‘In this important and timely exploration of the nature of knowledge, Brothers and Sletvold address the heart of the therapeutic endeavor and the question of what it means to be human. They demonstrate unequivocally that knowing and understanding are never individual achievements, but fundamentally relational and embodied in nature, shaped by historical circumstances and our interactions with others. They invite us to learn from and live with uncertainty and thus to recognize that experience may be more or less known, formulated or unformulated, in any moment in time.’Roger Frie, Professor of Psychoanalysis and Education, University of Vienna, Austria‘Psychoanalytic Explorations of Embodied Relational Knowing is a unique, and fascinating work, which probes the nature of knowledge in clinical and cultural contexts. Drawing on philosophy and psychoanalytic theory, the authors explore the way that traumatic knowledge is inscribed on the body. The body's truths are in perpetual tension with the human desire to not know. This tension—between knowing and not-knowing—is present in clinical process, and it has diverse meanings. It is also fundamental to the authoritarian turn that we see throughout the globe. In its examination, this book spans the personal, the historical and the political.’Sue Grand, PhD, Author, The Reproduction of Evil: A Clinical and Cultural Perspective‘Doris Brothers and Jon Sletvold 's title Psychoanalytic Explorations of Embodied Relational Knowing concentrates in three words a wealth of clinical experience concerning the limits of psychoanalysis. It is when we are confronted with the inadequacy of speech and experience—the total loneliness at the outer edges of relationships—that the impasse created by the conflict between "the need to know and to be known” and “not to know and not to be known” is overcome by "embodied relational knowing.” The authors are supported by philosophers and authors whom Freud claims, in the "Gradiva,” to be his "precious allies.” By drawing on examples from their clinical practices, they provide a source of great learning and hope for their readers.’Françoise Davoine, PhD, Author, Wittgenstein’s Folly‘Doris Brothers' and Jon Sletvold's exploration of "embodied relational knowing" does well to advance our understanding of what transpires not only in the context of therapeutic dialogue but in our ongoing engagement with the world. For Brothers and Sletvold, the world is inscribed within us; it is embedded and embodied, in ways both known and unknown. There can thus be no illusions of fully containing who and what we—and others—are. That's not what we seek in any case. For the desire to know and be known cannot ever be teased apart from the desire not to know and not to be known. Whether what's being explored is traumatic dissociation or madness or silence in the face of patent evil, this thoughtful, wise, humane book shows that the need to know and not know is carried forth pervasively and, often, surreptitiously, in the very flesh of our being and the very fabric of our relationships.’Mark Freeman, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society Emeritus, College of the Holy Cross, and Senior Fellow, Center for Psychological Humanities and Ethics, Boston College, author of Toward the Psychological Humanities: A Modest Manifesto for the Future of Psychology‘This is a book about the human need to know—and not to know. Brothers and Sletvold look to the body to better understand our instinct to seek knowledge about ourselves and our world, foregrounding how emotion, perception and sensory-motor processes go into what we can know about our patients and their situations. This is a sophisticated boundary-pushing book set forth in unpretentious, conversational prose.’Daniel Goldin, PsyD, Editor, Psychoanalytic Inquiry
