Psychoanalytic Listening and Poetry : Distant Music

In the book, psychoanalyst and award-winning poet Alice Jones explores how poetry can deepen psychoanalytic practice, developing clinicians' ability to listen beneath the surface to the music of language, opening pathways to unconscious meaning and emotional resonance in therapeutic relationships.

In Psychoanalytic Listening and Poetry: Distant Music, psychoanalyst and award-winning poet Alice Jones explores how poetry can deepen psychoanalytic practice, developing clinicians' ability to listen beneath the surface to the music of language, opening pathways to unconscious meaning and emotional resonance in therapeutic relationships. Through engaging analyses of works by Annie Ernaux, Seamus Heaney, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Bob Dylan, Terrance Hayes, Emily Dickinson, and more, this collection reveals how poetic attunement strengthens clinical engagement with unconscious material. Readers will sharpen their hearing within silences as well as sentences, enhancing their capacity for creative clinical writing and navigating therapeutic endings—transforming transience into moments that share an experience of growth and aliveness. Written for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and poets alike, this book is an essential resource for those seeking to enrich their practice by attending to the music of words. It will also be enjoyed by students of psychology, creative writing, literary studies, and anyone engaged by the spoken word.