Mirror and Metaphor

Not as compellingly coherent as Technology As Symptom & Dream, this re-issue of Romanyshyn’s first book is nevertheless a vital thing to grapple with if you’re interested in psychology. Sometimes poetically oblique, often pithily concrete, it explores, in a meandering fashion, the importance of phenomenological thought in saving depth psychology from Cartesian cop-outs and scientistic orthodoxies. One minute we’re with Romanyshyn in a personal reverie; the next we’re exploring the significance of William Harvey’s conception of the heart as a pump. All avenues are explored to bring to life the importance of witnessing felt, embodied experience in itself, embracing all its contradictions and imaginal oddities.