January 2022: "Dreaming into Death" with Rikki Ricard, LMHC, FIPA

Introduction by Jeffrey Eaton, MA, FIPA, BCPsa In his foreword to Rikki Ricard and Adrian Jarreau’s chapter, “Dreaming into death,” in Body as Psychoanalytic Object: Clinical Applications from Winnicott to Bion and Beyond (Routledge), Jeffrey Eaton asks, “How often have you been invited into a significant conversation, one that challenges you to think, feel, reflect, question, and imagine?” In this presentation, participants are invited into the authors' intimate conversation to share in their process of ‘dreaming into death’ as Jarreau's end-of-life approaches. A death presaged by two dreams of his death before consciously knowing he was ill. This dreaming is not only the body’s nocturnal dream as the messenger of its somatic state but also conscious dreaming in the Bionian sense, opening both authors (also a married couple) to the reality of death and the emotional truth of the aliveness remaining. Colleagues are offered a rare opportunity to learn from Ricard and Jarreau's searching, painful, and ultimately enlivening journey.