Books by Roger Kennedy

Emotion is an integral aspect of musical experience. Evidence from neuroscience indicates that music acts on a number of different brain sites, and that the brain is likely to be hard-wired for musical perception and appreciation. This offers some kind of neurological substrate for musical experiences, or a parallel mode of explanation for music's multiple effects on individuals and groups. No one discipline can do justice to music's complexity if one is to have a sense of the whole musical experience. After various excursions into early mother/baby experiences, evolutionary speculations, and neuroscientific findings, Roger Kennedy asserts that it is the intensity of the artistic vision which is responsible for music's power. That intense vision invites the viewer or the listener into the orbit of the work, engaging us to respond. Music can be described as having soul when it hits the emotional core of the listener. And, of course, there is 'soul music', whose basic rhythms reach deep into the body to create a powerful feeling of aliveness. One can truly say that music, of all the arts, is most able to give shape to the elusive human soul.

A psychoanalyst sits in his consulting room. Thoughts, feelings and anxieties about his current life begin to assault him. Partly as a way of dealing with the crisis in his own life, he begins to write fictional stories loosely based upon his patients' stories. This is a work of pure fiction, for the psychoanalyst and the patients are imaginary.

A psychoanalyst sits in his consulting room. Thoughts, feelings and anxieties about his current life begin to assault him. Partly as a way of dealing with the crisis in his own life, he begins to write fictional stories loosely based upon his patients' stories. This is a work of pure fiction, for the psychoanalyst and the patients are imaginary.

Provides insights into the development of psychoanalytic identity, taking into account the various influences which shape the psychoanalytic voice and drawing on literature, philosophy and sociology. This book is intended for practicing psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, and other mental health workers.

Roger Kennedy draws on his own clinical work to shed light on conceptions of freedom and how they relate to the psychoanalytic process. Ideas from ancient, medieval, 17th-century, Enlightenment and recent philosophy, including hermeneutics, are employed in his explorations.