Works
Poetry and Psychoanalysis: The Opening of the Field
Poetry and Psychoanalysis explores the lessons that poetry offers to the art of emotional healing. It includes a survey of literature from Virgil to Dante to Caludia Rankine, as well as the lesson from poems about children and poems that are difficult to understand rationally. It is of interest both to poetry readers and therapists.
The Book of Splendor: New and Selected Poems on Spiritual Themes
From the parking Lot at Costco to the summit of the Sierra Nevada, these poems detail a quest to find the spiritual in our lived lives. Drawing from Jewish mysticism and other sources, the book opens a path for both seekers and lovers of poetry.
Vernal Pool
Vernal Pool
They were playing the hits from ’66 on
KFOG this morning. I was meeting my wife
At the oncologist. Don’t be alarmed it’s
All good, they can go cell by cell to get clean
Margins these days. She doesn’t even need much
Radiation. I was expecting something
Like Iron Butterfly, but it was all Otis
The Byrds, Dylan. To celebrate we walked north
From Inspiration Point. Despite the long drought
There were orange poppies and forget-me-nots
Vernal pools with a chorus of croaking frogs.
I thought of Cape Ann, years ago, how we listened
For hours to the bullfrogs and spring peepers
Convinced that we'd found the ur source of music.
From Impasse to Intimacy:
How Understanding Unconscious Needs Can Transform Relationships
Empathy is what makes relational transformation possible, according to Shaddock, and his book is a testament to that possibility. From Impasse to Intimacy celebrates the healthy kind of dependency that can make relationships the best place to work out individual problems.
“It will keep you turning the pages”
Contexts and Connections:
An Intersubjective Systems Approach to
Couples Therapy
"David Shaddock has done a masterful job of integrating self psychology and intersubjectivity theories into a well-written, timely, practical guide to understanding and treating relational problems. His ability to bridge intrapsychic, interpersonal, and family theories, along with edifying case material, makes this a must-read for both beginning clinicians and those with long experience in couples and family therapy."
In This Place Where Something's Missing Lives
“David Shaddock’s poems take up the ancient Jewish tradition which Arthur Waskow (who wrote an afterword for the book) has called ‘God wrestling.”
Drawing on Hasidic and kabalistic themes, these poems explore faith and Jewish identity in the context of personal loss and political turmoil.