• ISBN13: 9780415710138
• Binding: Hardcover
• Subject: Education & Psychology
• Publisher: T&F
• Publisher Imprint: Routledge
• Publication Date: June 15, 2014
• Pages: 160
• Original Price: GBP 145.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 570 grams

The Psychic Home: Psychoanalysis of Consciousness and the Human Soul develops, from a number of different viewpoints, the significance of home in our lives. Roger Kennedy puts forward the central role of what he has termed a ‘psychic home’ as a vital psychic structure, which gathers together a number of different human functions. Kennedy questions what we mean by the powerfully evocative notion of the human soul, which has important links to the notion of home and he suggests that what makes us human is that we allow a home for the soul. As an illustration of this concept he explores how it can help to understand a vital element of William Wordsworth’s development as a poet.

The word soul is both abstract and yet also powerfully emotive. Kennedy shows that it can be approached from a number of different angles, from psychoanalysis, philosophy, religion, sociology, literature and neuroscience. The Psychic Home, discusses the mysteries and complexities of the soul, and aims to evoke some restoration of its place in our thinking. It illustrates how the word soul and similar key words, such as spirit and inwardness, express so much that is essential for humans, even if we cannot be too precise about their meanings.

Insightful, enlightening and broad reaching, The Psychic Home brings the concept of the soul centre stage as an entity that is elemental, an essence, irreducible, and what makes us human as subjects of experience. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, neuroscientists, philosophers and those interested in spirituality and religion.

Roger Kennedy is a psychoanalyst in private practice and past president, British Psychoanalytical Society. He worked for 30 years as an NHS consultant. He is a child psychiatrist at the Child and Family Practice and at Ashwood Associates. He has published twelve previous books, including Psychoanalysis, History and Subjectivity (Routledge, 2002) and The Many Voices of Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2007).