Hamlet in Analysis: Horatio's Story-A Trial of Faith

This is no mere parody it is a confession, a treatise, and a very, very clever tragi-farce, which is as funny as it is serious, and serious as it is funny. There is a living, breathing countertransference exploration throughout this fictitious analysis of an all-too-recognizable late-twentieth century young adult, Hamlet Dane, and his alter-ego analyst, Dr Horacio. Hamlet in Analysis explores, amongst other things, the cracks and gaps between analytic theory and practice through the candid, private thoughts of our analyst-narrator, whose constantly self-limited 'philosophy' is pierced, rankled, ruptured, and herniated by his young patient, provoking an ongoing challenge to his own sanity. But it contains 'the best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited'. –Neil Maizels, psychoanalytic psychotherapist, Melbourne, Australia

Bravo! Bravo! I felt like saying after finishing this wonderful performance, an amazing tour de force in which we are led through a modern-day Hamlet's psychoanalysis (Kleinian, via Meltzer, with Bion part of the brew) with Horatio, the psychoanalyst. What is at stake is further birth and growth of psychoanalysis, creativity and personality, marked by necessary failure, which, at times, fuels glimpses of more possibilities. Meg Harris Williams draws on rich cultural associations as she shines her light on aesthetic dimensions of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic dimensions in the heart of art. A book that not only crosses disciplines, but also alchemically mixes them and brings us closer to our own experience. –Michael Eigen, PhD, author of Contact With the Depths and The Birth of Experience