysis, art, literature, and dance, with special emphasis on what art can contribute to understanding psychoanalysis as well as the reverse. Processes that go into art-making also go into psychoanalysis. She brings out dimensions of the creative unconscious that add to our appreciation of being alive." - Michael Eigen, Ph.D., author, Contact with the Depths and Faith and Transformation (both Karnac, 2011)

Danielle Knafo, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology in the Doctoral Program, Long Island University, C. W. Post campus, and is on the faculty of the Derner Institute's Postdoctoral Program. She is the author of numerous journal articles and five books, including In Her Own Image: Women's Self-Representation in Twentieth-Century Art (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2009) and Unconscious Fantasies and the Relational World (with Kenneth Feiner, Analytic Press, 2005), which was a Goethe Prize honoree. She maintains a private practice in Great Neck and Manhattan, NY.

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