The Psychoanalysis of Aesthetic Experience

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.