The Psychoanalysis of Aesthetic Experience: Self, Relationship and Culture
Part of Art, Creativity, and Psychoanalysis series - more in this series
Book Details
- Publisher : Routledge
- Published : July 2025
- Cover : Paperback
- Pages : 246
- Category :
Psychoanalysis - Category 2 :
Forthcoming - Catalogue No : 98085
- ISBN 13 : 9781032836225
- ISBN 10 : 1032836229
Also by George Hagman
Intersubjective Self Psychology: A Primer
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In The Psychoanalysis of Aesthetic Experience: Self, Relationship and Culture, George Hagman eloquently provides an overview of ideas regarding the aesthetic foundation of human experience and the way in which this aesthetic perspective can shed light on human development, culture, and analytic clinical process.
The book discusses the relationship between the psychology of art and the aesthetics of psychoanalytic treatment. Hagman presents a comprehensive psychoanalytic model of the psychology of aesthetics, creativity, beauty, ugliness and the sublime, as well as a theory of aesthetics across the dimensions of subjectivity, self, intersubjectivity and culture. Starting from the point of early childhood development, he argues for the importance of exploring the implications of this important psychological phenomenon for clinical practice, highlighting how aesthetics can shed light on a dimension of the psychotherapeutic process which has thus been neglected.
This book is an illuminating and informative read for all psychoanalysts, and anyone interested in the intersection of psychoanalytic practice, aesthetics, creativity and culture.
Reviews and Endorsements
With starling originality, George Hagman's Psychoanalysis of Aesthetic Experience: Self, Relationship and Culture radically expands psychoanalytic aesthetic theory beyond the great early seminal contributions on art and idealization. He questions prior theories that focused on the pathology of art and artists through his appreciation of the affirmative process of making art, growth and emotional heath. With this new edition he has added several new chapters which extend his ideas into new clinical and cultural areas.
Malcolm Owen Slavin Ph.D. Co-founder, Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, author of The Story of Original Loss: Grieving Existential Trauma in the Arts and the Art of Psychoanalysis
In this expanded edition of his brilliant and pathbreaking book Psychoanalysis of Aesthetic Experience: Self, Relationship and Culture, George Hagman now includes fresh and insightful additional essays on the psychology of musicians, the function of beauty in erotic obsession (Kohut and Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice) and the abuse of Beauty in Hitler’s fascist aesthetics. These chapters that open clinical insights into intersubjective and transitional realms, showing how sensitivities to aesthetic meanings and the relation of artists to their artwork can transform the ways we practice psychoanalysis. In the clarity, simplicity and generosity of Hagman’s writing, the reader can always sense his dedication to what Donna Orange calls a “hermeneutics of trust.” It is a delight to be in the presence of such friendly and enlightening discourse.
Maria D-S. Dobson, Ph.D. Professor of Classics at Colorado College. Private Practice in psychoanalytic psychotherapy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Author of Metamorphoses of Psych in Psychoanalysis and Ancient Greek Thought
Psychoanalysis of Aesthetic Experience: Self, Relationship and Culture is a pivotal psychoanalytic text integrating the fields of aesthetics and creativity into clinical practice. Now in its 2nd edition, George Hagman expands on his definition of art, extends further the application to psychoanalytic treatment, and explores new perspectives on literary and historical investigations. Those who love the arts, or work with artists in their practice, will find this book invaluable.
Carol M. Press, EdD, Emeritus of the Department of Theatre and Dance, University of California, Santa Barbara
Table of Contents
Foreword by Carl Rotenberg with an addendum by George Hagman
Preface with an addendum for expanded edition
1. Introduction
2. Understanding Aesthetic Experience
3. The Development of Aesthetic Experience
4. Idealization and Aesthetic Experience
5. The Creative Process
6. The Sense of Beauty
7. On Ugliness
8. The Sublime
9. Art and Self
10. Art, Creativity and Clinical Process
11. Festival
12. The Musician and the Creative Process
13. Cruising Beauty
14. Hitler's Aesthetics References
Subject Index
Author Index
About the Author(s)
George Hagman, LCSW is a clinical social worker and psychoanalyst in private practice in Stamford, USA. He is on the faculty of the Training and Research Institute for Self-Psychology, and the Westchester Centre for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.
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