Foreshoring the Unconscious

Those of us who attended the continental meeting in Poland reported elsewhere in this issue will have had the interesting experience of collective foreshoring, led by Ruth. In this short book, she describes the experience and practice of psychoanalysis in creating a mutual space in which new insight can arise and things can be seen differently. She draws on the interesting Jewish concept of Kavannah with its implication of intention and awareness reaching beyond towards the spirit and enquiring what she calls an active engagement with courageous integrity - both sitting back and holding open. Here the definition of the foreshore is important as a symbol of the porous boundary between the conscious and unconscious - as she points out, water is constantly ebbing and flowing, never at rest and implying flexible navigation in changing conditions. This is a sensitive and informative account of what a psychoanalytic practitioner does.