The Transformation From Non-Being to Being: A Discussion of Hilary Maddux’s “Adrienne Rich’s ‘Transcendental Etude’: The Poetics of Self-Transformation”

Hilary’s Maddux’s aesthetic listening perspective, illuminated through the prism of Rich’s “Transcendental Etude,” provides a means of expression for that elusive feel for the other that defines the artistry of what we do and corrects for something sorely lacking in clinical discourse and techniques of practice; what it is to be an embodied and minded human being. As commentary, I turn to the work of Virginia Woolf, in particular, her autobiographical explorations of her moments of being and non-being, as a way to further illuminate the role this perspective plays in Maddux’s work with her patient.