The Regulars' Table - by Christina Griffin (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From Chapter 1:

Ten years ago, I was a psychoanalyst in a beautiful coastal community. Often, I was struck by an awareness of the
abyss between the beauty of my surroundings and the gulag of my interior world. How I became aware of these feelings, why they were such important signals, and what they ultimately revealed to me provided the genesis for this book. There were a multitude of personal questions as to why I had these feelings. What was my cultural context as I practiced and lived? My subjective experience as a psychoanalyst in this gulag? The Siberia-like experience did not have much in common with life by the sea. But then, one part of psychoanalysis is about what is beneath that surface.

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Science or fiction, poetry or facts? It is all this. With Christina Griffin we embark on the atmosphere of a historic migration trail departing from a tiny geographical place in central Europe which leads us over the Ocean. It is the journey of a conquest of the north-atlantic world by the 20^th century's Budapest culture - intertwined with Psychoanalysis in an embrace, bringing innovative ideas and different sensibilities to the New Continent. Among them: love, closeness, understanding and tolerance as a message. This volume lets you feel the atmosphere of a fairytale which could become reality.

Andre E. Haynal, M.D.,

Review Quotes

Christina Griffin, in "The Regulars' Table," has created a genre of her own that moves smoothly, elegantly between quotations from Ferenczi's correspondence with Freud; Ferenczi's imagined thoughts; a literary love story told in the first person; an analytic discussion of "thought transference" and other inexplicable intersubjective phenomena; and finally a concatenation of the different voices that precede. Intellectual and literary history of early twentieth century Budapest, in Griffin's hands, read like poetry; and poetry and literature of the time helps bring the history of that era to life. "The Regulars' Table" is an imaginative piece of literature for which there is not a name; it is an experience not to be missed.

--Thomas H. Ogden, M.D., author most recently of Reclaiming Unlived Life: Experiences in Psychoanalysis and The Hands of Gravity and Chance: A Novel. Recipient of The Hans W, Loewald Memorial Award 2014 International Forum for Psychoanalytic Education.

In this volume, psychoanalyst and historian Christina Griffin has given the reader an intimate series of glimpses into the life and times of Sándor Ferenczi, intimate friend and disciple of Sigmund Freud. Utilizing primary and secondary sources, fictionalized accounts of historical events and private musings about her own experiences and the workings of her mind, Dr. Griffin takes us on a wide-ranging journey in time and space that begins and ends in the coffee houses of fin-de-siècle Budapest, frequented by the group of writers, artists and intellectuals who helped shape Ferenczi's worldview. The Regulars' Table will capture the imagination of clinicians, academicians and anyone else with an interest in the cultural history of psychoanalysis.

--Peter Hoffer, Ph.D., Translator The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sandor Ferenczi; Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia

Science or fiction, poetry or facts? It is all this. With Christina Griffin we embark on the atmosphere of a historic migration trail departing from a tiny geographical place in central Europe which leads us over the Ocean. It is the journey of a conquest of the north-atlantic world by the 20^th century's Budapest culture - intertwined with Psychoanalysis in an embrace, bringing innovative ideas and different sensibilities to the New Continent. Among them: love, closeness, understanding and tolerance as a message. This volume lets you feel the atmosphere of a fairytale which could become reality.

--Andre E. Haynal, M.D., philosopher, physician, training and supervising analyst (IPA), Author of more than a dozen books including The Technique at issue: Controversies in Psychoanalysis; Disappearing and Reviving and most recently Encounters with the Irrational. Leading scientific editor of the Freud/Ferenczi Correspondence (1992-2000), and recipient of the Sigourney Award for his life work.