Brian FALK

BRIAN FALK

Brian Falk holds a Masters degree in Chinese Medicine from Five Branches University in Santa Cruz, California. He also earned a PhD in Depth Psychology with an emphasis in Somatic Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California. His current interests involve writing and teaching about the intersections of Chinese medicine and Depth Psychology, and how each field can inform the other. Brian maintains a clinical practice in his hometown of Ventura, California.

Picture of a stage with a microphone next to an empty stool

CIRCLING THE DRAIN
GEORGE CARLIN and JAMES HILLMAN
on Culture and Language

Edited and with an introduction by BRIAN FALK
With a foreword by KELLY CARLIN

Paperback original, 150 pages, $22
ISBN: 978-0-88214-161-9

Kindle/Apple Books, $9.99
978-0-88214-162-6

One of the best ways to critique a culture is to examine its language. This timely book is the first and only to pair two unconventional thinkers who strove to illuminate the darker corners of our culture: the subversive comedian GEORGE CARLIN and the renegade founder of archetypal psychology JAMES HILLMAN. Its aim is to demonstrate, through the minds of these equally rebellious, unconventional, nonconforming, and controversial men, the effect that language has on our modern culture, and vice versa. Carlin was more than just a hilarious and clever comedian. He deserves to be recognized as an intelligent and subversive thinker who deeply understood the human psyche and modern culture. His style and method of thinking were as penetrating and honest as a skilled psychologist’s. Hillman spent much of his career criticizing the profession of psychology as well as American culture in general. His work is intellectually demanding and the tone is usually serious and often combative.

JAMES HILLMAN

Photo by Cheryl Van Scoy

GEORGE CARLIN

Photo by Deborah Feingold/Corbis via Getty Images

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Brian has not only put together a weaving of these two men’s lives and work, but he has helped me put myself together. It is no mystery to me now why I am a Depth Psychologist — I was trained by one of the best, my father.
Circling The Drain: George Carlin and James Hillman on Culture and Language is an amazing integration of my love for both these men. I thank the Irish gods for Brian, who brought these two men together at last.
— KELLY CARLIN