This book explores the concept of estrangement from a psychoanalytic perspective, intertwining art and aesthetics to offer a paradigm of the aesthetic experience.

Gabriela Goldstein suggests that an unexpected encounter with a work of art may lead to a state of poetic estrangement, promoting a possible reorganization of its subject’s psychic economy. The conceptual work is illuminated with vignettes exploring the experience of this state of estrangement, reflecting on the encounter between the subject and the other/Other, between analyst and patient and in the framework provided by the analytical situation. Finally, Goldstein considers how the metapsychology of aesthetic experience and its research contribute to clinical understanding of processes of deficient symbolization.

Art and Psychoanalysis will be key reading for psychoanalysts, artists, researchers, and teachers of art and psychoanalysis. It will also be of great interest to art therapists, students of art and the humanities, as well as other readers interested in an in-depth understanding of the aesthetic experience and creative processes.