Trauma and Mastery in Life and Art

The distinctive feature of Trauma and Mastery in Life and Art, and the reason it is illuminating and pleasurable, is the way it combines broad scope with living detail: it correlates unifying principles of aesthetic form in the arts, literature, music (for example, tension and release) with details of psychological and psychopathological attempts to master trauma. And vice versa: unifying principles in psychology and psychopathology (for example, turning passivity into activity) are correlated with the details of form in the various arts. Therefore, the book is as suitable for a survey course as for in-depth study, depending on a reader's inclination or a teacher's intent.
Although of special value to those in the arts and/or psychology/psychiatry/psychoanalysis, the book is addressed to a general college or post-graduate level audience interested in the creative process.