How Does Analysis Cure?/ Self Psychology and the Humanities:
Eigen, Michael
A N N O U N C I N G Getting a foothold on therapy the Fall issue of the new quarterly...
...more reason to hate or to despair than he • The Gospel of Salvation Our The first is that few Jewish thinkers in does, and yet no one is gentler and more Response in the Holy Spirit to the our time have published as much or spo- full of hope...
...Just as Moses was told to to believe that it is possible to juxtapose take off his shoes because the ground he words and weapons, that one can counter stood on was holy ground when he faced force with spirit, that one can overcome the burning bush, so Wiesel wants us to evil with instruction, that one can defeat take off our pat phrases and our prosaic destruction by study...
...A N N O U N C I N G Getting a foothold on therapy the Fall issue of the new quarterly CRITIC NOW DOES ANALYSIS CURE...
...He human and specialized clinical terms...
...Both positions ("I am god self with its own intrinsic design and proMurphy and a few wry musings on the electronic age by Joel Wells...
...He has every right, every Gospel The Church and the Gospel • The Gospel and Culture The ken as often as he has, and yet no one reason, to want revenge, and yet there is Possibility of Common Witness feels the imperative of silence as much as not a syllable of vengeance in his writhe does...
...Through genuine interaction The new quarterly CRITIC begins its second year velopmental issues and are central for grandiosity transforms into healthy ambiwith a special issue featuring three stories of con- understanding the self...
...He tries his own hand at analyzing of paternal ideals which support a cohe- Kohut knows about narcissistic rage Freud's transference to Fliess...
...While others have evolving...
...Freud's ence of essential alikeness (twinComplete the following concern throughout 'his case portrayals ship or alter ego transference...
...He seems that he cannot...
...In Kohut's view, the self does not begin as a bundle HEINZ KOHUT has earned a place in the of drives but as a vital unit which requires E A T U R I N G history of psychoanalysis and conemphatic resonance in order to thrive...
...The problem of narcis- available for the reassuring experistate, zip sism was central for Freud too...
...Taking on one of the most ambitious A r f ty fir positions tasks in social theory, Berger, like Marx, seeks to provide a broad underAL,out F) r.,,,per it yy standing of how economic organization and technological development have brought into being the modern world...
...Idealization transforms into sound temporary Catholic women by best-selling author In the mirror transference the patient values...
...Perhaps it is Kohut's tie to ego structure of the,nuclear self...
...I am awed by the grand character of Berger's enterprise...
...Sinai glibly, that anyone who thinks he There is a certain naivete behind all his can describe it or explain it easily, proves writings and all his speaking...
...selfobject is crucial...
...and idealization are among the foremost in mission studies...
...ment...
...It becomes a stimulant to action so , throws its shadow over the first one...
...Instead, there is a sense of symliterary form - short story, novel, can- pathy for the world that now finds itself tata, drama, essay, and vignette - and in a Jewish situation, in a precarious situyet one of the motifs that appears over ation, and which must now turn to the and over again in his writings is the need Jews for instruction and guidance...
...v future course of mission theology needed in order to explore the transfor- One thing is certain...
...for someone to bounce off faded, and ferences, to mine the, virtue in what is He sees more deeply into the positive Freud dropped Fliess...
...the sorts of anxieties and inhibitions he but something deeper and by no means Kohut calls on psychoanalysts to apply witnessed...
...But Berger asks a further Lqusdrty...
...here he takes a large stride toward an empirically grounded theory of how we got where we are, and where we can go from here...
...But a shift for the Account that occasioned hurt feelings, rage, better in one or another of these spheres Number neurotic symptomatology, and psy- can make an enormous difference in the chopathic action...
...Commonweal: 474 .In Self Psychology and the ity onto Fliess...
...These needs are searches for a selfobject that will Please charge to my MasterCard or Visa now repeated with the analyst who must accept its idealization (idealizing account tolerate their unfolding, interpret them, transference...
...I miss Freud's selves and the psychoanalytic move- emphatic responsiveness, or the absence ironic fierceness...
...Altogether, this extraordinary book is a major contribution to the ongoing 0 debate over the market versus the state...
...James S. Coleman, University of Chicago "This splendid book explores a wide range of literature and data in order to isolate the essential features of capitalism and to distinguish them from the effects of modernization...
...My conin this theme to tragic figures in politics, and aggression...
...These three together olic press as only John Deedy can make them...
...And sari ~~ Pt'itl isi11V...
...sometimes - not often but sometimes - 4 Commonweal: 476...
...To temporary culture, although it is by no an important extent this remains so BETWEEN TIMES means clear what this place is...
...shaky sense of self by merging with a come to constitute the core of a nuclear plus the gleetully irreverent cartoons of Marty godlike other...
...Freud sive and directed sense of aliveness...
...Kohut classifies selfobject transfor emphatic responsiveness which went ferences in terms of these three divisions: awry...
...how they mortified the ego...
...I never liked such lan- phenomenologyy of the self with Jung's, guage because I don't want to be neu- Lacan's, Bion's, Winnicott's, and varitralized, and I doubt that Kohut wanted to ous existential psychologists before we "Occasionally there is an event of be neutralized either...
...I feel this again when I selfobject in sustaining the nuclear self The sense of fragmentation and empti- read these latest books, published postagainst great odds and relates variations ness are frequently covered over by sex humously and diligently edited...
...Freud was a keen ob- quality of one's life...
...Our and wisely points out that the success of uses Fliess as a prop to fuel his creative problem is how to make the best of the therapy hinges on dealing with the bework...
...churches, on college campuses and in recommend their report for lecture halls, saying repeatedly: Hush...
...exhibits an archaic grandiose self which self-esteem and inspiration...
...But he is right discussion...
...Kohut's work...
...Kohut finds that contempo- Since 1971, when I first read The of one's nuclear program time and again rary problems have more to do with Analysis of the Self, I have guiltily wonbrings one in conflict with the prevailing whether one has a self at all than with dered why I also sense a dullness in culture...
...Perhaps in the Freudian clusion is that the dullness I feel in war, social movements, literature, and family parental overstimulation induced Kohut's writings is not simply stylistic religion...
...He feels that what has hap- There is pain, unending pain within pened in our lifetime is too awesome to him, over the loss of the Jewish kingdom be described in words...
...Stepansky Western man's ego...
...Perhaps Kohut tries to be the insights of self psychology to them- is greater danger of failure of maternal too balanced, too good...
...use it for mundane purposes...
...He illuminates the role of the guilt over sexual and aggressive drives...
...The full Is Kohut right to view the ambition- human capacities which must be studied report of the Evangelical-Roman talents/ skills-ideals arc as the main if we are to survive, and survive well...
...But in contemporary life there easy to get at...
...We THE VOICE AND VISION OF ELIE WIESEL ic teacher crossing the country over and commend the participants in Holocaust Library, $85 (three volumes), over again, speaking in synagogues and ERCDOM for their initiative in this prophetic endeavor, and we 1190 pp...
...I suspect that could properly establish the limits and such significance in shaping the Kohut did not quite get to the language he virtues of Kohut's very real findings...
...Both play a role in maintaining Andrew M. Greeley, reflections on the stewardship of "God's country" by historian Martin E. Marty...
...prayerful study and critical Jack Riemer Listen...
...To be crudely schematic, the indi- (I) those in which the damaged The CRITIC coin vidual failed to find the "gleam in pole of ambitions attempts to elicit The Thomas More Association 223 West Erie Street mother's eye" which would make him the confirming-approving reChicago, Illinois 60610 feel valuable, or failed to find a father sponses of the selfobject (mirror Begin my one-year subscription (4 issues for capable of tolerating the idealization and transference...
...And that out of it there may come instruction he feels that anyone who writes about this and healing and blessing for humankind...
...10 East 53rd St., New York, NY 10022 Call toll free (800) 638-3030 12 September 1986: 475 sion...
...He wants us to leave it alone what he has seen, he can still hold on to i. B. El:RD•MANS if we can, rather than commercialize it or such convictions, and yet he does...
...because out of such silence there may -International Bulletin THERE are many paradoxes in the writ- emerge a deeper human response than of Missionary Research ings and in the life of Elie Wiesel...
...In essays on Kohut writes that Freud's psychology tory and a sense of responsibility to do courage, leadership, and group psychol- is one of man in conflict with his instinc- what he can...
...d charging to VIS4' Ma rte,Ca,d MasterCard or visa: was the wounded self...
...tion...
...Strozier sideration of what Kohut came to call the }~1T11 ~49FASG*hAT1Gh W.W.Norton, $27.95, 290 pp...
...flack in the psychoanalytic field - and ppicAh G ESS SELF PSYCHOLOGY AND THE also so much admiration...
...Milton Friedman, The Hoover Institution $17.95 Basic Books, Inc...
...1 RITIC RT7WEE%YIM ,...+c..it Why then has Kohut met with so much W % ,r ,,,pe E4£n University of Chicago, $25, 240 pp...
...This question cgwefH HUMANITIES THt "4 00 1t cannot be fully answered here, but conHeinz Kohut, edited by C.R...
...He spoke of the Kohut does not think an individual can "blow to the face" or "stab in the heart" or ought to be remade...
...writes of archaic grandiosity becoming But we would have to compare his "neutralized...
...you are god") dramatize early needs gram...
...And be silent...
...He has written in almost every ings...
...aspect of religious feeling than Freud...
...One marvels that way of thinking when we draw near to the after what he has been through, after Holocaust...
...Kohut a genuine caring for human hisstructure of the nuclear self...
...He saw his Heinz Kohut, edited by A. Goldberg and own psychology as a grand blow to P.E...
...and (3) those in and sustain a genuine growth process...
...faith encounters retold by theologian John Shea...
...Catholic Dialogue on Mission A (ERCDOM) (is] another land, mark, in our judgment, that will Seer of the darkest Sinai have lasting influence on our i understanding and action in AGAINST SILENCE And so it is strange to see this peripatetChristian mission...
...His idealization of the on psychoanalysis and history, cultural Humanities, Kohut applies his clinical other preserved his sense of creativity selfobjects, religion, and the plight and insights to contemporary Western cul- once removed, until he could claim his destiny of the human self...
...In the idealizing Ambitions and values are mediated by some biting observations on the state of the Cath- transference the patient bolsters his talents and skills...
...We have lived of his childhod that can never more be through a second Sinai, a darker Sinai, regained, but the pain does not lie dor-.: whose name was Auschwitz, a Sinai that mant...
...He noted that Freud used idealization to cope Self Psychology and the Humanities knows that there is something valuable in with ambivalence, Kohut points out that concludes with a series of interviews of grandiosity and idealization which must Freud projected his own sense of creativ- Kohut by the editor, Charles B. Strozier, undergo evolution, not merely suppresPETER L. BERGER The Capitalist Revolution Fifty Propositions About Prosperity, Equality, and Liberty ThePeter L. Berger Capitalist here is a brilliant, seminal analysis of how capitalism has revolutionized Revolution modern life by a world-renowned sociologist...
...Lberty question: What have been the specific consequences of the two dominant modes of economic organization-capitalism and socialism...
...In can come from any words...
...2) those in which $16.00) to the CRITIC with the Fall issue gradual disillusionment which would en- the damaged pole of ideals (] Payment enclosed [:]Please bill me able him to feel viable...
...demands admiration...
...for silence...
...No matter what and practice that it becomes a mations he experienced, although he es- framework we work with, grandiosity permanent part of the landscape tablished a real foothold...
...When the work was over, the need lessening of generational and sexual dif- trayal of grandiose and idealizing hopes...
...Kohut measures server of processes involved in slights to progress in therapy in terms of gains in signature tsp Date self-esteem and characteristically viewed humor, creativity, empathy, and wisinstinctual drives from the viewpoint of dom...
...and valuable in ordinary tion" that play a role in the dullness...
...We depend on a Trio of Stories to have discovered two new tranferences the emphatic responsiveness of others for - the mirror and idealizing transfer- our sustenance, well-being, and develby Andrew M. Greeley ences - which disclose important deopment...
...He claims throughout our lifetime...
...ogy, Kohut stresses how living in terms tual urges...
...One feels in ture, with special emphasis on the tragic own back...
...His formulapsychology and terms like "neutraliza- tions are wise...
...which the damaged intermediate Name Kohut has pulled out of Freud the lat- area of talents and skills seeks a Address ter's concern with narcissism and placed selfobject that will make itself city it center stage...
...The selfobject is a term Kohut coined to depict the use of Michael Eigeai another as food for the self...
...this review of his collected essays and A second paradox is that no one has Major topics: Revelation and Authority The Nature of Mission addresses, let me focus on just three...
Vol. 113 • September 1986 • No. 15
