Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Eigen

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎. asilvering (talk) 00:17, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Eigen

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No indication of notability. Of 11 refs, almost all are from his own works; one is an interview with him, one is an entry from Contemporary Authors: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide. He has written 45 books. It is not easy to find reviews other than publisher abstracts or Goodreads blurbs or equivalent; one of his better-known ones (caveat: I am not knowledgeable about this) appears to be Toxic Nourishment, and a search for reviews returns mostly sales sites. Mathglot (talk) 08:50, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Authors, Psychology, and United States of America. Mathglot (talk) 08:50, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New Jersey-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 10:49, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

His main works are Psychotic Core and Psychoanalytic Mystic.

I disagree strongly with him not being notable. Eigen is a major figure, and the fact that, e.g., Routledge published an introduction to his work (which is rare for a living person) testifies to that fact: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003002871/michael-eigen-loray-daws

His works are widely cited, as a search on Google Scholar indicates, with many of his papers and books having several hundred citations (which is significant for an individual). So disagreed w/r/t notability of Eigen.

However, I think you are rightfully calling attention to --- if implicitly --- to another issue: The page on Eigen has an insufficient number of external sources. Purely based on a cursory reading of this page one will likely --- and thus correctly --- come to the conclusion that Eigen is an isolated figure. In actuality, he is an important member of the psychoanalytic community, and he teaches worldwide (as his Seoul seminars indicate).

The article does not reflect that, however, and I am grateful for you bringing this to my/psy-community's attention. Once I have more time, I will try and add some external sources and appraisals.

But I strongly object to a deletion, Eigen is important, and the literature reflects that clearly. Honigfrau (talk) 09:19, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:33, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep There are four books published by Routledge about his work listed in the Further Reading section of this article. Even without looking further, that certainly meets WP:GNG. The use of primary sources for citations is probably due to not understanding Wikipedia's requirements, not to a lack of secondary sources. RebeccaGreen (talk) 12:48, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Does not look encyclopedic. Also sources are pretty good - publisher-wise, but do not establish him as a significant author. Many authors have credentials, but that does not mean they should have their own article. Two of the few editors to this page seem to be single purpose editors for Michael Eigen [1] and [2]. I think there is COI issues here. I agree with Mathglot's assessment of the current sources in the article. Ramos1990 (talk) 00:13, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I am going to try adding sources to this article, though without access to the four books written about him, this may be difficult. I would like to point out that he certainly meets WP:NACADEMIC#1: Google Scholar shows that his 10 most-cited works (ie written by him) have 652, 484, 455, 356, 339, 243, 244, 165, 128 and 123 citations. His most cited book is The psychoanalytic mystic, followed by The psychotic core (as Honigfrau noted). Articles reviewing his work are to be found in academic journals, through Google Scholar, not through a general Google search. RebeccaGreen (talk) 07:29, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I have now added citations in the article to books about him and his work and reviews of his books (it seems there are actually 6 books about his work, not 4). I'm sure I could find more reviews, but I hope this is sufficient. @Mathglot:, please consider the references now in the article. RebeccaGreen (talk) 09:13, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The sources found by RebeccaGreen are more than enough to establish notability. The existence of multiple full books about his work from reputable academic publishers, in addition to the book reviews that have been added to the article and the subject's heavy citation count, make an extremely strong case for both WP:NAUTHOR and WP:NPROF. MCE89 (talk) 09:52, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.