Facilitated by: Erica Ehrenberg, MFA

Psychoanalytic, Buddhist, and literary works indicate a vast internal expanse for which each discipline attempts to find language. However abstract the terms for describing variations of this space may seem–the unconscious, emptiness, or Keats’ concept of “negative capability,” our psychic contact with this terrain in all cases has powerful implications for affecting how we thrive and how we suffer. This is a course rooted in a commitment to the paradox of exploring through language that which resists language. In bringing together psychoanalytic, Buddhist, and literary texts, it’s not just that we have the tools each discipline offers, but the very gaps between them become generative in themselves.

Through writing exercises designed in response to the readings, we will explore the forms Buddhist thought, psychoanalysis, and literature have found to approach what is both unsayable and potentially more real even than what we call “reality.” The goal will be to generate creative work that emerges from this exploration, a seed for both creative and clinical work. We will share the pieces in a workshop format, along with discussion that will mine the relationship between form and content in the works we read, and in each participant’s particular voice. Each meeting will include discussion of the readings and workshop sessions in which participants will share pieces for feedback and discussion. Each participant will have two (optional) opportunities to have their work discussed.

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