Psyche, Self & Soul: A Poet’s Journey Into Words & Silence

In response to a request by his peers to define the psycho- analytic process, tonight's featured reader once described it as "... a clinical treatment that helps individuals feel real, competent and involved in their world (by addressing) those experiences... that block or distort achieving such integration."

In this spirit, Gerald J. Gargiulo, Ph. D., contributor to the forthcoming anthology Between Hours: A Collection of Poems by Psychoanalysts by Salman Akhtar, will discuss with PoemAlley steps in his own progression from a painful childhood toward wholeness, as recounted in his 2008 memoir, Broken Fathers/Broken Sons: A Psychoanalyst Remembers. Beginning with early refuge into classic literature and consideration of the priesthood in his teens, Gerald's journey of self-affirmation and healing eventually drew him to the healing of others, expressed through his present practice (split between Stamford and Manhattan), which places a sensitive emphasis on forgiveness and acceptance.

Not settling for confining his compassionate outreach to the customary one-to-one consultative setting, Gerald posts numerous commentaries on today's culture through a series of in-depth entries in his blog, "The Psychotherapist's Corner" (http://www.geraldjgargiulo.com/home/), assaying the enduring appeal of Van Gogh's art, what makes for a functional democracy and other topics.* If you would prefer to listen to his musings, click on "The Talking Cure", "Work: Finding Who We Are", or "Inside/Outside and the Problem of Anxiety" for some representative podcasts.

Gerald has also written Psyche, Self & Soul (2005) and has co-edited Soul on the Couch: Spirituality, Religion, and Morality in Contemporary Psychoanalysis (2003). Professionally, Gerald serves as a faculty member and former president of The Training Institute of the National Psychological Association of Psychoanalysis, as well as of the International Forum for Psychoanalytic Education. He has lectured extensively here and abroad and has published close to 100 articles for both lay and peer readers.

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*Melancholia is a lavish, richly-layered speculation into the interpersonal, societal and even cosmological repercussions of submitting to an external, received definition of self and reality. Watch the trailer of the Lars von Trier below: