In recent years the function of language, narrative and text in psychic life has taken on increasing significance in depth psychology. The Alchemy of Discourse examines language in relation to psychic formation, beginning with the role played by images and words in the onset of subjectivity. Through a careful examination of Jung’s early word association experiments coupled with recent developments in Lacanian psychoanalysis, Dr. Kugler offers a re-conceptualization of the origin and function of the Jungian divided subject (ego/self). For those just beginning to explore the role of language in psychic life, The Alchemy of Discourse provides an accessible entry point, with its clear explication of key terms together with their historical and conceptual background. This book will be a valuable resource for psychoanalysts, students and trainees in depth psychology, and for writers, critical theorists, philosophers and historians of ideas.

The gestural disposition of language, the freight it carries far beyond limits of simplifying “connotation,” the ground it shares with physical body and world are recognized here with subtle and perceptive intelligence. This work emphasizes Paul Kugler’s unique contribution both to his field and to that world of myriad people, who still hear what’s said as “what’s said.” 

– Robert Creeley