THE EXISTENTIAL SIDE OF KOHUT’S TRAGIC MAN, PUBLISHED IN CLINICAL SOCIAL WORK JOURNAL, DATED MARCH 2002

This article explores the way in which Kohut's concept of Tragic Man functions as a response to criticisms of self psychology as proffering a partial, utopian, strife-denying theory of human development. After citing several representative critiques in this respect, I review the concept of Tragic Man as defined by Kohut, and then seek to deepen the clinical usefulness of this concept through a discussion of affects, empathy, and free association. A clinical vignette concludes the paper, through which some of these ideas find illustration.

EMPATHY’S ROMANTIC DIEALCTIC: SELF PSYCHOLOGY, INTERSUBJECTIVITY AND IMAGINATION, PUBLISHED IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY, FALL 2001

The author views Kohut's conceptualization of psychoanalytic empathy and its subsequent development by intersubjectivity theorists as an extension of a larger Romantic epistemological tradition in which the role of imagination in mental life is both central and precise. To illuminate this argument, the author reconsiders Kohut's distinction between the “presence of empathy” and “empathy as a mode of observation.” Next is described the way in which the ambivalence represented by this distinction is resolved through intersubjectivity theory. Finally, the author explores several key aspects of the Romantic imagination as a response to Cartesianism in order to evolve an understanding of empathy as a bilateral procedure mediating self-experience and experience of the other.

THE FIGURATION OF REALTIY: PSYCHOANALYSIS, “ANIMISM” AND THE PATHETIC FALLACY, PUBLISHED IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY, FALL 2003

The author explores the concept of the pathetic fallacy as it relates to animism and psychoanalysis. First J. Ruskin's (1856/1902) seminal concept is reviewed in light of Freud's general regard for animism, both of which are situated relatively and subordinately to the natural science paradigm. After this, the author looks at the pathetic fallacy through the lens of a contrasting, Romantic epistemology. A reconsideration of the concept of projection illuminates some differences between the 2 traditions and is used to clarify the author's argument that the concept of figuration may more accurately reflect the action of transformation in psychoanalysis. A clinical vignette illustrates the ideas presented.

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